And thereby hangs a cautionary tale

By Harriet Elvin

The check-in process at our Melbourne hotel is smooth and the room we’ve booked seems to deliver what it promised online – it’s clean, stylish and well equipped. Then I open the wardrobe door and find those dreaded don’t steal me’ coat hangers with hooks attached to the rail to prevent removal.

And so the whole seductive experience, which started with artfully styled photos and beguiling descriptions on the website, comes to an end. The message from the hotel is clear. Guests are thieves.

I don’t understand what it is with hotels and coat hangers? Do they know something we don’t about an imminent world shortage? Have they heard the government is about to impose a tax based on the number of hangers in each room, rather like the ‘day light robbery’ window tax in 18^th century England?

Even at plush places with eye-watering tariffs, the norm appears to be eight hangers between two persons. There seems to be a widespread fear that guests, who may well have paid, say, $300 a night, are going to leave with a bounty of wooden hangers in their luggage.

With ever increasing restrictions on airline baggage, why would we load our cases with something we could buy for a few dollars from the discount store back home? Besides, if we were in a kleptomaniac frame of mind, why not go for some higher-value trophies?

My quick inventory of the Melbourne hotel room reveals a quality alarm clock, hairdryer and coffee plunger, plus linen, tea towels and designer cushions.

All these items are imminently pinchable if one were to feel so inclined.

Listen up hoteliers the world over, we don’t want your coat hangers. Trust us with proper ones that don’t require a juggling act to hang up our clothes. Make them heavy to deter pilfering, but make them plentiful. By all means print the name of the hotel on each; that way, if the occasional guest does steel one they will feel guilty whenever they use it.

Or better still, might they not feel a sense of gratitude and return for another stay?

“This piece first appeared in the Follow the Reader column of The Weekend Australian’s Travel & Indulgence section and is reproduced with permission”.