If you often stay in hotels, you might not want to read this


OK, I am officially squicked by this news: a body was found under a motel room bed.

Stunning news this morning out of New Jersey, as reports of police discovering the body of a young woman under a motel bed have been confirmed. The owners of the motel asked that their name and location be omitted from news reports to protect their business.

I’m sure they don’t want their name spread around: the body was in an advanced state of decay and the police estimated it had been lying there for five years. Customers and housekeepers complained about the smell frequently, but “it is not the policy of the company to make their housekeepers check under the beds”.

“Funny thing is, the records also show literally almost 1,000 complaints from people who stayed in the room over the years. Everything from a bad smell to an ‘eerie feeling.’ Several people even asked to switch rooms in the middle of the night,” said Goldsmith. “The motel really should have checked out that room a little more closely.”

You think?

The police are doing a disservice to the community by not revealing the name of the motel chain that has such awful maintenance practices.


Never mind. The story is from a so-called satirical site — I don’t understand how it was supposed to be funny, but OK, taste varies.

Comments

  1. J. W. says

    That news site is not for real. There are several stories there that are either unfunny jokes, or complete fakes. Until the story appears anywhere else, I don’t believe a word of it.

  2. Amy Fort says

    Empire News is apparently a satirical news site but I totally fail to see what it is they are trying to make a joke of with this story.

  3. says

    There is such an abundance of true wacky news these days that I marvel at those who think we need the made-up version. In particular, political satire today is virtually indistinguishable from the actual policies and statements of Bachmann, Gohmert, Perry, Palin, and their ilk.

  4. twas brillig (stevem) says

    ‘horror porn’ site, apparently. Were they trying to satirize New Jersey? Jersey is bad, and motels can be creepy, but …

  5. Nerd of Redhead, Dances OM Trolls says

    This has urban legend written all over it. The Mythbusters shouldn’t have to check it out a pig carcass for five years to find it “busted”.

  6. douglasmcfarland says

    I don’t understand how not a single person who stayed in the room ever looked under the bed in five years. I was just in Morro Bay a few months ago and my sister got a room for her husband and two children (I camped in the state park) and I actually remember sitting on the floor playing with my nephew and somehow his gameboy got knocked off one bed and under the other so I had to look under it to get it.

    In five years not a single person dropped something they wanted that rolled under the bed? Weird.

  7. Beatrice, an amateur cynic looking for a happy thought says

    I think I read about this one on Cracked. Urban legend, I believe.

  8. Nerd of Redhead, Dances OM Trolls says

    Beatrice, thanks for the links. As I suspected, it was usually within a month, and typically a few days, of the death that the corpse was found due to decomp. That makes sense. Five years is either urban legend, or an episode of Bones.

  9. says

    The only “satirical news site” I’m aware of that does actual humor is the Onion. All the others, like this one, that I’ve seen, actually post stuff that is played straight, sounds just plausible enough that it doesn’t ping the bullshit detectors right off, and is controversial enough that it gets shared around as a real news story by lots of people on social media, and every page visit gives them ad revenue.

  10. Forbidden Snowflake says

    Yeah, I don’t see how Empire News is satire (encountered them a few days ago when an article claiming OITNB was discontinued caused some weeping and gnasing of teeth all throuth Tumblr). Those are just fake articles, they are not funny and don’t appear to make any kind of point that would justify calling them ‘satire’.

  11. giabread . says

    I’m confused, don’t they have their staff dust under the beds? What kind of mothballs have gathered under the beds of their hotel rooms now? They is probably a whole ecosystem developed under each bed by now. Yuck.

  12. giabread . says

    Oh, so this is supposed to be satire. I am not entirely sure what they’re trying to mock though. Poor customer service?

  13. says

    I can’t remember if I saw it on an American channel, but hotels.com had recently been playing an ad in Canada where a family end up with a horrible hotel room. Although you don’t see it one of the things they find in the room is a finger. The ad ends with Captain Obvious, the spokescharacter in this commercial campaign, noting that hotels.com would have mentioned the finger.

  14. Ragutis says

    My parents ran a small motel for a while. Always check under the bed and mattress. You’d be amazed how many people forgot wallets, passports, cash, and jewelry after they hide them. Found a gun and a fat wad in a ziplok in a toilet tank once. That was freaky. I think eventually my parents got the $ after the cops decided no one was going to claim it.

  15. JohnnieCanuck says

    OK so this is just the click bait equivalent of those ‘magazines’ in the checkout lineup at the supermarket. If it were me, I’d disable the link to prevent more money flowing into their pockets. Why support lying con-artists? Repeated myself there, didn’t I? Not all liars are con-artists, but few con-artists fail to lie to their marks.

  16. richcon says

    I love me some good satire (Colbert is awesome at it and The Onion has its moments of true brilliance) but the vast majority of “satirical news” sites are utter garbage. Not funny, not clever, and not clearly satire. Only serving to fool unsuspecting bloggers, Twitterers, and Facebook users into sharing their crap for ad clicks.

    They make money by dumbing down the world with misinformation. “Satire” is just the lame excuse they trot out when people get rightfully pissed about being made into fools.

    Ug.

  17. Rey Fox says

    If satire is truly dead, then it’s not the Palins and Bachmanns of the world that killed it, it’s the idiots who think satire means “made-up shit”. Satire needs a target, satire needs an angle, satire needs a fucking POINT.

  18. rq says

    Mmhm, after five years it wouldn’t smell all that much anymore. ‘Advanced stage of decay’ at that point is nothing much left at all. Peak stink times (depending on conditions) are around 2 – 4 weeks or so.

  19. Doug Little says

    The owners of the motel asked that their name and location be omitted from news reports to protect their business

    I’m pretty sure I’ve stayed in that motel.