ROME, September 9, 2010 /PRNewswire/ — Raise your hand if you have never looked at the slippers and little bottles of bath foam just before checking out and thought ‘anyway, they’ll never be used again’. Taking objects from hotel rooms is a fairly frequent custom that everyone stoops to at least once in their lives. But there are cases that make the news, not so much for the theft of a shampoo, but for stranger and more unusual objects; Venere.com has gathered the best stories from its hotels.
Furniture and lightbulbs
Yes, that’s right. There are hotels that have seen a shoe rack disappear, or the sliding door from the wardrobe, in one case a man dressed as a workman stole a grand piano from the hall, managing to carry out the theft totally undisturbed. It is said that one couple asked for a room near the car park, only to steal the entire furnishings and fittings from the room, loading them onto a removal van. But there are also those who simply take advantage of their holidays to steal the light bulbs from the room (0,60 EUR), without forgetting to take the bulb holder, the wires and the light fittings.
Hi-Tech
Amongst the most unusual thefts comes the list of electronic goods: stealing a telephone (even though it should be obvious that it won’t work outside the hotel) might be child’s play, but getting away with an air-conditioning unit that weighs almost 130kg seems rather more problematic. However, the truly creative thieves are those who don’t only steal the plasma TV, but in order to avoid connectivity problems, also take away the electrical cables for the DVD player. Finally, there was the person who stole a colour photocopier from a meeting hall, who we imagine had to re-enact James Bond to get round the security services.
Various
This is certainly the category in which we found the strangest objects: ironing boards, room numbers, curtains, two busts that first disappeared and then returned with a taxi – unaccompanied, flowers, a mediaeval sword, door hinges, a wooden bear more than one metre high and even a marble fireplace! But certainly the best of all is the gentleman who stole a stuffed boar head: once discovered he returned it to the hotel, but received it as a wedding gift from his friends.
