We’ve all thought about it and there is definitely a large number of us out there that have actually done it – taken a hotel item home.
Whether it’s the towel, robes and in some cases the bed sheets there’s something about the items in a hotel room that brings out the inner kleptomaniac.
But next time you find yourself stuffing that fluffy towel inside your backpack, you might like to stop and pull it back out.
They’re tagged!
Hotel linens including towels have tiny devices that track their movements. Image: Tim Masters/Shutterstock
That’s right. According to a report on the Huffington Post, hotels can tell when you’ve stolen an item because there’s a tiny tracking device embedded in hotel linens.
Provided by Linen Technology Tracking, the chips lets hotel operators know where their towels, robes and bed sheets are at all times.
The company’s vice president, William Serbin told the news source that around 2,000 hotels in the US are already using the tracking device.
He said initially the chip was a means of tracking linens from the hotel to the cleaners and back, but they’re use has expanded to now keep tabs on goods in the hands of guests.
“One hotel uses the chips to monitor the elevator banks. Any time one of their towels passes through the elevator bay, housekeeping gets an alert.”
William Serbin, Linen Technology Tracking vice president
Although guests aren’t charged for stealing the items, he said the device allows hotels to keep track of how much is taken.
He said within a month, hotels lose around 10 to 20 percent of linens – this is mostly due to wear and tear. But there’s two percent of bathrobes, bedsheets and towels that go missing.