Are we ready? Take it away. All right, welcome back to Tales from the Service Industry. I'm your host. I'm Bill. I'm Joy. Hello. And we have a new guest with us. This is Reed. Howdy. Nice to be here. Nice to have you here. So, Reed, usually when we have a new guest, we like to ask for an introduction. So if you could share a little bit about your history with us. I would love to. I have spent the better part of 38 years in the service industry, namely in hotels, all in California.
I think I can give away that much, but mostly hotel front desk, revenue management, operations, a little bit of sales, a little bit of finance, a little bit of housekeeping, a little bit of engineering, a little bit of everything. Spice of life. I came up through the front desk. Okay. Operations branch. Yep. And a great mentor, to say the least. Thanks, Natalie. I'm so lucky to be here today, sitting next to two of my best, most mentors. So, yay. So exciting. Just the Natalie sandwich.
Yeah, literally. Natalie in between the two of us. Yep. Nice. Well, thank you for that. That was very kind. Yeah. It means a lot. I appreciate you guys. I love you guys so much. Oh my God. I'm in my feels. We love you too. All right. Since this is going to be an episode that we're going to be posting here in October, I thought we would make this a Halloween related one. Did you guys catch the blouse? Oh, I did not. Oh, yes. I'm in the spirit. Pumpkins and cats and hats.
I wore orange. I did wear orange and it was on accident. I didn't mean to. Okay, good. Because I'm sitting here thinking, I'm definitely not themed. You kind of are. So, orange, purple. That's a reach. Yeah. Today is a spicy episode because we're having drinks. We're having Effin Vodka. That's the brand of the vodka. I didn't make it up. We're not sponsored, but if you're listening. Yeah, we're not sponsored. This podcast brought to you by Effin Vodka.
Well, I don't know about brought to, but powered by for sure. Powered by, yeah. That's perfect. Powered by. But Effin Vodka, if you're listening, holla. Yeah, we often love you. I will. All right. So Halloween stories. Ghost stories. Ghost stories. Things that go bump in the night, sometimes during the day. I know you've got a story you wanted to share. Yeah. I don't want to get started though. What? I don't. You don't want to kick it off?
No. Well, I got two stories so I can share one of them right out of the gate. Let's do that then. And then remember the best Halloween costume ever from our days together, Natalie. Yours? Yes. Yeah. When you were. Do you remember that? When you were, oh my God, I'm having a brain fart. Up dude. You're having an effin brain fart is what you were having. Yeah, I'm having a, what's his name? Carl. Carl. Oh my God. Carl from up. Mr. Carl. That was cute.
So a week into my tenure at a brand new hotel in or around the Disneyland area, I'm walking the property daily as you do. And I go all the way up to the top floor only to find that the roof access door is open. It's unlocked. So for you hotel people out there, you know that this door should be locked at all times, unless there's some sort of an emergency. And I'm up there and I decide, well, I've never been on the roof before. So let me just tip toe out there. Oh my gosh.
And find out what the roof looks like. Is the roof a good shape? Is there trash up here? Someone need to pay attention to this area? What's this all about? I opened the door because I can see the chain and the lock and everything's already off. I walk out. This is in, this is a nine story building. And the minute I open the door and walk out onto the roof, off to my right hand side, I see what looks like a little girl and she falls off. Oh my gosh.
So I stopped and I had an oh my gosh moment and I kind of collected myself because the image of the little girl was like broken up wavy television lines. Channel three. Kind of like poltergeist-y. Okay. That sort of stuff. So it wasn't real. Kind of there, but not there. Yeah. It frightened me. It certainly got my attention. And I walked over to the area where she fell. Sorry, listening audience. You don't see my fake quotation marks.
And I look over just to see if there's a little girl on the ground below me, nine stories. There's not. I go back. I close the door. I go downstairs. I get ahold of our engineering manager and unfortunately, very coarsely and very abruptly tell him to lock the door on the roof because little kids could get up there and fall off. This is an older property that doesn't have the guard system around the roof like a lot of modern hotels do.
And I shared this story with various members of the team and I was very surprised to learn from a housekeeper that worked in that hotel upon hearing the story that in fact, years before, a little girl had fallen off the roof of that hotel and had perished. I didn't think much of it at the time. It's not that I'm like anti-ghost. I'm not. We'll hear later about an encounter that I had years later that really affected me. But I wondered, well, what was this all about? Why did this happen?
What was the story? Is this valid or was I just kind of making it up until a couple of years later when I had family staying in that hotel on a friends and family rate. No comps. No comps. Don't dilute my ADR. And my sister-in-law and her kids were on the floor just below the roof. And there were photographs that they took of what they thought were kids.
Kids jumped on the bed, kids jumped around the room and the hallways and the elevator, et cetera, only to see orbs and other sorts of things in the pictures after they got developed that made us all wonder, well, what's that all about too? So there was definitely a presence in that hotel, certainly on the roof, because I saw it. But did you feel like uncomfortable or did you get that like eerie feeling? The only uneasiness I felt was because it was a child. Mm-hmm. That really made me feel bad.
That really made me feel bad. But the whole sensation of all of it was incredibly valid. It was very real for me. I saw what I saw. I know what I saw. And I know what I saw in those pictures too. Not that I sensed anything when we were in my sister-in-law's room or anything like that, but all of it bundled together. A couple of years later, I thought, there's something to this. I think this is this happens probably more than what most people I don't think pick up on it. That's scary.
It wasn't scary. It wasn't scary at all. It was unfortunate, but it wasn't I wasn't frightened. But you like I think I would have freaked out if I would have seen that out of the corner of my eye. I would have like I would have ran the edge. I would have run back. It was it was a little unnerving. So I wouldn't even have the nerve to like look out first week there. Yeah. What the hell have I gotten myself into? Welcome. Yeah. Welcome me by jumping off the roof. You're brave for that.
So did the staff like fill you in on it after? Yeah, we have a couple of housekeeping employees that had worked in the hotel for a year. And they've encountered and they've felt things on those upper floors, not just the ninth, the ninth floor, but eight and seven as well. All three of those floors, the top three floors had that sort of presence or impact or feeling that there were multiple employees that had felt that. Yikes. She never made it to the other side. She didn't?
Well, no. I mean, you're still what they say, right? If you still encounter the their trap. Yeah, it's like a trap. Oh, is that the thing? One of the theories they're trying to like you have to guide them to the light. I wish I had. You'd lock the door, though. Yeah, well, that that was and I wasn't prompt and I wasn't professional about it at all. I mean, my first week there, you're trying to make good impression on new team members, et cetera.
But from a safety perspective, no. Yeah, that's unacceptable. Well, I mean, yeah, but then you found out later that you were totally validated and feeling that way. Yeah, you had good reason. Well, I absolutely did. It's like I don't view myself as a believer and I don't necessarily view myself as a true skeptic. But there's like in my mind, there's there's a lot of question marks regarding ghosts and phantoms or whatever.
I love all the shows on Discovery Channel and all that, you know, Ghost Hunters and Ghost Adventures and all that. But in all honesty, I watch a lot of that and I question it. But there was an event at the hotel that Natalie and I worked at. And I actually shared this on an early episode. And this is when we were closed for Covid. So the entire hotel is empty. There's literally what, like three of us working on the entire property that day.
I'm the only person in this section of the building and the only person on this floor. I'm shampooing carpets. I'm doing my own thing. Ran out of cord length. So I turned the machine off, go to unplug it. And I hear this little girl next to me giggle. Of course, I'm the only one on the floor. I turn around. There's nobody there. I plug in. I go back to work. I'm shampooing carpets. Like it doesn't phase me right till Natalie. And of course, phases her.
But I shared it with our chief engineer at the time. And he goes, oh, yeah, the little girl. I'm like, you seem like you know this story. He said, yeah, the room attendance have been seeing her for years. And then one of the room attendance chimes in and says that, you know, oh, it's the little girl in the yellow dress. Well, I didn't see anything. I only heard a giggle. So to me, it sounded like a little girl, you know, five, six, seven years old, something like that.
But the way the room attendance were talking about it's like they've seen the little girl. You know, it is little girl, long hair, yellow dress, yellow dress. Yeah, that's the visual I have is yellow dress, the one on the roof. No, no, no. In your story. I'm thinking, I mean, the validity to it is how would anyone else say yellow dress unless someone saw the yellow dress? Yeah. Was there a backstory to why there was a little girl? No, nobody. Nobody that I've talked to.
Yeah. Even if I even if there is, sorry, I don't think they'd share with us. Probably not. Our housekeepers are very. I mean, I wish about sharing those type of stories. I wish there was a way to find records on it, but no idea. I always I always wanted that, too. I always thought there should have been a news story. If I tried hard enough, I probably could have found it about what happened at the hotel that I was managing at the time, because it had to have been a news story.
But our neighbors next door at the property I'm currently at, they had a lot of jumper stories. They're a much higher, taller property. Right. So 14 floors. I haven't heard anything about that. That's scary. Well, yeah. I mean, one of the hotels that I was at, they had multiple jumper events. There was I know for a fact there was one room that had two jumpers and then just kitty corner to that. There was a room that had a jumper. So the room attendance.
Were you there? No, not during my time. Oh, my. The room attendance didn't like cleaning those rooms. There's a lot of bad blood, pardon the pun, on those rooms. If the occupants have have perished in some way, there's culturally it really can do a number on on on housekeeping teams. All right. That's why we keep it secret. Well, your your story about the roof being open reminded me of like a case that I'm obsessed with.
Elisa Lamb at the Cecile Hotel. Oh, yes. That story was all over the place plastered everywhere. She was found in the water tank on the roof. Right. The guests were complaining about a disgusting smell and taste in the water. I don't know why they were drinking the water or, I guess, brushing their teeth. But there was a foul smell coming from the water and maintenance went up to the water tank to check it out. And they found her body floating in this water tank.
So shame on them for having that door unlocked. But also, it's crazy how she managed to even get in there considering the weight of that water tank lid. The cover. The cover, from what I hear, was like super heavy. Some say that it was that she was just on drugs. Others say that she was possessed based on like the the gestures, the hand gestures she was making. Some people even believe like in the elevator game, there's like this game called the elevator game.
I've heard about that. Where you can travel into. I don't know. I don't know what you travel into. Yeah. I'm going to put that in the skeptical pile. Do you want to put in your two cents on how she got in there? I don't know. I like you weren't obsessed. I'm obsessed. Well, somebody from maintenance didn't lock a door. Yeah, that's for sure. Or the water tank cover. Well, I've always thought it was the bad guys. Like you thought this was. But the bad guys did something to her.
Put her in the tank. I was out there. I mean, there were enough weirdo people in that hotel anyway. Yeah, the hotel is definitely not. It's not filled by great tourists. And didn't we all just kind of tip our hat to the general manager that spent, I think she was there like seven years. Did you see the Netflix? Yeah. Oh, my God. She was seven years. The way the way she was interviewed, though, I don't know. I didn't buy her story. She did not sound to me like a real hotel person.
I can't remember because this has been a few years. The way that she explained herself was very odd to me because we all talk about room nights, how how that night how that room was consumed overnight. And the way that she explained herself was just odd to me. What my takeaway with it was she didn't sound like a hotelier. She did not. I mean, for the amount of time that she'd been in the industry to how she was explaining things, she didn't sound like a hotel person. OK, so I'm not the only one.
And didn't she look all dolled up? She was so glam. Very glam. I thought that, too. She was ready for her take. To me, for somebody to have been in the business that long, it's like you were put into a job that you weren't trained for, had no oversight on, had no leadership with, no mentoring. And you just kind of figured it out. That was kind of how I interpreted what she was saying and how she was saying it. And she stayed for a lifetime. Seven years in a position.
Look, folks, I've been doing this 38 years and can't tell you that there's any one position I've had for seven years. Maybe four is the max. Yeah. Well, and I mean, you know, to your point, that subsection of that market, seven years would be a lifetime. Seven days would be a lifetime given what happens in that property. Seven days would be a career. Yeah. Yeah. So I was obsessed with this story. You know, I like went on the rabbit hole and like looked at her blogs and everything.
So she was definitely going through it. She had some mental things going on for sure. I think she was bipolar, something like that, and she was not taking her meds. Based on the footage, I've also, you know, kind of looks funny to me, like the way she was moving her arms. You know, some people say that it could be paranormal, but leaning more towards like the drug.
I mean, I my opinion was based on what I saw in the videos, it was mental health issues, lack of medication and something as substance. Yeah. Now we're still talking about the general manager, right? No, no, no. Oh, yeah. I'm sorry. We moved on. I mean, we could have been, you know, but the interviews with the residents. Yeah. Right. I mean, there's a credibility factor with all those folks. Or lack thereof. You think you have to. There's a subjective. They're not vetted. No, I don't think so.
Well, they would have been vetted by said general manager, which doesn't help the cause. Right. Have you guys seen what they're doing to that hotel now? So they're rebranding it. And I don't know how, how or why they're going to be the Hotel Cecilia now. Yeah. Cecilia with a little Spanish accent. Cecilia. Yeah, I think they split the rooms and like half of it is like one brand and like the other half is another.
So it's like you take the elevator and like once you make it up to like the fifth floor, it's another hotel, whatever. But at the end of the day, we all know it's still Cecile Hotel. We we all know it's still that that place. So I mean, unless you're looking for a hostile hostile, unless you're looking for that type of feel, you know, then whatever. I don't think they're selling rooms right now, though.
I think they're selling it on half of it, like the bottom of it. The last I saw about that hotel, you could book a walking ghost tour. Oh, I think we should do that. I'm here for that. That'd be cool. I think we should do that. I really enjoy doing that. I love ghost tours everywhere I go. I check one off the list. Just did one in New York. It was so cool. Were you successful?
Yeah, they took me to the New York library and they talked about this like really creepy story about this girl that like literally threw herself off the tower. Did you have an encounter? I didn't have an encounter. You know what I had an encounter of? Rats. Oh, yeah. And that's a fear of mine. So that was the most curious ghost story ever. Ghost tour I've ever been on. Do you ever do the Whaley house in San Diego? I have. And you know what?
I hate to be part of the like clique, but I did encounter like I felt something. Have you been there? I know you. I have. And I never had the experience. I've never had the experience. I would have loved to have. So the first time I ever went out there, I didn't get a chance to go on the tour because it was already too late. And I got so lightheaded. Oh, yeah. Like on the porch. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You know what I mean, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah.
I got so lightheaded and I was like, I'm just crazy because, you know, I'm a few drinks in whatever. But the second time I went, I felt the same energy and I was just like, all right, this cannot be true, right? So I finally go on the tour and I swear to you, there's so much going on in that house. It smells. It's like a feeling like an ick feeling that you get the dizziness. You feel so like dreadful in there. Like each room has a different story.
Definitely check it out if you're from the area, San Diego. Yeah, that house was definitely creepy. And did you guys know? I don't know if you guys have ever walked through Old Town San Diego. Have you guys seen those like metal plates that they have on the floor? Sure. You know what those are, right? No, I don't. So those are actually gravesites. Really? Oh, yeah. So if you look on, it looks like a like a huge coin, gold coin.
If you look at it, it'll tell you like gravesite honor or something like that because so many bodies buried in that area. So when they built this Old Town San Diego for tourists, they couldn't dig them out to like put them in a in a decent space. And they decided to leave them there, but honor them with those gold coin like metals on the floor. So if you're walking through the sidewalks, you'll see them and just read it.
It'll tell you like it'll say like a serial number and I think you can like Google it or something and find out about the person. So it's like Joni Mitchell saying they paved paradise and put up a parking lot. So they basically paved over all of the gravesites in Old Town to make the Whaley House. Yep. You want to go down the road a little bit? Yeah. In San Diego? Yeah. So the Hotel del Coronado, yes, which is one of the most prestigious hotels in all of North America.
There was in the 1800s, there was a suicide there. And there's lots of documentation about the suicide of Kate, Miss Kate, who stayed in one of the rooms at the Hotel del Coronado. And she apparently took her own life in this room. Now, you can still rent this room in that hotel, even though her story is in the book that's available in the bookstore in the gift shop at the Hotel del Coronado. But it was an 1800 story happened in the late 1800s.
Kate was there with her either husband or intended spouse. And for whatever reason, she took her own life. Kate's ghost is supposed to frequent that area of the hotel. You can get up there. Why do I know this? Because I've been there a couple of times. So my work didn't work there. Unfortunately, which one of the few hotels you have. Yeah. Yeah. The short list is which hotels has read not worked at.
But the first time I ever was able to identify where Kate's room was, where she supposedly took her own life, I had out of town company visiting and we were touring the Hotel del. And the Hotel del is in a great place. And it's a great plant. And if you're a hotel person, you dig the Hotel del Coronado just to kind of putz around and see what you need to see, et cetera.
But near Kate's room, when we went up the stairs to face her room, I got the oddest sensation from a spiritual perspective that I've ever had. Like goosebumps? Cold, clammy, felt weird. So you were either in the presence of a ghost or you just had bad shellfish? Somewhere in Coronado. Beware of the gas station sushi. And I was trying to check myself at the time going, OK, what's really going on here? What's really happening here?
But there was definitely a sensation in front of this room where Kate passed away and I walked down the corridor away from the room, trying to get away from it. Not afraid he scared, get away from it, but just it was cold and clammy. And it wasn't a good feeling at all. It was a weird feeling. And it wasn't gas station sushi. And I got to the end of the very end of that hallway. And they have rooms that take a couple of steps up to get to the door to go into the room.
And as I stop at the end of the hallway, because there's nowhere else to go, I look to my left into one of these rooms and the staircase leading up to the entrance door suddenly becomes very three dimensional to me. And it's facing downward like psychedelic. You know, the scene in the Twilight Zone at the beginning and the old show with Rod Serling, there's a door that opens like you're going into a basement. OK, that's what this looked like in three dimensions.
But I'm looking physically at the guest room door, but it's looking downward. And I shook my head like, no, no, no, you're not looking at this. You can't see this. You're not looking at this. Go the other way. I start heading back towards Kate's room as God is my witness along the corridor, along the chair rails, all this goo. And the goo had not been there when I had previously been walking the other way. And I'm still cold and I'm still clammy.
I've got my wife in tow. I've got my mother in law in tow. And they don't know what the hell is going on with me because they're not sensing the same thing. But they also validate the fact that I'm going through this. Folks, I don't make this stuff up. There's no merit in doing so. But it happened. And after we were finished being on that floor, I stepped down to the next level, the first level, and it was gone.
But the goo, the goo was there. That's strange. And it was not there when I had walked the other way before I saw the trap door and Twilight Zone, et cetera. Well, first of all, you didn't know that was her room. I did. Oh, you did. I did know that I specifically found that room and took family up there. OK, so you wife, I took the mother in law up there to say, hey, this is where you went on the tour. This is kids. Yeah, I did my own tour. All right. Self tour. Self tour. Yeah.
But that's all it was is like, oh, this is the room. The story about Kate is well documented. But the rest of it didn't make sense at the time. So did you Google after to see like what other people have experienced? No, I've never done that. That's probably a good that's probably a good step. I probably should do that. Because shortly after I went to the Whaley house, I was just like, OK, maybe I'm crazy. Like, what the heck? And I went on Google to see what people have experienced.
And that whole dizziness and funky smell is top. It's a top comment. And see any time that I've ever been to Whaley house, never a sensation at all. Never even on the porch. Never, never. And I want to. Never happens. I've only been there once. And my experience there was completely neutral. I didn't feel anything creepy. I didn't feel I didn't feel anything. Could be mental, too. Just was an old house at night. Oh, you went at night.
I went at night and during the day I got that dizzy. I'm trying to think if I've ever been there at night. I may not have. Maybe that's the difference. Road trip. Yeah. Right after this podcast. Right. Let's go. That's scary. It wasn't scary. It was uncomfortable. It was weird to me. It sounds like the goo, though. I'm telling you, the goo. I know I keep saying the goo. Yeah.
And I shouldn't say the goo, but the goo. Don't ask me how I know this, but it sounds like a psychedelic trip ish kind of to me. Like the way he's making it like the staircase to the basement. Yeah. And like how you're making it that was three dimensional. It was like that scene. You saw that trap door that's supposed to lead down. It was there. But the staircase was up. See what I mean? I've I've had my fair share of psychedelic trips and you know, it feels that way.
It's like I'm trying to go straight and I'm going sideways. But that's kind of that's kind of Natalie on a normal day, though. Hey, hey, hey. But did you get like goosebumps or anything? I did. The goosebumps and I felt fine otherwise. Now, in this building at the Hotel Del Coronado, you can take an elevator to the second floor. You can take the staircase up. And I took I remember taking the staircase up. And the minute I got to the second floor was when this uneasiness came across me.
And honestly, I had not been drinking. I think we'd had lunch somewhere prior. But there was nothing that would necessarily influence me being there. Right. How far is the way from Coronado? Fifteen minutes. Oh, driving. Driving. Yeah. Oh, OK. Coming across. You got to come across the bridge. That'd be a fun little ghost. You can do that and check out the the grave markers. Well, those grave markers. Now you've got my attention, Natalie. I got to see that and figure that out. Old time San Diego.
But then you have to go to Coyote after the Coyote Cafe. Coyote Cafe. Hell yeah. I've been there a few times. You get there. Flour tortillas with butter. You got to go to the Oh Hungrys. This podcast brought to you by Oh Hungrys Old Town San Diego. Yeah. Home of the yardstick beer. And now we transfer over to the foodie part of this podcast. Do they use heaven vodka? If not, they should. Yeah. But that was that's the pinnacle of my interaction with spirits.
And I can tell that story as well to you, too, as I've told other people. And most people are kind of skeptical, especially if they're not believers. And I'm with Bill. I'm not frightened by spirits. I don't know that I necessarily believe in them, but I know what I experienced. And what I experienced was not normal. Yeah. I'm with you on that one. It's just like, OK, we're in 2022. We have really good cameras. We have really good. Everywhere. Yeah. Like we have high quality items now.
We should be able to pick up these ghosts, right? These aliens. But a part of me still believes it. You know, I mean, I think it's just the extension of life on other planets. And is are there other beings that are looking at us? Yeah. Are we looking at other beings? Is it all possible? Yeah, I think so. I think it's very possible. Is there any reason to believe that ghosts and other spirits don't exist? No. I don't think there's any reason to say that. No, there's no absolute way.
But there's no concrete proof either. But I know I saw the goo. Hashtag the goo. Hashtag the goo. So the the first half of my hotel career, I actually spent in Hawaii. Aloha. Mahalo. You know, and unfortunately, the islands are all volcanic. So ground is very, very hard.
When the Hawaiians would have Hawaiians that died, they would typically be buried near the ocean because the ground was softer, which is all fine and good until you fast forward a few hundred years and white man comes and wants to build their five star resorts. Where? Right by the ocean. Right. So one of the hotels that I had been at, it was built back in the, I can't remember if it was the late 60s or the very early 70s.
And at that time, there was no regard for Hawaiian history and cultural sites and things like that. So when they would build the hotels, they would literally come in and just grade it. Whatever was there just got scooped up and taken away. The hotel that I was at, there were so many ghost stories. And I mean, I worked with people that had actually been there from the day it opened. This literally came with the building. Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah, literally. I mean, this was back in 2005. So, I mean, original employees from 19, I think it was 1972 that hotel, but regardless, you know, there were stories about kitchens being haunted. There were stories about seeing orbs and whatnot in the hallways. There were stories of seeing the Hawaiian night marchers down by the ocean. It's just a lot of crazy stuff. I never experienced any of it. And I worked at that hotel for about three and a half years.
I don't know if you guys know this. Normally, Hawaiians have this like ceremony that they do before they're going to build. Do you know if that was the blessing that took place like the blessing? No idea if it took place at that hotel. But the adjoining property, when they were developing that property, they found a lot of skeletal remains. So unfortunately, when that happens there, they have to shut down construction.
Everything has to be surveyed. Everything has to be recorded and mapped, et cetera, et cetera. And what they ended up doing was exhuming all of the remains. And then once the hotel was built, there's a cultural garden within the property where all the remains were reburied. So dozens and dozens of skeletons reburied in that courtyard. And they don't make a point of where it is. I knew people that worked there that knew where it was. So I knew where it was. But they don't advertise where it is.
You don't want to piss off the spirits. Yeah, pretty much. I think that's the message of the day. Don't piss off the spirits. Yeah. Put it back. Again, I have not seen or experienced anything like that, but I have had friends that worked at one resort that one of the kitchens was allegedly haunted and knives would fly across the kitchen when nobody is in there with you. I've never experienced anything like that. But did you want to? Would you like to see something like that?
Yes, but not the thrown knives. If you weren't in harm's way, though, right across the room, you saw the knife. That wouldn't bother me so much. Yeah. I mean, the validation of being like, wow, that just happened. Done. I checked that off my bucket list. You know, but that property where they exhumed all the remains, I had friends at work there that said that they saw Hawaiian warriors and all sorts of other things that like in detail that I'm like, you know, I've seen ghost adventures.
I've seen what they see. How can you see that this person's in a yellow dress? Yeah, a yellow. Yeah. The little girl with a yellow dress or, you know, the Hawaiian warrior with the cape and a club. All the other details that you see. I don't I don't understand how people see all the detail. Yeah, I ask the same thing. One of my previous properties, the banquet storage was very close to my office and our banquet captain came out of there running one day
and he was just like, were you guys just in here? And we're like, no. So he goes and checks with his other banquet guys and they're like they're like across the property at the restaurant. And so then he's like, were you guys just in there? They're like, no, we're like over here serving waters, dude. And he's just like, he was like, what the heck? Like I was just like he was prepping for a meeting and something in storage just like grabbed the utensils box and like slammed it.
It wasn't like on the floor. It wasn't it didn't tip over. He clearly heard the utensil box just like slam. Like got picked up and then dropped back in. And he came into our office and he looked like a damn ghost when he walked into my office. He was just like he was telling us in Spanish, Estaban adentro? And we're like, no, we were not inside. Like what the heck? What's going on? And then he explained the story. He did not want to go back into prepping the room. He was so scared.
But it was an old property and I mean, who knows what happened in that story. Well, these properties and these establishments that have years on them and history. And you mentioned that, you know, you've got a historical property that is being graded for the for the sake of the new and improved product without regard to history. Sometimes that can wreak havoc. But to add on to this story at that one property with the utensil story, it was said a while back.
There was a wedding happening in the the largest ballroom and the groom was found in the lobby cheating on the bride with a bridesmaid. So the bride was so upset. She ended her life in that building at that time. Yeah. So it came back to that story. So our banquet captain was like, oh, it's probably the bride. She's so mad because she's still mad. Yeah. I beat you to it, Natalie. Yeah. So we've shared some stories. Now it's up to you.
OK. So during covid time, we all wore different hats. I was helping at the front desk and it was not a lot of us working. We were, you know, very skeleton crew. This is while we were still closed or when we tried to when we reopened. And I was working the morning shift at the front desk. So I remember checking this girl out and this girl had her baby with her.
And I remember the room number 1306 and she came to check out and she was, you know, like struggling with her kid with what do you call it? Car seat. On the other hand, and she was checking out and she she mentioned to me she's like checking out. I'm waiting for my Uber. I'm just going to wait here in the lobby. So as she's waiting in the lobby, she's like, oh, my God, I forgot my blanket. My baby's blanket. Can I get a room key? I was like, yeah, sure. Give her a key.
She goes and she comes back. She gives me the key and I I see her leaving on the Uber. The Uber picks her up and she takes off about 20, 30 minutes later. Housekeeping is running like on an old report because she still has a due out, but I've already checked her out in the system. So housekeeping calls me. Our housekeeping manager calls me and she's like, Natalie, like, what time is this room leaving? And I was like, I've already checked it out. She's like, no, someone just said just a minute.
I was like, no, go in there. Like she just left. I just saw her leave and she's like, no. So she does what she does. And then she calls me back and she's like, someone's in that room. And I was like, Miss Girl, you need to go in there because I just checked her out. If there's someone in that room, then they're not authorized to be there. She opens the room and it's empty. So she comes back to me and she she's just like freaking out. She's like, I literally heard somebody in there.
She's like, are you sure she was alone? I was like, she was with her kid and she just registered one adult, one child. I mean, I don't know what else to tell you. Right. So she she's freaking out. Anyways, they end up cleaning the room. But that story stayed in our housekeeping manager's mind because she remembers that she says clear as day. She heard it. And it's on the same floor where you heard the little girl. No, I was on the second.
Oh, just kidding. Yeah, I was on the second floor. Well, that whole building is just a whole trip, right? Because I've had my experiences on the first floor. Anyways, so just recently, a few weeks back, she comes into my office and she's like, you're not going to believe this. And I was like, what? She's like, remember when we had that incident in 1306 where I heard a man's voice and she's like, I heard it again.
And she's like, and I walked in and it's empty. Same voice. Yeah. And I'm just like, you're crazy. Right. And she's like, no, I swear. She's like, I keep hearing it. So I took the system to see, like when that room was used, it's been out of order for the last few days. So no one has used it. See, this is the thing about all these stories is there are the skeptics that are out there. Yeah. And then there's all sorts of supporting information. Yeah. Right.
You ask my mother-in-law, rest in peace. She's not here to tell you, but she'll tell you about the goo. She saw the goo. She experienced the goo. I got no agenda to talk about the goo. But these stories have merit with the individuals that they impact. I mean, I'm envisioning your story, Natalie, of the Uber driving away as your housekeeping representative is saying, hey, someone's in that room. Yeah. Someone's still in that room.
Well, you know, OK, so with that little girl, I was curious. I wanted to know, did I imagine it? Did I tune in somehow to like assign a signal, something like that, that triggered, you know, maybe I had overheard the story of the little girl and it just kind of all gelled. I don't know. I was looking for some meaning. So I actually took out my iPhone and I opened the voice memos and I hit record.
I left my phone right where I heard the giggle. And like, you know, I even said, you know, little girl, are you here? You know, whatever came back 30 minutes later. It was absolute silence. There was nothing, you know, the hotel is completely empty. There's only three people on property. And when I was away from that area, I was with both of them. You know, so there's no there was nobody to be there.
But yeah, it was just absolute silence. But that building has like a thing about voices and like mimicking things. Yeah. So, OK, the skeptic part, right? I've heard the giggles. You've heard a couple of different sounds. I've heard a moan and I've heard somebody literally sound exactly like our chief engineer. But then we also heard a lot of pops and creeks and groans. And I attribute that. And the chandelier. Well, OK. So we've talked about.
Yeah, we have talked about that. But so we'll recap that. But, you know, like the creeks and groans, in my opinion, a lot of it came from the south side of the building gets direct sunlight. So it heats faster. It expands. There's different expansion, contraction things. I could understand that. What I never understood. And this goes back to, you know, thirteen oh six, that stack. Right. Thirteen oh six, twelve oh six, eleven oh six. Eleven oh six was is right next to your office.
She would hear footsteps. And there were multiple times during covid when we were closed that there were only like Natalie and myself on the property or myself and the chief engineer. There was always two people there. You mean three? No, no, no, no. There was always two people there. Ideally three. But, you know, with days off and whatnot, there were sometimes just two.
And there was a time where it was just Natalie and myself in the building and we heard footsteps and it was rhythmic and consistently spaced. Thump, thump, thump, thump. So I go busting out of one office door up the stairs. You went out up a different set of stairs. Nobody. Yeah. And we were like, oh, my God, somebody broke in. All the doors are locked.
The main doors are chained. You know, so it's like there was only one access point that we could come in and out of the building because everything else is like hard secured and nobody on the floors. And there was times where we would be in the same office, like during a meeting or, you know, discussing X, Y, Z. And we would hear the footsteps and we would just look at each other like and then we would just like split. We would just like bounce, take off and try to find whatever was going on.
I'm personally always going to be more scared of like an actual human than a ghost. And I thought maybe there was a homeless person that broke in because it did happen once. We did. Sure. Those things happen in buildings that have multiple points of entry. And we don't want to have a squatter, you know, we don't want to have somebody like staying in our building when we're close to public.
Unless they're in a yellow dress. If they're walking, you know, walking through the building in a yellow dress, that's preferred. Or on the roof or on the roof. Yeah. But as I mentioned, that building definitely has something going on. As I mentioned in a previous episode, there's been two times where I've heard things. One, I was going down the hall, going home, and I knew our chief was working on some rooms and I was going home and I wanted to say bye to him.
I know he had a few doors propped open. So I just shouted. I was like, hey, I'm leaving. And no, no word. And I was like, hey, I'm leaving. But the reason why I was saying I'm leaving was because I heard him like on the phone and then I I clearly heard him say, OK, OK, but by you know, in Spanish. OK, then bye. So then I'm like, hello. And no answer. So then I call him. I was like, he's probably he's probably playing a trick on me. Right. Let me call him so that I can hear his phone ringing.
And I call him and I don't hear the phone ringing. And then he answers and he's like, hey, I was like, where are you? He's like, I'm on my shop. The shop is like across the building and another building. I was like, completely different part of the building. I was like, pays out. I'm out. So like a different part of the property. Good night now. So I run out and he's coming towards me, towards the building I'm in.
And he's like, hey, what happened? And I'm like, I just heard your voice down the hall, like in a room. He's like, no, I'm in my shop. And I was like, no, I swear I heard your voice. He's just like, you're crazy. You know, whatever. But that was one incident. And then the other incident is when I was coming into work, it was early in the morning and I heard like a like a female voice, like moaning, like a complaint moan. It was like, like disappointed or like painful.
You don't have ghosts in this hotel and I was counting on them. You mean I can get housekeeping service. Yeah, Starbucks is too far away. Why don't you have breakfast now? I'm hungry. Yeah, it was kind of that type of like moan, like a disappointed, like a painful moan. I don't know. I don't even know how to explain it. And it was right by the laundry. I was like, I'm not even going to entertain this. I like walk straight into my office, lock the door.
And then I waited for him to get in in the morning and I was just like, oh, my God, I heard this and this and that. Oh, and then the chandelier and then our previous accountant, we were already closed and we were messing around. And he came out and he was just like, oh, yeah, hey, there's a spirit here. Make yourself. Oh, that's what you say. Make yourself. If there's a spirit here, make yourself known.
Yeah, make yourself known. Bam. We literally like we were like we were all like, what the hell? The timing could not have been better. It was insane. It was so scary. And then we were trying to find a logic behind it and then we couldn't because where that bank came from. So what happened? No idea where that bank came from. It was like the elevator shaft is what it's called or the elevator, wherever the elevator motor or whatever, you know, the mechanical room.
But nothing was in motion. Elevators were sitting idle. And it was just I love it. It was just a thump right after you commanded it. Yes. Yes. And then I was like, Mo, why did you do that? And he was just like, well, we were looking for ghosts, right? You know, I was just like, oh, my God, like we just found some. Yeah, it was so scary. That's a great story. So the what she was talking about with the chandelier. So in the lobby, you know, ceilings are 20 feet higher.
So big chandelier, not as big as the one that was at that hotel that we shared, but large chandelier, very heavy. Came up to the front desk and the chandelier is swinging back and forth, a very clean back and forth. You know, like a lot of times, like if you will push something that's dangling, it'll you know, it'll kind of spin or kind of orbit kind of truly back and forth. Right. 100 percent. It was like a seesaw or like a clock pendulum back and forth.
Very, very precise. No earthquakes. Nothing going on. Nothing else is moving. And we were all trying to find like a logic. We were like, well, maybe there's an earthquake. You know, let's go. You know, find it. Could you? Googling an earthquake. Nothing. You know, trying to see, you know, like what else could be moving like the plant leaves. Nothing is moving. So we're like, oh, the air, the AC vent. Yeah.
Could the AC be blowing the chandelier? So I got a broom and this is, you know, after the chandelier stopped moving, I walked out, I pushed it with a broom. And as I pushed it, it doesn't swing cleanly back and forth. It kind of had a twist to it. And it was so heavy. That was the thing that was crazy is the amount of effort that I had to put into pushing it. So you had a lot of resistance when you were up there trying to.
Yeah. So it's not like clearly the AC wasn't making it move. You know, a door opening wasn't going to make it move, but it was swinging a good. What is that? 20 inches. That's like two feet each way. It's almost two feet. Yeah. Each way of center. And we were all just staring at it like what the fudge. That was scary. Don't be scared of it. I'm not scared of it. It's just like it's scary to witness it. I guess. Isn't it always the why? Why is this happening? Yeah.
And we always try to find the logic behind it. Like, let's go see what's going on. Maybe something popped in the elevator shaft. Everything was fine, but it was that clean. Bam. The moment Mo asked. Look, COVID time, no rooms occupied, on the floor by yourself with the carpet, shampoo and a giggler. Guess what, brother? I believe you. Well, the problem is that I don't know if I believe me. You know, it's like I was there. It happened. I know it happened.
I share the story. But to me, it's like I still don't believe it. You know, I need something more concrete. I want to hear the giggle and see an orb. I want to hear the giggle and feel a tug on my shirt or something. That's fair. You want multiple confirmations that it's happening. Yeah, I get that. I mean, like you need the goo. That's what you need. You need the goo. You need to go.
Everybody needs some goo in their life. You know, but like how many times have you been in a store or actually not even in a store, just like walking through a parking lot or whatever you get in your car, you turn it on. The radio station that comes on is the song that's in your head at the point that you're singing it in your head. You know, so it's like I believe that we are in tune with other things.
But is it really supernatural or did I just, you know, did the are my teeth picking up a radio station? You know, it's like where is the truth? We we believe at home that we have spirits in our house. Our dogs pick up on it. We've got a three tier home. And at the second level near our front door, we believe that there's a concentration of spirits or ghosts or whatever it may be. And our dogs pick up on it. How do they react? They bark. They go crazy.
It's like someone's at the front door knocking and there's no one there because we have a ring. We don't see anybody. We don't hear anybody. It's otherwise calm. But they go ape ass. What is that? And at one point in time, when we had an indoor camera in our home, we would point the camera up towards that area and there were miscellaneous weird orbs activity streaks.
Funny story about indoor cameras. I have an indoor camera, but I don't activate it unless I know like maintenance is coming into my apartment or X, Y, Z. Like if I have like my brother coming over to like drop off X, Y, Z just to make sure that, you know, whatever. But I don't activate it because I'm so scared to see what it actually picks up. Like whatever. I don't want to know. Well, wouldn't you activate it for non-brother activities or non-maintenance activities?
I don't. I'm scared. I would if it picks up something scary. What's scary about it? There are friends. No, they're not my friends. I don't want to be friends. Just leave me alone. Don't bother me. I think they'd say the same thing. Leave me alone. I'm in their space. I know. I know. I only activate it when I know like people are coming over and I'm not there just to see what's up, you know. But the moment they leave, I'm like deactivate. I don't want to know orbs take over.
That's the I mean, that's for for me. That's kind of the secondary confirmation is, you know, if my two dopey dogs end up picking up on something that makes them bark or whatever, you know, it's not the change of wind or a twig or something like that. There's a little more credibility to this than me just thinking that, you know, I walked into a hallway of goo.
But is that as far as it goes, like your dogs and that's it? Or do you? Is there scary stuff going on? You don't hear anything? No. OK, then maybe they're from not at all. No, it's all them. And well, OK, because you're barking about this, that and the other. That's all right. But I don't I don't have the same. I don't have a goo sensation in my own home. Oh, that's good. Wish I did. But I don't. Probably will happen when I go home tonight. Imagine you'll have to come back and update us.
Are we going to piss off all the spirits and all three of us are going to be, you know, infiltrated tonight? Look, I've already got my own personal demons. I don't need any more. I think like for me, the only other weird thing that I ever experienced and I'm going to chalk it up to technology. But the very first hotel I worked at when it opened, it only had like 15 rooms that were available to sell. It opened that new. So it was out of how many?
Two hundred and sixty five. Sounds like a typical hotel opening. Yeah. Six story hotel. And it was kind of it was built on a graded lot. So it was labeled as seven stories, but it was no more than six off the ground. Right. And it was that top tier of the very back portion of the seventh floor. So the skeleton team is working because I don't think we had any skeleton team. Did you say that on purpose? I didn't know I was going there. No, that was that was an accidental. But we'll keep it in.
So working one night, three to eleven and switchboard starts ringing. I think it was like three fifteen was the room that was calling. I would answer the phone. There was a bit there would be a pause. Disconnect. Thirty seconds later, phones ringing three fifteen. Answer the phone. Little pause. Disconnect. This went on four or five times. So I called security, said, hey, this is what's going on. It's weird. Can you go check the room? He says, sure. I'll stop by after I check the room.
So he goes and he checks the room. He comes down to the front desk and he goes, yeah, you know, I checked the room. Nobody's in there. I said, well, I know nobody's in there. He's like, well, yeah, but there's the phone calls not coming from that room. I go, how do you know? I'm like, it's saying three fifteen on the switchboard. He looks at me because there's no phone in the room. Oh, how do you explain that? Well, see, that's where I look at that and go, OK, it's a bad phone card.
Yeah. OK, but here's the here's where it was weird to me is that the whole time that I'm getting these phone calls and I've now radioed him to go check the room and waiting for him to come back. I keep getting these calls coming from that room.
And where my logic of it's a bad phone card and, you know, my system's got a glitch, goes right out the window because the minute he comes in, he reports that there's nothing in the room, not even a phone, not a single single phone call comes from that room for the rest of the night. Because there's no phone card in which to make a phone call from said room. See, now, if I knew then what I know now, I would have gone and checked the phone system and seen if there was a phone card for that room.
You know, I would have checked for an error light because they all have one. But I didn't know any of that. So I just chalked it up to technology. But the weird part was after the room was checked, nothing and no phone in the room. Yeah, no phone in the room. But the system like well, first of all, who approved that room? No, it was an empty bay. Oh, I thought it was like a big no. No, because the hotel was still under construction.
Oh, my gosh. So the only floor that had operable rooms was the seventh floor. Now, the first floor had no operable rooms, but the hallway was finished. And the reason for that was you had to use the back elevators to access the seventh floor rooms. So not as not a single finished bay on the first floor, but all the hallway was done. So it looked like it was a functional hotel. Oh, looks great. But you can't stay on this floor. Right.
So that reminded me of when I was working at the property where Reid and I worked at, I went through that renovation before it turned into you poor soul. Thank you. I went through that renovation. So at the Reid Lion Hotel. Mm hmm. Exactly. And so, yeah, the eighth, seventh and sixth floor were out of order because they were not ready to sell. And we would get a call from a room like that, too. And it was gutted. Did I interrupt you? Sorry. Yeah, you did.
But yeah, sorry. I had like a really short span of like attention in my head. So if I don't say the story, I'll forget about it. That's right. I wasn't going to fight you. I don't remember where I left off, but I wasn't going to fight you. I had another story. And we were talking about the you were talking about the hotel that was being developed that the entire hallway was walkable, but the rooms weren't and had a bowl and the rooms were on upper floors that were available in that hotel.
The only place I got a weird vibe was on that floor in that section where that room was. But that was after the whole phone call thing. So my logical brain says I get I get this creepy feeling because of that phone call event that happened two years ago. You know, it's like that's in the back of my mind. That's got to be why I'm feeling creeped out. Well, I think it's perfectly logical to suggest that the call may have happened from a room that had no phone, bad phone card could have happened.
Did you hear that? Yeah. We may have just experienced a little bit of a sensation right now, ladies and gentlemen, because I clearly heard someone sneeze. We're all I heard. I thought I thought I had phones. I thought it was a cough, but it could have been a sneeze. I heard a sneeze. OK, well, I didn't. I'm not sure what that was, but we're the only people in this in this apartment. So this ain't a bad phone card. I don't think you have a mightful switch anywhere in here, do you?
No, the windows are closed. Doors are closed. AC is on. So it'll be interesting to play that back and hear what that was. That gave me that gave me chicken skin, too. Do do do do do do do do do. I mean, I thought it was I mean, like right there. You heard it from this way. I heard it from this way. See, I heard it from the left. I heard it from down the hall and it was a sneeze. F and vodka. That was scary. F and vodka. Tune into the afterlife.
So, like, I mean, in my time, I've had a lot of crime happen in rooms, but never like a capital thing like a murder. But with guests dying in rooms, I've had a few of those. Yeah. Reid, have you had have you had that happen in your hotels? So in late twenty twenty one, I got asked to to temporarily go to another property to babysit for a month or two. And my biggest fear was leaving my team while I was away. And I was a couple hundred miles away.
But the logic was it's December. Not much happens in our hotel. You'll be fine. Your team will be fine. You've got leadership. It'll be cool. It's like a week after I'm on this assignment. Wrong. And we had a situation where room attendant goes to the door on a departure. Housekeeping. Housekeeping. She pops her key. She opens the door. And in our hotel, our second and third floor rooms overlook the water. It's a beautiful view. Beautiful view. And this guy is sitting in the room.
And walks in on a customer that had rented the room the previous night. He is sitting in the balcony chair in the room looking out over the ocean with a bag over his head. He was terminally sick. He was a local resident. He purposefully rented the room to have final afternoon of enjoying the Pacific Ocean and the coast and the view and all that. And unfortunately, he took his own life. I mean, wait, with the bag? Yeah. He put the bag over his head and he suffocated himself. Oh, suffocated.
And our room attendant walked in on this. Got the engineering manager. She saw this, immediately closed the door, called for assistance. The engineering manager came up. He's tough as nails. He confirmed. Corner comes, sheriffs, red lights. And I'm 240 miles away. And this is my greatest fear in being that far away from from my team. There were no ill effects afterwards. There's no spirits floating around the hotel in that room or anything like that.
And most of the time in a smaller property when housekeeping teams hear about something like this happen, they're not going to want it. Nobody wants to go anywhere near that room. We actually discussed that on a different episode. I don't let me go into that room. I don't want to do that room. You do that room, Mr. Reed. I like partner up. Right. But after all was said, none. It was very peaceful. It was very peaceful because I was out of town.
I had a regional that was kind enough to come and deal with law enforcement and send the incident report and all that. Two months later, I'm here briefly for the four days that I'm allowed to be home. I'm still on this assignment in central California. So your one month assignment became a two month. Yeah. One of those. Yeah. Right. And I had been home. I did not go into the hotel during my four days off just because I didn't want to.
I get on the train to go back to my temporary assignment only to learn that the day I got back, one of our regulars or a long term late regulars is walking through our parking lot, has a heart attack and keels over on a Tuesday afternoon or whatever it is all over again. Corner fire trucks, my boss. And it became this kind of I don't want to say it's a joke because it's not a joke. It's like every time Reed leaves town, someone perishes in his hotel.
Did you rename it the Hotel California? You can check out any time you like, but you can never leave. This is I'm sorry. I'm laughing. You're a terrible human being. Well, you're the one that made the joke. And Reed starts singing. That's how I deal with being uncomfortable. You sing? No, I couldn't carry a tune if it was in a bucket. All right. Well, how about we end it here then? So thank you both for having me on. This is a lot of fun.
Thank you for joining us. You're welcome to come back any time. Loved hearing the stories. Love the radio voice. Oh, thank you. Read with the radio voice. Honestly, I need to get you and Miss B together because both of you have like the podcast radio voices that everybody loves. I've heard a couple of snippets from Miss B. She's she's great. Love having her here.
Happy to come back any time. I think it's safe to say that those of us in the service industry have countless hours of stories to be able to share. Like we were talking before, that's the heart of this podcast. You know, so if you are a barista, a bartender, a tattoo artist, a police officer, anybody that deals with the public share stories with us. If we read them on the podcast, we'll give you credit.
We'll give you a little shout out. TSA is coming up next. I would love to have TSA here. I'm going to work on that for you. Please. Thank you. I'm going to work on that for you for sure. I want to hear what they've found in people's prison purses.
Or if you want to be invited to this podcast, you can also email us, right? Yeah. If you're well, we'll tap you in. Yeah, we can have a phone in. We can phone in. We can support a call in guest, whether you're in Baton Rouge or anywhere else or anywhere else. Join us. Power Modern Media. Right. Happy Halloween. So we're going to leave this here. Thank you so much to both of you for joining us. Thank you so much to all of you for listening to us.
If you have any friends, family acquaintances, or just want to randomly text somebody with a link to our podcast, we would appreciate it. And we will catch you in a couple of weeks. Bye. Cheers.