Kleptomania - What Is It?

You have spent a hefty amount of money on a hotel room. It’s equipped with some awesome artwork, artifacts, hairdryers, and other nice things. They are there for you to use and enjoy during your stay at the hotel.

But, are these items there for you to take home with you?

What tempts a person from stealing from a hotel room:

Laziness: Your clothes are hanging on the hotel’s hangers, and it is so easy to take them home with the hanger rather than to take them off the hanger, fold them and pack them. Many hotels today have started using hangers without hooks to stop their hangers from leaving their premises.

Thrill: don’t need this vase, but can I leave the hotel with it? I know someone who “stole” a menu from a 5-star hotel restaurant. It was promptly discarded. But there was a thrill of leaving the restaurant with a large menu concealed under a jacket. The same goes for cutlery and salt and pepper shakers.

Petty Greed: People are known to remove light bulbs and remote batteries to take home with them.

Stupidity: The probability that the hotel’s television remote will work with your TV at home is very low. Yet people steal them to test and then discard.

Larceny: Removing valuables from the hotel room. Artwork, light fixtures, linen, towels, bathrobes, and other valuable items are often stolen.

Justification: You are paying such a hefty amount of money for each night that you stay at the hotel. In your mind, it far exceeds the actual rent of that room. You do not realize your room rent also covers amenities that you may or may not have used, such as the swimming pool, gym, gardens, and other common spaces.

Kleptomania: Quoting Mayo clinic, Kleptomania is a psychological disorder that is “the recurrent inability to resist urges to steal items that you generally don’t need and that usually have little value.”

Acceptable to remove?

In a discussion with a few hoteliers, it was understood that it is considered acceptable to help yourself to certain items in your hotel room. These are toiletries such as soap, shampoo, conditioner, combs, toothbrushes, toothpaste (used and unused) as a hotel is obligated to replace these whether used or unused for hygiene purposes upon guest checkout. It is also acceptable to take the hotel stationary and the pen as these are marketing and brand-building activates of the hotel.

So why do people steal from hotels?

It is simpler to justify to oneself about stealing from an anonymous, large, rich organization, rather than from an individual. One feels that it easier to steal from a hotel chain that seems well-endowed, has so much more than you have.

While staying in a hotel room, if something appeals to you, instead of stealing it, simply call the front office and ask to purchase it from them. They will appreciate your gesture, and if feasible, sell it to you.