I stayed at a New Jersey property over the weekend. When I arrived back at the hotel at 9PM, I discovered that the security latch had been used to prop the door open. I know the cleaning staff do this when servicing a room, but there was no evidence of any employees in the vicinity. I pushed the door open with a sense of dread I can not describe. In addition to the usual travel stuff, I had a $3000 laptop computer sitting within sight of the door. The room had been made up and a cursory inspection led me to conclude nothing had been pilfered. I was relieved but still quite distraught; I was simply lucky. There were plenty of people in the hotel that night, including a large contingent of teens fooling around just down the hall. Anyone could have walked into my room and made off with whatever they wanted.

I'm about to send an e-mail to the manager, but want to make sure this issue is brought to the attention of the appropriate people. I'm not interested in punishing the hotel staff, but want to make sure someone else doesn't arrive back at their room some evening only to discover they have been robbed.