Dissapearing Do Not Disturb signs
 

I have noticed this happening to me every couple of trips now. I hang the Bo Not Disturb sign on my door as I don't want Room Service poking around the room. Just me, I don't need fresh towels or a made bed every day.

But after a day or two I notice the sign is missing from my door. It is not lying on the ground, I didn't hang it back up inside by mistake. Is there an underground market for these things? Are the hot souvenir? Why would someone take a Do Not disturb sign - are they trying to tell me something?

could just be kids screwing with you.

A couple times I've found do not disturb signs in the trash by the elevator in hotels. I suspect that a few idiots think it's funny to remove them from other peoples' doors.

Not sure if there is a market for them, but I have about a dozen of them in my suitcase. I got tired of not having one in my room, so I took a handful from work. I like the small ones I carry, they either slip into the key card slot, or hang on the door handle.

I do have to confess to having stolen them from other peoples doors in the past though, when I was drunk and headed for bed. That's why I started carrying my own.

If you loudly, drunkenly stumble down the hallway at 3am, fumble with your keycard for 3 minutes while giggling uncontrollably, slam your door shut once you get inside, and crash around your room for a while before finally passing out, don't expect that the Do Not Disturb sign you hung to keep the housekeeper from bringing you out of your alcohol-induced coma will still be there in the morning :D

Really? If you list the hotels, I'll tell you if I am the culprit. ;)

I also have some recollection of 'doctoring' room service breakfast forms as well - more muesli anyone?

I always carry epoxy and glue the thing to the door. It usually works.

Do understand that many properties inspect rooms at least 1x/day both to make sure you're not dead inside or that you haven't trashed the place and left. That shouldn't affect the sign.

Bottom line is that there's nothing to be done other than to confine your stay to higher end properties which have a DND light which you control from inside and who don't lease to numpties who want to act like 9 year olds (or numpties who can't control their 9 year olds).

My trick is to write the room number on both sides. That way, if it is missing in the morning, walking down the hallway will reveal if someone stole it for their own use. :)

Happens occasionally where someone gets to the room and finds that there is no sign for them, so they casually steal one from down the hall. Caught a couple people with this, and enjoyed knocking on their door early in the morning to explain that I was taking my sign back while pointing to my room number that I wrote on it.

Kids like moving them randomly too. Your approach could be ... spectacular.

It's been a while, but I recall DND signs that were double-sided, with the other side requesting servicing of the room. I never trusted those because someone could flip it, with the result explicitly the exact opposite of what I wanted.

Amazon currently sells a sign like that (haven't looked any further):

What I found are the ones that hang from the handle tend to fall off once you open/close the door, mostly due to being used too much and are a bit loose. I prefer the ones that you put inside the key slot better. I recall one time hearing noise outside my room and heard people giggling, I looked outside through the peephole and saw them removing the DND from the various doors in the hallway.

Sometimes the DND signs are a really cool design! When I stayed at the Ritz-Carlton, the DND signs were made of wood, in the shape of a sheep, that said something to the like of "counting sheep, please come back later", and hung from a piece of rope. That sign was worth taking home...

I've always wondered whether there's a way to somehow tie these things to the door handle with a rubber band or even a piece of string. The handicapped friendly lever style door handles seem much worse for this (in that sometimes it seems that the sign falls to the floor every time the door is touched) than the old USA style round doorknobs.

Or the one I wish I'd kept from the Luxor with something like "Getting our Lux on, leave us alone" on it!!! (... and which idiot forgot to hang it outside at the time as well???)