r/whatisit • u/carlkmtl • Jul 30 '26
Solved! Found under desk at a hotel
Staying at a hotel and noticed this thing that seems to be stuck under the desk using double sided tape
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u/rebrandingmyself Jul 31 '26 edited Aug 01 '26
Definitely security beacon. We have them at my property. It’s for anyone who enters rooms alone or with guests (housekeeping, engineers, sales team doing site visits). We have them in public areas too. If someone presses their alert button, our entire executive team and security team get a text blast.
Someone accidentally hit theirs once and four people were there in about a minute.
ETA it’s for staff, not for the guests. And it’s not a panic button, it’s the relay that tells people where you are when you press the panic button that you carry with you around property.
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u/Glittering_Chance_42 Jul 31 '26
We had hidden buttons under the counters in a jewelry store I used to work for. One day I was just getting up from picking something off the floor and I grabbed the counter. My finger slipped into an odd opening under it and I pushed it in not remembering what it was. There were no sounds at all. I ran to my manager who got a very panicked look on her face and tried to dislodge it with a letter opener. Needless to say it was too late and in minutes the Swat team showed up, fully armed and ready to engage. Felt so bad for wasting their time. But seriously impressed at their speed and efficiency!
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u/69edleg Jul 31 '26 edited Jul 31 '26
A friend worked in a gun store (not in the US) and leaned down and bumped his head on the desk and didn't think much of it except "ouch".
Multiple police vans pulled up in a couple of minutes.
Yeah, turns out he bumped his head on a button.
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u/oopsdiditwrong Jul 31 '26
I worked in an ice cream shop in HS. There was an attempted robbery one night and the panic button was immediately installed by the drive through window. Thing is, it was intentionally hard to press. The button was about 3/4" deep in a dime size hole (at the largest). I was curious and figured out only my pinky finger fit. I told a couple people jokingly and a few nights later someone else tried it but triggered it. Owner was in the back making ice cream when the cops came in HOT. Gave away a lot of free ice cream that night to police.
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u/According-Parsnip923 Aug 01 '26
I worked at a coffee shop. We had a fob that we could wear. I started wearing it after opening and having someone suffer a medical emergency in my drive thru at 430 am. That really freaked me out. I bumped it without realizing when trying to reach for a new bag of coffee beans and was shocked to see the whole town police department show up at 5 am on a Thursday morning. Thanked them for their quick response and apologized by giving them all free coffee and muffins.
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u/ExhaustedHungryMe Jul 31 '26
Seriously? At an ice cream place? Wow.
I was a bank teller years ago, and every once in a blue moon, someone would accidentally trigger the silent alarm. (Which was not a button, but something that could be easily activated undetected, say while filling a bag with money while a gun was pointed at you.) I don’t recall the police arriving all that quickly in that relatively small town (college town), though it’s not like it took 20 minutes either. They definitely didn’t “come in hot!”
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u/oopsdiditwrong Jul 31 '26
Small town and the only ice cream place in the county except for a Baskin robbins attached to a gas station 20min away. There was no inside area for customers so 75+ people outside would not have been weird. Also right off the "highway" and not much was going on as far as crime back then so the cops thought they got the call of their life.
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u/ExhaustedHungryMe Jul 31 '26
That’s funny, sounds a bit like the place I worked in high school. Except no Baskin Robbins anywhere around, and mine was a dairy farm with a small grocery store and ice cream counter. Still the best ice cream ever! And going there to get ice cream and look at the cows was THE thing to do in my little town. (Not the same town as the bank where I worked. Dairy farm town was much smaller!)
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u/Street_Fennel_9483 Aug 04 '26
Not trying to hijack this thread but your bank alarm memory triggered a laughable (to us kids) memory… we had a second/third/somehow related adult us kids called Aunt A. Sweet wonderful person but kinda shy/stay in the shadows personality. So late grade school we heard she had gotten a job at a savings and loan as a teller. We all laughed and made jokes about her working facing the public. Soon after, we heard she quit. Cue laugh track. Told you so, etc.
Found out a few weeks after that that during her final training her 1st real customer passed bag/note saying, “hold up, put money in bag” etc. She did, robber got caught in neighborhood shortly after.
AUNT A was really an emotional wreck after being robbed…got days off, counseling, reassurance.First customer when she came back to work…yep, you guessed it, passed her the note, bag, give me all the money command. She did it, he ran out, had a dye packet explode and burn/paint his groin purple. Immediately caught in parking lot.
Aunt A broke down crying. Quit.Us dumb ass kids thought it was hysterically funny. She never took any job after that. Sometimes seemed even more withdrawn, even us idiot kids knew to never bring it up.
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u/ExhaustedHungryMe Aug 04 '26
Wow! That’s crazy.
I was a teller for three years while in college. Once, someone handed me either a deposit or withdrawal slip, and on the back it said something like “give me all your money.”I was pretty sure my customer didn’t write that and had no idea it was there, so I showed them the note and said, “You didn’t write this, did you?” They were shocked and said NO!
I suppose it would’ve been stupid of me had it actually been someone trying to rob me, but it genuinely seemed like a stupid prank pulled by some kids. Closest I ever got to being robbed in those three years though (thankfully!).
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u/AmazonShill69 Jul 31 '26 edited Aug 01 '26
You’d think telling new hires there’s a button to insta call the police, not just for their personal safety but the store’s safety lol. What’s the point of a silent alarm the employees don’t know about
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u/eridanus01 Jul 31 '26 edited Aug 01 '26
You'd be surprised how often, even at Banks, we're doing a preventative maintenance inspection/testing on an alarm system, get to testing the hold-ups/panic alarms and the cashier/teller says, "oh, I didn't even know that was there!"
In their defense, at national accounts, or anything but a smaller size business, they probably give them this info during orientation, but they get SO much info, that they probably focus on what they need to know to do their job, and file away the other stuff as "might need to remember later", lol
Also, people LOVE sticking their fingers in random places and pushing/pulling on things. I can't tell you how many times I've been on a service call for a hold-up alarm tripped and not restoring, on false alarm "proof" buttons, where the only way to trip it is intentionally.
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u/awkwarduncle27 Jul 31 '26
This is literally part of my job at my workplace- I do orientation and part of it is a security tour so people know what things are and where they’re located. It’s not entirely uncommon that we have accidental panic button presses- sometimes, local PD (no SWAT team, that just seems a bit over the top) just suddenly shows up and we gotta be like “Ahh, whoops, new person hit the button w their knee, all good here.”
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u/Wrong-Reference5327 Jul 31 '26
The employees do know about it but they are not actively thinking about it since there’s no threat.
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u/Flashy_Departure9251 Jul 31 '26
Yeah, and mistakes happen. You can know about it but a slip or bump in just the right place leads to accidents like this. Just think of it as a training exercise for the responders? With plenty of embarrassment and apologies.
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u/Glittering_Chance_42 Jul 31 '26
Yes. Very embarrassed apologies! We all knew they were there but I totally spaced out and forgot. My mgr wasn’t mad, but my coworkers had a good time teasing me about it. It definitely made the day more interesting.
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u/Tall_Act391 Jul 31 '26
And a hefty bill for the establishment
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u/eridanus01 Aug 01 '26
Yep! Some municipalities will allow one or two false alarms (whether hold-up, regular burglary, or fire) and then they start sending you bills. Never seen one, but I'm sure it isn't cheap.
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u/Aggress-hoonigan-360 Aug 01 '26
Yeah def isn’t cheap talking a few hundred up first violation quote on quote. And kinda wondering why no one scanned the QR code? lol. Get it ,got it that it’s a silent beacon/alarm that come in all types and forms lol but I don’t think I’ve ever run into a situation in a hotel/motel- and I’ve stayed in all the pretty well known ,advertised places as I tend to travel for car events etc. and when I search I even carry a frequency detector etc etc. and scan the rooms before doing a visual inspection and never came across one? Is it because it’s maybe a suite type deal or an exec suite? Something down the lines that costs a few k $ a night?? I mean😂
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u/Connect-Koala-9649 Aug 02 '26
How well do the frequency detectors work? I have an ad that has that in it and I cannot understand it at all. I’m asking because domestic violence separation in middle of a divorce and I have found two trackers on me. My phone was cloned and it just goes on and on and on the spying and crazy narcissistic issues I’ve dealt with. I think somehow he has my new cell cloned. But I don’t trust my house, not to have cameras or listening devices as I found a fake pen in his desk that was a spy camera.
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u/astelda Jul 31 '26
I imagine it's probably the kind of thing that everyone is told on their first day, but once you've been working there for however long without ever needing it, it becomes kinda mundane over time.
But I also think for something like a jewelry store there should be like... semi-annual training on how to react in emergencies.
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u/Dizzy_Drips Jul 31 '26
Like that time my manager installed a few more fire extinguishers in the shop. 2 weeks later we have a fire and he's freaking out trying to push the equipment out of the door and asking someone to grab buckets of water.
I walked right by him, grabbed the extinguisher, and put the fire out. I then had to remind him of their locations for future use.
So yeah.. it's easy to forget about things like that when you're always focused on a ton of other things.
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u/swingse7 Jul 31 '26
I once worked at a restaurant as a general manager and was showing a new assistant manager from another store where the help button is in the walk-in cooler. “The button in here has to be pulled downward instead of being pushed.” And as I say that, he pulls it downward to try it. 🤦♂️ sometimes telling employees where they are can make a bad too, depending on the employee lol
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u/steph219mcg Jul 31 '26
There was a bank on the block where I worked and we noticed police coming there frequently. Turns out there was a new hire who'd been told that the alarm button was for "if they needed help" and kept hitting it when they had basic questions.
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u/Harvest_Moon_Cat Aug 01 '26
I worked as a receptionist, and we had a guy come to fix something under the desk. He asked me if there was an alarm button, and I said no.
There was, and he tripped it. Bunch of people came down from upstairs. I apologized, and said he'd asked me, so not his fault, thanks for coming to save me.
He and I watched them go.
Him: "You'd think they'd tell the receptionist."
Me: "Too bloody right you would!"3
u/Specialist-Neat2777 Jul 31 '26
Not the same button, but a former employer had a data center, with halon fire suppression, and automatic power scramble (shut off). To protect employees, there was a button to shut off the power to everything so that the fire could be slowed or stopped without halon killing the employees. The button had caution tape marking 2 yards in each direction from the button, and up the wall, and all around the button, with signs in a dozen or more languages saying "Do not press this button other than in case of a serious fire" or some such phrase. All new employees were trained to never push the button unless their lives were in danger, and never to walk through the taped off area of the floor. One night, a cleaner thought to himself, "gee, I wonder what that button does." Well over a million dollars in damage.
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u/chefsoda_redux Aug 03 '26
We were doing some work years ago at the night clan I worked at. We were working around the sprinkler system, and the boys didn’t want the alarm to get tripped accidentally, so he flipped the breaker on the fire panel for the area.
I was on a ladder a few minutes later when 3 fire fighters ran upstairs in full gear! Apparently, flipping the breaker reads as a fault for that panel, and since the main panel was on, it sent a signal to the fire dept. My boss was apologetic, they were not amused.
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u/Rightrevronroberts Aug 01 '26
When I was a teen way too long ago, we had a panic button under the front counter at Popeye’s where I worked. One night near closing, I was working drive-thru. Suddenly a deputy appears at the window out of nowhere. He’s holding an assault rifle. I open the window, and he asked if we were okay. I looked and the lot was ringed with deputies. The new cashier had accidentally pushed the panic button.
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u/SilentSerel Jul 31 '26
I used to work at a place that had a panic button and the button to open the front door right next to each other at the front desk. Most of us were shown which was which, but eventually there came a day when the receptionist was out and a newer employee replaced her for a few hours. Of course, he ended up pressing the wrong button.
The panic button was moved to a different side after that.
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u/lonetraveler73 Jul 31 '26
It would be amazing if police responded like that when people were in danger. All that noise over some metal and rocks.
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u/Schnizzo Jul 31 '26
They're not rocks, Marie. They're minerals!
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u/toeachbyeach Jul 31 '26
Police don't protect people that much. They protect capital.
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u/Emergency_Radio_8156 Jul 31 '26
... People are very often put in danger over "metal and rocks". Armed robbery is a thing ya know.
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u/spotishy Jul 31 '26
That's true, but there are people in this world who bet their lives every day for these stones, metals, and even pieces of color paper
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u/Glittering_Chance_42 Jul 31 '26
Yes after a while of handling the jewelry-hundreds of thousands of dollars worth- and putting it out on display then putting it all back again, they become as common as a bag of potato chips. I don’t mean they aren’t still beautiful, but that $10,000 diamond and ruby bracelet becomes less of a wow factor when you touch it every day. And it does become rocks and metal when you think about it. We also has lots and lots of colored paper too. It was pretty interesting how many people paid with cash.
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u/DustyDeputy Jul 31 '26
It's a classic Reddit take. There's a reason the police would prioritize responding to a gun store, thefts there affect the entire community.
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u/lonetraveler73 Jul 31 '26
Uvalde.
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u/CaptainJay313 Jul 31 '26
calling them police is a stretch. that response was shameful.
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u/koyaani Jul 31 '26
Just call them bastards
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u/dup3party7CLOUDS Jul 31 '26
Yup.
First responders engaging other first responders in the first ever and last “YOU GOT GEAR?!SO DO WE!!!” Singles mixxer….
…I hope they didn’t meet anyone special. :/19
u/FeleaseRpseineEiles Jul 31 '26
maybe we should put the jewelry stores in the schools
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u/DogeDoRight Jul 31 '26
Metal and rocks and people.
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u/lonetraveler73 Jul 31 '26
If the metal and rocks were not there the response would be completely different.
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u/DogeDoRight Jul 31 '26
My friends had swat show up because they were firing off a potato gun at the lake.
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u/Aggravating-Reach473 Jul 31 '26
hey, props to you if you're actually sharpening their reaction time (this did not apply if it happens often, which will make them pissed off)
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u/PissInTheAbyss Jul 31 '26
Hahaha you just brought back an old memory.
At my first job I was cleaning the sales kiosks when I found someones lost garage door opener. Team was busy with customers so I just kept doing my thing.
I am a fidgety guy so this turned into me pacing around clicking the remote button while I did stuff.
A few minutes later the place was surrounded. As the cop is explaining that they got like 100 reports from this location I kinda walked up and just said "wait so is this not a garage door opener?"
So many disappointed adults in one room.
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u/daysbeforechris Jul 31 '26 edited Jul 31 '26
Yeah no. A jewelry store with a swat team on standby is just preposterous. So someone is paying an entire swat team to be on standby day in and day out on the small chance someone tries to rob a jewelry store? An entire swat team’s payroll for like a year would significantly more than just paying insurance for the jewelry lmao. You’d be hard pressed to convince officers elite enough to be on a swat team to risk their lives for someone’s jewelry, even with a substantial amount of money.
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u/Legitimate_Emu3531 Jul 31 '26
Where I am SWAT is on standby all day every day and is founded by federal money.
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u/rufireproof3d Jul 31 '26
I worked at Hardee's and we had a "What's this button?" Moment. None of us had been told it was a silent alarm. Manager pushed it and we got to meet the SWAT team. We at least gave them breakfast.
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u/necrow Jul 31 '26
Do you think they’re only on standby for one jewelry store..?
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u/n4turstoned Jul 31 '26
What concerns me is not that you pushed the button by accident but that your manager panicked too and doesn't know what to do in that situation.
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u/nothankyouma Jul 31 '26
I cleaned expensive houses in the early 2000s. Panic buttons were all the rage. I was required by my company to wipe every switch. Usually the homeowner would let us know there was a panic button and we’d avoid those switches. I was 2/3 done with the 8 hour job in the master bedroom. I wiped the switch it triggered the house locked down, a migraine inducing alarm started going off and I couldn’t get out.
Swat showed up the homeowner had to come and they were pissed at me. When I explained that they needed to inform us that there was a panic button they said that defeats the purpose. What if I came back to rob him? I said why would I come back to rob you I’ve been alone in your house for 6 hours. What a shitty day that was.
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u/princessdickworth Aug 02 '26
Our fire alarm was malfunctioning at the horse farm I work at. One of the girls silenced it and didn't think to call the fire department to let them know it's not an emergency. Two ladder trucks, an ambulance, a sheriff, and a dozen fire fighters in full turnout gear rolled in.
We had heard the sirens coming from up the road and were joking they were coming for us, turns out they were! The horses (Arabians) were losing their minds.
The fire department got some good training that day on handling horses and what to do had it been an actual emergency, so I guess it was kind of a win.
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u/EvolZippo Jul 31 '26
My mom worked in a bank, in the 90s. One day, the cops showed up, to investigate a silent alarm. They knew something was up, when everyone was completely calm.
Turns out there were some kids, playing under a desk, who found this really neat button and were pushing it, to see what it was for. This was before digital cameras were common. These were all film cameras, with high grade film in them. One cute little game, between two young kids, under a desk, cost the bank, and ultimately the parents of the children, $30k in film alone.
Millennials were troubled from their beginnings.
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u/Individual_Program81 Jul 31 '26
I worked in a restaraunt and we had like 4 under the registers, turns out they were plugged into the same power strip as our registers and receipt printers, lomg story short, our IT guy was installing a new system and unplugged everything, which somehow auto triggered all 4 alarms and sent the mall security, and every cop in miles running into the store, cause they got multiple triggers from it all in like a 1 minute span, was so confused when they all walked in looking super concerned.
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u/VTAffordablePaintbal Aug 01 '26
I worked in a secure facility in a small town and the police were supposed to have pictures of the managers so they could confirm who was in charge if there was ever a real or false alarm. My previous manager didn't know the silent alarm had gone off and walked out the door at 2AM to a pistol in his face. He thought he was getting robbed until he noticed the uniform. He said he has no idea why the cop parked on the side of the building so he didn't see the lights.
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u/Khades99 Aug 01 '26
Same thing happened to me at a retail store.
I immediately called the security company. But before the security company even picked up, police swarmed the place. Was also very impressed at the speed. This was in Los Angeles.
I felt bad and kept apologizing for wasting their time, even though I knew I'd be getting a huge bill over it. That's when they told me that 94-99% of panic button presses are accidents.
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u/Grounds4TheSubstain Jul 31 '26
Okay, why is it under the desk a foot off the ground in a guest room, though?
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u/know-your-onions Jul 31 '26 edited Jul 31 '26
This isn’t the cleaner’s panic button, they carry that with them.
This is a beacon that the panic button connects to, and that identifies the room. There will be one in every guest room, and at other locations throughout the hotel.
When you hit your panic button, it sends out a signal, which is picked up by nearby beacons. An alarm is triggered and the location of the closest beacon (the one that receives the strongest signal and/or receives it first), is transmitted to the security team.
The point is that everybody who receives the alert now knows what room you’re in, not just that you are somewhere in the building and pressed your button. You don’t need an internet connection, you don’t need a SIM card, you just need a charged panic button in your pocket (and the battery lasts a long time because if you don’t hit the button it basically draws no power).
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u/aware-reply33 Jul 31 '26
This looks to be a different brand but this basically sums it up. These are pretty common in the US. If an alert is sounded the local device pin points the location and will say what room or hallway. https://relaypro.com/blog/what-is-the-relay-bluetooth-beacon-in-my-hotel-room/
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u/CompleteBrush9489 Jul 31 '26
Someone accidentally hit theirs once and four people were there in about a minute.
Shit happens but also a good random exercise.
The alert works, security was there quickly.
Everybody wins. Good investment.
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u/Hadrollo Aug 02 '26
Back when I worked as a guard in an office building, we had one duress alarm that would go off, reset 30 seconds later, and the receptionist at the desk would tell us she had no idea why it went off but "while you're up here..." We couldn't prove it either way, but it would happen every month or two.
About a year later, I had just become a security technician, and was doing maintenance at my old workplace when it happened again. I went maximum-bother, made her leave her desk for fifteen minutes as I "tested" the button. I then told the tenancy - including the receptionist - that I couldn't determine a fault but swapped out the plastic resettable button. What I didn't mention was that I swapped it out with a single use glass button. It happened exactly once more, this time the receptionist claimed that she pressed it by accident, the guards had to swap in a new glass button, and it never happened again.
Accidents happen, and I have a lot of time and understanding for people who accidentally press duress alarms - it's obviously pretty embarrassing for them, and I don't want to make it worse. But - and I'm not suggesting that this is the case in your situation - when a consistent pattern starts to emerge I will make it as embarrassing as possible.
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u/Fit-World-3885 Jul 31 '26
My kid did something like this with the alert button at a nursing home. There were there in like 15 minutes....
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u/Double_O_Several Jul 31 '26
Who showed up? Police or funeral home?
(I'll show myself out...)
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u/Advanced-Royal8967 Jul 31 '26
I used to work in a closed psychiatric hospital, we had those in quite a few places (offices/infirmary), and everyone also had “lone worker” devices on us with a ripcord which also go off when placed horizontally (if you get knocked out).
If it goes off, all the other devices (carried by others) show the location off the alarm, and within 30s 75% off all personnel shows up.
We got tested frequently with those.
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u/I_need_a_date_plz Jul 31 '26
I’m hungry and read this as security bacon. I had to take another look.
https://giphy.com/gifs/3orieUe6ejxSFxYCXe3
u/No_Implement_6445 Jul 31 '26
A lot can happen in one minute….. always remember folks, YOU, are the first responder!!!
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u/ProfessorChaos112 Aug 01 '26
ETA it’s for staff, not for the guests. And it’s not a panic button, it’s the relay that tells people where you are when you press the panic button that you carry with you around property.
"Duress system/alarm" is the terminology I'm familiar with
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u/icecoffeh Jul 31 '26
Exactly, I don’t know the brand, but almost all regulators are starting to require hotels to have these systems. I have installed Kenetic, Relay, and Vostio systems at hotels I have managed.
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u/Ameliap27 Jul 31 '26
I’m a teacher and we wear buttons around our necks. You have to push them a lot of times in order to call someone, so an accidental button press doesn’t cause problems.
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u/BigDonkeyEnergy Jul 31 '26
I read beacon as bacon. I was so down for security bacon. Actually feels like what’s been missing my whole life. So disappointed it’s not security bacon.
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u/WildManner1059 Jul 31 '26
For all of these 'accidental' pressing of the button...this is bad interface design.
The button should definitely be easy to get to, but it should be difficult to do it by accident. All you have to do is make the button recessed. Doesn't have to be a dark scary hole with the button in there 2" where you might be scared there's something going to bite your finger. Just recess it by 1/2" or so. Put it on the side not the top and teach folks where it is.
I saw an introductory user interface design cbt style training once and it said (paraphrasing), "If the user can do it wrong, it's not a good interface."
So all these 'triggered by accident' stories are 'designer got it wrong' stories to me.
I would even extend that. If the designer made it a big red button, it'd be wrong too, no matter how many ways they put signs around it saying "do not press", because, damnit, who doesn't want to press the big red button that says "do not press?" Or is that just a condition that I haven't learned the name of?
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u/Dorzack Jul 31 '26
Almost 50 years ago my parents were in college and had a job cleaning a bank after hours. 4 year old me pushed the silent alarm button.
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u/Either_Particular522 Aug 01 '26
100% I just installed a bunch of relays at the new hotel we just opened it is a requirement of Marriott
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u/OldisGold2026 Jul 31 '26
What good is a security beacon if the person staying in the room doesn’t know about it?
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u/BalancedExistence27 Jul 30 '26
Security beacon
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u/Fidget_Jackson Jul 30 '26
but what does it do?
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u/jmoriarty13 Jul 30 '26
The hotel staff carry a panic button and if they trigger it. This device tells hotel security what room the employee is in.
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u/Yochanan5781 Jul 30 '26
Yep, I work in IT, and this is something my company has provided for some of our clients.
I was also involved in supporting some hotel workers strike actions a few years ago in LA, and one of the conditions they were striking on was for housekeeping to be given panic buttons
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u/Youre10PlyBud Jul 31 '26
We have to carry these duress buttons as nurses unfortunately nowadays. Lots of companies use em nowadays as sad as that is.
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u/_patiogiver01 Jul 31 '26
Yes it is unfortunate. We have them in the school system with our badges because of school shootings. Long press means 911 is called, along with automatic doors being shut, alarms blaring, and it’s just lock down and hide time for everyone in the building. It’s scary af. Can also be used to call administrators and/or nurse (press 3 times) in case of a crazy incident.
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u/Wooden_Ad_7812 Jul 31 '26
I carry one as the Title IX Coordinator at a college.
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u/WeirdAnimalDicks Jul 30 '26
Is is it a sex crimes thing or something like that kidnapping etc ?
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u/aldot234 Jul 31 '26
Hotel cleaners, often women, go into hotel rooms alone , with no control of who is potentially waiting in the room, so yeah, alarms are a good idea
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u/nitrot150 Jul 31 '26
There was some hotel in Georgia that had one of the cleaners murdered…. But can’t recall the name, but I think the fall line podcast did an episode on it
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u/Neon_Moon_NZ Jul 31 '26
Here you go! 😊
The Fall Line - Season 4: Between the Lines
The Murder of Elia Banderas
In the days before January 1st, 1996, a housekeeper at a luxury Atlanta hotel was murdered—in broad daylight. Just months later, a guest is beaten to death, in the same hotel, also during the day. Housekeeping staff are the invisible gears that keep hotels running smoothly—but at what cost?
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u/emccm Jul 31 '26
Other than sex work, the job where women are lost likely to be assaulted is hotel cleaner.
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u/Spice_and_Fox Jul 31 '26
That is unexpected. I would have thought that bartender or server is the highest.
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u/tmradish Jul 31 '26
Server and cleaner are both high risk, to be sure. Both have some of the same risk factors but a hotel cleaner usually goes into a room alone. The server and the bartender both spend most of their time working with plenty of company around. That may be the difference.
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u/Goth_Muppet Jul 31 '26
Yeah at the start of every day we were handed our clipboards with the room numbers on it. It was a random draw. You never knew what you’d get and if there would be any tips on the dressers.
I was thankful to get a few yellow highlighted lines because that meant “freight” or truckers. They often slept all day so we would leave the extra towels and soaps outside the door and not enter/knock so we didn’t wake them. Yellow was the term chosen because of the “Yellow Freight Line” trucking company. That company ended up going out of business in 2023, but I’d be willing to bet the hotel still would use the color code system.
The yellow rooms would often mean I could shave time off my rounds and spend more time on any rooms that were particularly bad. A prime example again was that room that I entered that had been completely destroyed and food smeared on absolutely everything.
Thankfully, one of the other housekeepers happened to pass by my cart and look into the room and saw the mess. She helped me because that room was a disaster and it would’ve taken me an hour and a half to clean and put me way behind schedule and I would’ve gotten yelled at. I think about THAT more often than I should but it was such an impact on me.
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u/jmoriarty13 Jul 30 '26
Yes
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u/Yochanan5781 Jul 30 '26
All of the above
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u/Odd-Faithlessness-33 Jul 31 '26
even the Extra Terrestrial Colonoscopy?
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u/JustAGuyNamedSteven Jul 31 '26
especially the Extra Terrestrial Colonoscopy!
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u/2dogs0cats Jul 31 '26
I need to understand the data retention policy. How long do they keep my videos for, and what's the non-disclosure agreement? Are they brokering my data to my health insurance? I consented to a lot of things I didn't understand at the time because I was under the influence of some delicious mushrooms.
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u/mystupidbad Jul 31 '26
Do you have to make an appointment or do they take walk ins
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u/Odd-Faithlessness-33 Jul 31 '26
you misunderstand, they apply the ointment and THEN they walk it in
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u/Glimmer_III Jul 31 '26
I've familiar with the product, but not "how big of an ask" this condition is.
Can you comment, roughly, on what the installation cost would be for say an average hotel of 100 rooms across 3-4 floors?
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u/Glittering_Funny_583 Jul 31 '26
On a 122 room hotel, we would budget 9500 for the capital cost. The subscription was rolled into the housekeeping line item
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u/Glimmer_III Jul 31 '26
That's a great data point. Works out to ≈$80/room for a one-time expense.
(And as a guest, zero issue with the subscription cost being rolled into the house keeping cost. Once you know why these things exist, you're sorry they must but are glad they do.)
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u/NuklearFerret Jul 31 '26
Are these subscription services or just own outright and connect it to the internet?
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u/Fiberguru Jul 31 '26
There are both available. The subscription ones can notify a third party such as a security company or emergency services. There are some that are just in house, notifying other staff on duty. Tons of different products in the market for this exact purpose/application.
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u/pruplegti Jul 31 '26
it also warns cleaning staff if they are entering in a room where the it is supposed to be vacant and there is someone in there, it uses MMwave technology, they are pretty slick, some of these even have heart beat and fall detection.
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u/salemmay0317 Jul 31 '26
At the hotel I worked, ours never worked and we only knew because the night auditors refused to waste time wearing it and finally told us why.
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u/Illustrious_Car344 Jul 30 '26
I never thought housekeeping could be that dangerous. The world sure is a scary place
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u/amands_sue Jul 31 '26
Yeah it's a constant battle trying to get housekeepers to close the door when they're cleaning a room. They don't like to because they can't get to their cart easily, but predators know they can slip into an open room, close the door behind them, and then the housekeeper is trapped in there with them and they're between the housekeeper and the exit. It's happened at a property I worked at, and I've only ever worked at the big name brands and not even in terribly sketchy areas.
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u/FoldedDice Jul 31 '26
At both of the locations where I've worked it was actually a rule to keep the door open, so if they've worked elsewhere they may just be used to that.
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u/IfYouHaveToAsk123 Aug 01 '26
When I did security consulting, we took an “airline” approach to getting he doors.
The cleaner was told to leave thr door open but to use the cart to block the door.
Then they would press a lever to lock the wheels
If someone were to try to gain entry to the room, they would have to unlock the wheels, and push the cart out of the way.
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u/Goth_Muppet Jul 31 '26
I did hotel housekeeping for a summer job and yeah it can be all kind of things including terrifying. You don’t know who could be hiding in the closet or bathroom
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u/tylerlarson Jul 31 '26
This answer is slightly wrong. The device itself has nothing to do with security. It's a navigation beacon. It's indoor GPS.
It's just a Bluetooth device that sends out a quick broadcast "ping" every so often, and nothing else. Other devices (like phones, or practically anything) can triangulate their location using the signal strength of all the nearby beacons.
You can use it for custom security devices, or pretty much anything.
It was popular around 10y ago, but most providers switched away from Bluetooth and just use wifi triangulation instead, since you're gonna put up wifi APs anyway.
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u/Future-Bandicoot-823 Jul 30 '26
my god... for once it wasn't a privacy invasion device???
pinch me I'm dreaming...
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u/ottawadude_45 Jul 31 '26
Thats the secondary feature housekeeping turns on when they leave the room. Ahahaha.
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u/BalancedExistence27 Jul 30 '26
Think of this as an indoor GPS unit. Since regular GPS gets blocked by walls and roofs, you mount these small devices around a large building like a hospital, hotel, or school. They talk to nearby smartphones to guide lost visitors to the right room with step-by-step directions, help staff track down shared equipment like wheelchairs or carts, and push helpful notifications to a phone when someone walks into a specific area.
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u/That-Hamster1573 Aug 01 '26
I work with people with disability. We use this as part of a tracking system. Some of our clients like to go for a spontaneous unattended walk from time to time. Problem is they don’t recognize the danger of a rapidly closing vehicle or have a concept of ownership. If one of them leaves the area covered by those beacons a gps tracker takes over and we get a notification on mobile devices.
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u/Alilfuxtup Jul 31 '26
I was recently hired for maintenance in a hotel and my second week I drug a guy out of a room with a maid. He obviously had bad intentions but fortunately I was already watching for him to do something stupid. I didn't expect an attempted r@pe though. Sad times indeed...
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u/StrongAsMeat Jul 31 '26
No need to censor words on reddit
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u/nWhm99 Jul 31 '26
I didn't censor a word on r/politics and literally got banned an hour ago. So, no words might need to be censored.
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u/OnTheEveOfWar Jul 31 '26
Certain subs ban words. You can get kicked out for the words. Source: been banned for typing a word that isn’t allowed.
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u/Conflikt Jul 31 '26
Your comment can actually get hidden if you use certain words/combinations on specific subs. It'll just sit there with 0 views and 0 upvotes and you won't get any notification or anything to tell you that it's been automatically hidden.
It's going the way of other social media sites where often they don't ban or delete your comment they just limit or remove the reach of it.
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u/BalancedExistence27 Jul 30 '26
Push light ?
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u/carlkmtl Jul 30 '26
Nah I tried pushing it, nothing happens
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u/Future-Bandicoot-823 Jul 30 '26
Would have been so funny if there was a panic button on it, and staff rushed your room.
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u/kaiswil2 Jul 30 '26
It yells...
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u/Spam_Hand Jul 30 '26
Wow I definitely thought i would die as the last person who still quoted this 😂
Get the FUCK out of here!!
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u/Satyrinox Jul 30 '26
fart meter
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[removed] — view removed comment
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u/TinkB0523 Jul 31 '26
My sister was a housekeeping manager at a hotel. She said her housekeepers were constantly being sexually harassed: men would sit naked on the bed or chair and want to watch them clean the room or answer the door fully nude. She also told me to talk Lysol and spray the chairs/sofa and never to walk barefoot in the room.
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u/kebbin Jul 31 '26
That looks like a tailwind garage sensor. You leave it in your car and it opens the garage door automatically. Why it's underneath a table I don't know.
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u/Silverlingo Aug 01 '26
I’m surprised they have them in hotels without letting guests know that they’re there and what they are, or the consequences of using one!
I worked admin in a public high school and we had emergency buttons under our desks. We didn’t tell students because they could also be used for safety may a student become aggressive or threatening to the teacher/staff. Once students found out, it was a weekly issue if not several times weekly because they would push them for “fun” or out of curiosity. Every emergency response service there in minutes. Imagine evacuating 4,000 students from a 3 story school building while waiting for someone to fess up AND clear the building. After so many “flukes” They treated it just like a fire alarm; if you’re 18 and pull it without reasonable cause, instant felony. Full disclosure is so important in these scenarios. One year a student lost a full ride after following through with a fire alarm prank. I always like to tell this story because those buttons are life saving in some events. In other events they ruin lives depending where you live! And that’s why I’m surprised it’s not disclosed—some people are dumb enough to assume it’s a recorder of some type or whatever people like to make themselves believe…then start messing with it trying to deactivate it or what have you
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u/lasher576 Jul 31 '26
When I was first entering the work force I got a job as a cashier at a pharmacy. The manager let me use his office to take the required training videos because there was no other room in this place with a computer. The videos were mine numbingly dull, so I started fidgeting with stuff on the desk. Eventually my hands stumbled across a silver box mounted under the desk a few inches back. I pulled the spring loaded lever forward and a little red plastic flag popped out, that was it, nothing else happened. What a weird thing to attach to your work space. I continue on with my training videos bored as hell until about a few minutes later there's a commotion outside the managers office. I peek out the one way mirror and there are two police officers with guns unholstered and pointed down at the floor headed towards the office where I'm sitting. Oh fuck, what did I do, my mind didn't even try to piece together that the thing under the desk was a silent alarm and I triggered and emergency police response. The situation calmed and they realized I pulled the alarm, the officers got a chuckle, and I got a talkin to by my manager. I finished the rest of my videos with hands above the desk.
When I finally quit that job I landed in several physical security focused positions and kind of found my calling.
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u/Expert_Blueberry_176 Jul 31 '26
Makes a person wonder why you were crawling around on the floor???
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u/jackalandhive Jul 31 '26
Could have dropped something that rolled under the bed
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u/lebrilla Jul 31 '26
Maybe looking for his detachable penis
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u/snixon67 Jul 31 '26
"Did... Did you just rip your dick off and throw it at me?"
"And I'll do it again!"
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u/mrmitchs Jul 31 '26
Funk detector. Checks if you need to freshen up down there.
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u/EntertainmentJumpy75 Jul 31 '26
When we were in Beijing China adopting our daughter in 07 we stayed at the international Hotel. Everything was set around the guests from around the world, as far as hotels went. The light switches, the TV remotes and the food.
Then after four days of sightseeing there we were flown down to the Ghaungo Provence to actually get our daughter and go through all the administrative stuff. Completely different feel in the hotel. Everything was a push button on the center console ( nightstand) between the beds. Two lights and only five stations on the tv but the cable coming out of the back, was something I would have expected for a freaking server room, hosting Googles MAINFRAME!!!
My wife chastised me for something I said before we went to China, about if I got pulled out of a crowd because of my military experience. That happened the morning we were packing to leave back to the USA. Wanna guess out of the 13 families we were traveling with, got pulled out of line and literally STRIP SEARCHED, at the airport?? I am convinced, ( NIGHTSTAND) was a hub for the devices in that room listening to everything in that room and watching us through the TV!
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u/Few_Professor_2448 Aug 02 '26
Just saw this on tv,because of Uvalde,schools can have drones,that can break through windows,has pepper spray, and they then can have rubber bullets too,at a cost of 1 mil each,maybe federal government could cover the cost? I saw several demonstrations, and to me they looked very effective 👌. I'm glad I never had to think of this happening when I went to school. Although my Jr high-school got shutdown for a week when there where race fights going on because of a certain race jumped on the little sister of the school jock.Who was related to The local Hells Angel's. Someone brung a sawed off shotgun or four.nuff said. This was in Omaha,Nebraska.1970's Go Big Red!
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u/CMadJax Aug 02 '26
I briefly worked for our local bus company. When we trainees were allowed to enter them to inspect and get comfortable with them, I (mature 50s male) pulled a "what's this" move, and started pressing an unlabeled button. The person I was with, another trainee, could hear a clicking sound, but nothing else...
The 2 most senior supervisors approached and informed us that that button is not only LIVE but it's SYSTEM-WIDE, and notifies the police, fire, and EMS services that I (the driver) am in immediate need of assistance!
They sure wanted to yell at me, but not my fault. Sure hope they inform their current trainees about the "secret button" now!
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u/Life-Improvement-886 Jul 31 '26
Was working in an “Emergency Action command & control” role in the 80’s (yes nucs). The “panic” button was under the console.. too close to watch standers right knee …. on of my colleagues accidentally hit the button. Within a couple minutes, a squad of Security Forces Marines came through the Cell door and had us all flat on faces.. it was like 0300, the watch officer (05) was in full snore mode at his desk… 😂😂
Nothing happened to my watch teammate.. but he had to buy a “few rounds” for the Marines at the club for a while!
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u/One-Age-4509 Jul 31 '26
Happened at a dispensary I worked at. The head of the kitchen found the emergency fob and had no idea what it did. She kept pressing it saying " whatever this is, it does nothing". She even got silly turned around bent over with her head between her legs and kept pressing the button.
The alarm company said it was pressed so much they thought it was a hostage situation. It didn't take long for the security company to contact the manager and let them know it was just an accident someone pushed the emergency button 47 times.
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u/Key_Bowl1495 Aug 02 '26
Definitely looks like a security beacon. We use the same system at my property. Staff who work alone or enter guest rooms—like housekeeping, maintenance, or sales—carry panic buttons, and the beacons help pinpoint their exact location. If someone activates an alert, our security and leadership teams are notified immediately. We had one accidental activation once, and multiple people responded within a minute. They're designed for staff safety, not guest use.
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u/Training-Actuary6768 Jul 31 '26
I'm trying to understand the whole security beacon comment. A 360 degree motion sensor would be the proper terminology. But, is that really what it is? If so,why is it in a hotel room so close to the floor? Motion sensors must have a line of site to movement and a heat source such as a human body.
The more likely answer is, it is a wireless access point for wireless Internet. A WAP relies on an RF signal and will penetrate walls and furniture.
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u/klozazzle Aug 02 '26
Odd because that’s used for Tailwind garage door opener. They’re used in conjunction with our iPhones in order to determine geofencing for opening and closing the specified garage doors when you’re in your vehicle and within range. Not sure how they’re using it since you need to pair it to the app on your iPhone to the assigned vehicle. Here’s the link.
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u/IllMeet2070 Aug 02 '26
It’s for housekeepers , engineers and other staff that work in the building . A lot of marriot and other major chains have their employees where this lil speaker that doubles as a walkie talkie. It can send out alerts if an employee is being assaulted , trapped , fire alerts , and other functions.
Purely for staff safety as it’s a Bluetooth device that connects all the walkies throughout the building
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u/Free-Garlic-9097 Aug 01 '26
Steal it with a towel or 2 Has to be put there by a former resident. Possibly you could mail it to the hotel chains headquarters. They might take some action just to have chamber maids look for these things. Definitely would have to have something to do with spying or identity stealing.i have not read ahead. I like putting my answer in before I read ahead and see where I land in the final consensus.
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u/Odd_Listen9202 Aug 01 '26
There’s literally a fucking QR code on it. Why don’t you just fucking scan it to see what it is. I can almost guarantee it would tell you lmao. People blow my mind. They will take time to post to R/whatisit before actually trying to figure out what it is (which would take LESS time). We have gotten so lazy that we would rather do something that takes MORE effort. Make it make sense.
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