Michael Holz, a tourist traveling in Netherlands, was shocked when his phone alerted him to an employee rummaging and taking things from his room while he was out. Michael consistently sets up a Blink mini camera from Amazon on the hotel wifi when he travels, preferring this camera for its motion sensor.
He was startled when an alert came on his phone, revealing someone entering the room, and the footage showed the employee going through everything.
Watch the video here.
@michaelholz PSA: Use a security camera in your room while traveling!!! #traveltips #securitycamera #PSA #fyp
As soon as Michael returned to the hotel, he informed hotel management. In his words, they handled the situation spectacularly. They upgraded him to their best hotel suite, comped his entire stay, comped his lunch, and even offered to relocate them to a different hotel for safety reasons. Michael declined to move hotels as it was their last day in Amsterdam. He therefore declined to name which hotel the break in occurred at.
Watch the follow up video here.
@michaelholz PART 2: Hotel staff breaks into our hotel room in Amsterdam #traveltips #travel #securitycamera #PSA
In the end, Michael took two TSA locks and attached them to a steel cable, securing them to something immovable in the room. He felt that someone could still cut through the backpack, but this was his best solution.
I had never personally thought about setting up security cameras in my room, but after watching this incident, albeit rare, I think I’m going to do the same.
Alfred is an app that lets you use a spare phone for the same purpose. My only issue with it is that quickly-changing illumination in the room (say, from a cloud blocking the sun) causes it to send an alarm to your mobile. An update is said to give it the ability to alarm only when it sees a human, but I haven’t tried that yet.
Wow, food for thought