can’t explain what i heard through our hotel wall
Two months ago, my ex and I were staying in a hotel for a few weeks during a really rough period in both of our lives. It was a La Quinta Inn—the best we could afford that wasn’t a highway motel.
When we got to our room, the guy next door had his TV blasting. Not just loud—like full volume blasting. We were a little annoyed and joked that it sounded like he was trying to cover up another sound.
The TV stayed on the entire time he was there. The volume would fluctuate, but it was always loud enough to hear through the wall. He even left it on when he wasn’t in the room. By the second night, we ended up calling the front desk because we couldn’t sleep. They got him to turn it down for a few hours, but the next morning it was blasting again.
We saw him outside a few times when he went out to smoke, and both of us got a really bad vibe. He would often sit right by the side door we used to get to our room. His eyes would follow us whenever we were outside at the same time. It creeped us out enough that we stopped going out alone.
One night, he was outside with two small dogs—Yorkies, I think. My ex (I’ll call him Jack) made a small comment about them when one ran up to him, but the guy didn’t respond at all. He just stared at us. We went back inside and tried to brush it off.
To be fair, there were a lot of sketchy people at this hotel, so we were already a little on edge.
About a week into our stay, around 10 p.m., his TV was loud again. Then we thought we heard another person in the room with him. Up until that point, he’d always been alone.
At first, it sounded like they were having s*x—the noises and the rhythm of the headboard hitting the wall made it pretty obvious. It was clearly a woman’s voice, not the TV. That went on for a few minutes, but then it started to sound… wrong. Like she was in distress.
The moment it started sounding off, the guy began singing.
I have no idea what he was singing, but he sounded completely calm—like nothing had just happened. Not even out of breath, which didn’t match what we had just heard.
After things went quiet, there was tapping on the wall—but not like before. It started softly on one side of the wall and slowly moved across to the other side, getting a little louder as it went. It wasn’t rhythmic anymore. The taps came at random intervals—sometimes seconds apart, sometimes minutes. But it felt like whatever he was doing, he was moving across the room.
We got curious (and honestly nosy), so I put my ear against the wall to try to figure out what was going on. The TV was off now, and no one was talking—which was weird if someone else was still in there. And we never heard anyone leave.
I listened for about 45 minutes. The only things I could hear were him walking around occasionally and this sound I can only describe as some kind of electric power tool. I could barely hear it unless my ear was against the wall, which is why I thought it might be something electric. At first I wondered if it was a hair dryer, but it went on way too long for that.
And every so often, there was this… wet sound. I don’t really know how else to describe it.
At that point, I got a really bad feeling. I pulled out my phone and started recording, waiting for him to come out of the room.
Eventually, the noise stopped. I went to our door and watched through the peephole for about ten minutes. I started to think he wasn’t going to come out, so I stepped away—but right then I heard his door open.
He walked out with a black trash bag.
Before anyone says anything—the bag was way too small to hold a whole person. But still. I got part of it on video (I can post it if anyone wants to see).
His room was to the left of ours. When he came out, he briefly walked down the hall to the right, almost like he was checking if anyone was there. Then he turned and went the opposite direction with the bag (that part is in the video).
He was gone for about 30 minutes.
When he came back, that same noise started up again almost immediately. And he started singing again.
My ex kept saying it sounded like an electric chainsaw, which felt extreme to me—but it definitely wasn’t normal. It went on for about another hour before stopping completely.
We stayed up for hours after that. We never heard or saw anyone else leave. And we never heard that woman’s voice again.
The guy checked out the next day.
I called my mom that night, hoping she’d tell me I was overthinking it. She said it was probably just some weird guy watching creepy p*rn, but it was very clearly a real voice in there—not something coming from a TV.
My ex even called the front desk and asked if they could do a welfare check, but no one ever came. I think they were annoyed because we had already complained about the noise twice.
I don’t know. It was just a bunch of really strange things happening all at once, and it still doesn’t sit right with me.