Scary Reddit Stories

Hotel Stalker

I worked as a flight attendant for a few years, when I decided to take an extended sabbatical from college. There were a handful of LNM situations I encountered, but one in particular still makes my skin crawl more than any other.

I was born and raised in Texas but had moved to New York when I was 21. So when I found out at the beginning of a weeklong trip that I’d have a couple of overnights in Austin, I was super excited to go to my homestate for a few days. My brother lived just north of the city and we planned to hang out and go to dinner the night arrived when he got off work, and the following day we were going to meet up with our dad who lived about an hour away.

So I get to the hotel downtown, the crew and I check in, and then we each head off to our rooms. Short elevator ride and I get to mine, where not even five minutes later there’s a loud, hard knock on the door. It was only around 1 or 2pm, and I hadn’t called either my dad or brother to let them know I was in town yet, so they wouldn’t know what room. I assumed it was maybe one of my crewmates, so I headed to the door.

Before even making it to the door, however, a loud, male voice on the other side boomed “The front desk sent me about the bathroom problem you called in,” before trying to open the door. “Unlock the door and open up, Miss. I need in, now.”

I froze in my tracks. I hadn’t even been in the bathroom yet, let alone called anything to the front desk. I’m a petite chick, and while I take no shit from anyone despite my size, I still err on the side of caution. Slowly inching toward the door to look out the peephole, all I could tell was that the man on the other side was at least 6’ tall, and easily over double my weight. No way in hell was I going to unlock the door.

I responded to the guy, telling him he must have had the wrong room. He continued pounding on the door while constantly turning the handle, telling me no, he needed in and was getting in the room one way or another. I panicked, but thankfully had the sense to grab the phone and call the front desk. The concierge confirmed that they had neither sent anyone up to my room nor had they received a call about the bathroom. The entire time, this fuckin guy was still determined to get in my room, pounding and yelling. Lucky for me, the front desk had dispatched security to my floor.

When the security officers step off the elevator a few seconds later, I can hear them in the hall approach and ask the guy who he was, what he was doing, and telling him he needed to leave the hotel. He immediately gets hostile and aggressive toward them, and the front desk clerk I’m still on the phone with tells me police have been called and are on their way. In the meantime I’m trapped in my room, scared shitless. Long story short, the cops show up pretty quickly and manage to arrest the guy for trespassing and criminal menacing or some shit. I later found out that the guy was also wanted in connection to a string of break-ins and violent sexual assaults in Austin. He had seen and stalked me from the minute I entered the hotel lobby. Apparently I was exactly his “type” of victim.

Nothing else happened after that, but it still rattled the fuck out of me for the rest of my stay in that hotel.