What You Can Steal From Your Hotel Room—Guilt Free

Lots of jokes abound about the things people feel compelled to steal from hotel rooms when they check out. There's even the unconfirmed tales of people changing their name to correspond with their newly acquired monogrammed bed and bath linens.

There are items in your hotel room that the hotel is happy to have you take—free souvenirs, mementos of your trip, a keepsake from a special occasion.  And then there are the items that at the least can result in a hefty additional charge on your credit card and possibly even something as serious as criminal charges.

Pens and Pencils: Stationery, pens, pencils, and the postcards in the room are yours to take. Every time you use them, it's free advertising for the hotel.

Towels and Linens: Towels are not yours for the taking, but they are the top item to disappear from hotel rooms. Holiday Inn alone estimated that they lost 560,000 towels in one year. But to also take the bed linens? Just how big does your suitcase need to be to have that much extra room in it?

Lotions and bathroom items: All those little bottles of shampoo, hair conditioner, body lotion, and soaps are there for you to use and take with you whether they've been opened or not. They're the perfect travel size and take up very little room, not to mention that they're sized to meet the airline 3 oz. rule.

Laundry Bags: We've all helped ourselves to the plastic laundry bags in hotel rooms to use for dirty clothes or that damp swim suit. No problem there. However, if the hotel uses cloth or canvas bags, you can expect to see a charge on your bill if you take it with you when you check out.

Docks and Clocks: It's safe to assume that a room's clock radio and iPod dock system are not there for you to take home with you. Boston's Onyx Hotel takes a simple approach. "You can take anything you want from the room, but we'll charge your credit card for replacement."

Robes, Slippers, and Umbrellas: It can occasionally be confusing, but most hotels will bill you if that luxurius robe goes missing. Some hotels will provide package rates that include such items as monogrammed robes, slippers, branded totes, books, and even bottles of premium liquor. But beware, those "complimentary" items can come at a steep price as some of the package rates can be as much as twice the regular room rate.

Gideon Bibles: Bibles have been a long time amenity in hotel rooms. Even though they are slowly being edged out, Gideon International still places more than ten million copies in hotel rooms annually to replace those that are taken. They claim they're happy, in this case, to have people break the eighth commandment about stealing.

There have been lots of strange items taken from hotels over the years. The following are some true tales.

A woman from San Jose, California, took the "C" from the coat check sign in San Francisco's Fairmont Hotel and was pursued through the hotel by men in blazers shouting, "Madam, the 'C'…give us the 'C!'"

A Geneva lawyer admits being caught by a receptionist of a Hamburg hotel while trying to make off with "an entire display of apples in a rather large fruit bowl from the hotel lobby."

A huge piece of blown glass by Dale Chihuly was once stolen from a table in the lobby of The Alexis in Seattle, Washington.

Bill Babis of 70 Park Avenue said the most outrageous things stolen from the chic hotel were the thermostats.

So the next time you're tempted to slip a little keepsake from the hotel into your suitcase you might want to ask yourself if it's really a freebie or if you'll end up paying more for it than if you had bought it at a store.