What could be the purpose of a motion-detector inside a hotel room? Is this a new trend?
This one, in our room at the new Mandarin Oriental in Barcelona, blinked madly whenever we moved. It was a little creepy. I looked around for a hidden video camera.
When I asked reception staff, they explained that the motion sensor allowed them to determine occupancy in case of an emergency. This didn’t make sense to me; an occupant could be incapacitated, overcome by smoke in a fire, for example, or knocked unconscious in an earthquake.
I wrote the hotel, and its Director of Engineering & Loss Prevention replied promptly:
The motion sensor is part of the Inncom-Clipsal guestroom comfort system.
When the guest leaves the guestroom after 20 minutes inactivity the system goes to lighting off and A/C to set point.
When the guest enter in the guestroom the motion sensor activates all lighting memory scenario and A/C to last selected temperature.
That makes sense. And it explains my earlier post, too. In fact, I received two interesting explanations simultaneously. The Mandarin Oriental’s, and a comment from Tom. Tom has a different theory, but added “you’d probably hear claims of being able to report occupancy to firefighters, emergency responders, etc.” Which is exactly what I first heard.
Until they become commonplace (if they do), it’s probably not a bad idea for hotels using these gizmos to post a little note in the room explaining the purpose of them, given the intrusive sense of spying the observant but uninformed guest might feel. On the other hand, the proliferation of notes and commandments in hotel rooms has been irritating me lately. “Watch your step,” “test water temperature,” “towels on the floor,” even pictures of items not to be flushed.
The Mandarin Oriental in Barcelona is a spiffy joint, I might add, in an excellent location.
What is this? Anyone have a clue? It was mounted on the inside of our Westin Hotel room door.
I know, I could have asked hotel management. But you know—you check in late, catch an early flight the next morning… There’s not always time to satisfy curiosity.
A tour of the muti market, where witchdoctors sell traditional medicine.
South Africa—It was somewhat of a shock to find nothing but white lines on asphalt in the place we knew we left a van. We couldn’t help but wonder whether our minds were slipping and the van stood undisturbed in a forgotten location. But there it wasn’t, high noon and sixty feet from the entrance of Rustenburg’s busiest supermarket. We stood two and a half hours, groceries dripping and spoiling, staring morosely at our empty parking space as we waited for the South African Police. They never bothered to show up.
So the van was stolen; we shouldn’t have been surprised. We’d read in the local papers how often these vehicles disappear into the taxi trade, and our own experience had provided us with enough warnings. Once we’d returned from an hour in a Johannesburg mall to find the ignition busted by a would-be thief who’d easily entered the vehicle but couldn’t get it started, presumably due to the special electronic safety key system with which the van was equipped. Weeks later in the same parking lot a less-skilled perpetrator was foiled, ruining only the door lock. Then, the week before Christmas, we were jabbed by the foul fingers of crime in a more personal manner.
Winding up a long stay in South Africa, we had packed a few boxes to mail home. The year had seen a natural accumulation of files, notes, photos, and clothing purchased to shield us from a winter for which we were ill-prepared. Though we weren’t sending anything of major value, we were distressed to learn that it wasn’t possible to insure any mail to the U.S. We never completely trust international mail, especially in nations rife with poverty. In addition to sloppy and careless handling, we worry about stamp-stealing, prevalent in many parts of Africa. Postal workers are known to steam stamps off envelopes, discard the letters, and earn pennies for the stamps. But as we couldn’t justify sending everything air cargo, we packed up four twenty-pound boxes of a year’s slough.
In Rustenburg, an hour’s drive from where we lived, we rushed to the post office, as we knew it closed for lunch at one. We parked at the busy entrance, directly in front of the public telephones. I waited in the van with the parcels while Bob went to buy tape for a final touch on the labels. I was engrossed in Newsweek when a sullen man materialized at my open window. He asked where some street or shop was; I couldn’t quite understand, as he spoke in the submissive, barely audible mumble so many South Africans used. I asked him several times to repeat himself—we were always so sensitive about being friendly and courteous to everyone there.
A couple of (former?) thieves describe the powers of the bark and animal-part medicines.
Meanwhile, a second man appeared at the open driver’s side window and asked another unintelligible question. With a stranger on either side of me, open windows, keys dangling in the ignition, I felt frighteningly vulnerable. I casually lowered a hand to my bag and shoved my watch wrist down and out of sight, trying to look at both men at once while politely saying I don’t know, sorry, no. I was definitely nervous.
Both the lost souls wandered innocently away in seemingly separate directions and Bob returned with his purchase. Being an unpredictable land, the post office closed at 12:30, not 1:00 that day, so we missed it after all, and only by two minutes. While we taped labels, I told Bob what had happened, and we discussed how close we’d come to being ripped off.
We locked and left the van, and walked to our usual lunch place two blocks away, grumbling about what a shame it was that we had to suspect people who are most likely decent and honest. We did feel certain we were almost robbed, even though the gentlemen merely asked for directions. Did they appear shady? By our cultural standards, yes. But in South Africa, the downcast eyes, low mumbled speech, and meek stance seem to be the product of generations of oppression and domination, if not their own aboriginal behavior. As we analyzed the origin of the character traits, we felt guilty. Were we prejudiced, or merely wise?
Bathe with this stuff and you'll become invisible to police, we're told.
Not wise. We returned forty minutes later to find only one of our four boxes left in the locked-tight van. Yes, in retrospect, leaving the boxes in the unattended van was stupid. We should have known. But in broad daylight, on a crowded street, right in front of a government building—who would think they’d have the nerve? We half-expected to lose a box or two in the mailing, but not before the mailing.
Of course none of the people at the telephones or waiting for the post office to reopen saw anything. Off we went to the police station, where officers assured us we’d never see our things again. Our clothing would be put to good use and our files, photos, and books would most likely fuel an evening’s cooking fire.
We’d had the privilege of using a borrowed van for weekly treks into town from where we lived in the bush. Careful and conscientious, we treated the van as if it were our own; that is, we parked it in the busiest, closest, and best-lit places, and always ensured it was locked securely. Despite this, the statistics were shocking. In 45 weeks we borrowed the van about 40 times, almost once a week. With our four occurrences, we were victimized ten percent of the times we drove. This would translate to 36 times a year, an intolerable figure, if we had driven every day, as we do at home.
We were not virginal victims. In California, our house had been robbed, our car stereo stolen, and an illegal alien once tried to get into my bedroom window while I was home alone. In the latter case, the police arrived swiftly, apprehended the creep and, before my eyes, dispossessed him of a knife, a screwdriver, and a few hundred pornographic pictures. But these three affronts were spread over seven years and, until South Africa, comprised our entire experience as victims of crime.
With the frequency of our South African incidents, it became difficult to give the benefit of the doubt to the average man on the street, the man who wouldn’t meet our gaze and mumbled incoherently into the ground. Of course it could be argued that our logic was flawed, that there was no proof who our thieves were. True. But aren’t we all susceptible to hunches and assumptions that grow from experience? We tend to generalize, to the detriment of many, and judge a whole by its most visible parts. The people who indulge in violence and crime poison our perception of the group.
Johannesburg children
Bob and I left that country with a unique South African souvenir tucked safely away, an unfortunate byproduct of the chronic crime we experienced there. Not rare but valuable, we took away a useful and lasting kernel of cynicism, planted by thieves. As we continue living the lives of expatriates, and even in our own country, we’re more suspicious of and aloof to everyone who approaches us.
I don’t think a plugged-up hotel bathtub or sink is terribly odd. The number of them we run into though, is. Why doesn’t housekeeping discover them? Shouldn’t they realize that a slow or stopped-up drain needs fixing before a guest arrives? This was the only flaw in our otherwise excellent Paris hotel. It was fixed right away.
Breakfast, I might add, was superb. Shall I name the place? Why not. It was the Holiday Inn Bastille—the joint beside the sex shop.
TV remotes with low or dead batteries, and missing lightbulbs, fall into the same category as slow drains. We run into these as well. Little irritations when you’ve traveled far, maybe checked in late, or early after an overnight flight. Sloppy. Shouldn’t happen in a decent hotel.
Pirouetting, I went to find Kun Chang, our film director, who’d been with us all day, along with his crew. When we’d given chase to our quarry, they’d followed our progress from a distance, eventually taking up a static, central position. Now I stood with Kun & Co. just long enough to get my little video camera turned on, amazed to see Bob and the purse-dip still together.
I went to join them, instantly lowering Bob’s perceived threat, from the thief’s point of view. No longer was it one mysteriously-motivated man against a criminal—it was just a couple! A harmless, curious couple. We moved out of the traffic and huddled next to a vending machine.
The man did not deny his occupation. He did not bolt. He did not raise a fist or deliver a swift kick or practice whatever form of aggression he’s known for. He answered our questions in soft-spoken Arabic-tinged French and repeatedly asked one of his own: Why? Why do you want to know these things?
Our French-speaking film director, Kun Chang, soon joined us, raising the level of our conversation from Bob’s basic French. I glanced down at my camera, a tiny thing the size of my little finger. Packed into its small body are a battery, a chip that stores hours of sound and video, an unnoticeable lens, and a few switches. Gone are the cumbersome wires, remotes, antennas, transmitters, and external storage devices we wrangled while using our old hidden cameras. But this one lacks a viewing device or monitor, and I wasn’t familiar with its capturing angle, or anything else about it.
Bob used a gorgeous little fisheye camera. He took a quick peek to see that it was on, then stashed it in his pocket, recording audio but no video.
Glancing down, I was horrified to see a flashing red light. This is one of the first things I usually disable when thiefhunting. You may as well display a giant neon sign: “I’m recording!” I covered the light with my finger, immobilizing my left hand for the remainder of the encounter.
Bob: “I’m a pickpocket too, like you. For the last 20 minutes, I’ve watched your technique. I can see you’re very experienced.” Bob does the butter-up.
Bob: “I’m very good on stage.” (And modest, an Italian thief once chided.)
First time using this camera. I didn't aim very well.
Bob, afraid our detainee would soon scoot, suggested coffee together, or dinner. “I need to work, I can’t stop to have dinner with you,” he said. “And beside, I don’t want to be on TV. I can see you’re filming me right now.” He jabbed a finger toward my camera.
Cooly, I pretended not to hear that.
We learned that our man considers himself best at stealing from handbags and backpacks. It’s best to do it when the person is moving, in motion, he explained, and you have to concentrate on the person while you’re doing it. Puffing up a little, he invited us to follow him and watch.
Looking up at Bob Arno, who is much taller.
I suddenly noticed how much fringe from my scarf was falling in front of the camera. I swept it away. But maybe that was why the thief had seemed to forget about it. I wondered what kind of image I was getting. And what about sound? Was my finger over the microphone? I didn’t know.
The thief told us that he doesn’t know how to work in a gang, he never has. And he said stealing is a hundred times more difficult on the street, as compared to the stage. Bob agreed, though he believes otherwise. When a criminal fails, he walks away and tries again. When a stage pickpocket fails, he has hundreds or thousands of witnesses, and a reputation dependent on success.
Throughout, the man stood calmly, gesturing rarely, jacket zipped to his chin. Built like a flyweight boxer, exuding confidence and arrogance, he seemed in no hurry to leave us, despite his professed need to work. (We actually see this behavior often: thieves seem to enjoy an opportunity to brag, to tell their sob stories, to talk to someone willing to listen.)
The pickpocket explained the importance of getting the cardholder-victim’s PIN, and that he had no trouble memorizing the four digits. He said he uses the credit cards himself, he never sells them to others. Then he dropped the bombshell—to me, the most interesting revelation:
He doesn’t steal money—only credit cards. He never takes people’s cash because it’s not insured. What he steals from their credit cards, they get back from the bank.
Really? A thief with a heart?
Bob begged again for a dinner together, or another meeting. The thief said sure, maybe tomorrow, and took our phone number. He made sure we had his name spelled correctly, and suggested some possible times. Shaking hands all around, he turned and slipped into the turbulent crowd. Back to work.
A cheese, mushroom, and egg crepe.
* * *
Did we go to the Eiffel Tower, you wonder? Did we visit Notre Dame, or the Louvre? No, no time for any of that this time. But we did eat well.
We started early at Gare de Lyon in Paris, on the hunt for a particular thief. He’s known for a specific M.O., and for his violent nature.
He stands in line at train station ticket machines and watches as passengers purchase tickets with credit cards. Most credit cards issued outside of the U.S. require a PIN code, which must be entered on a keypad. The large keypads on the train station ticket machines make it easy for anyone interested to learn a cardholder’s PIN. Rarely do people bother to hide the numbers they enter.
A man enters his PIN while buying Metro tickets with a credit card.
The man we sought takes note of the PIN—he shoulder-surfs—and watches where the credit card is put away. Then he follows the mark. He has any number of methods of stealing the credit card; the train and Metro station is full of opportunities-in-the-making.
He could let a partner stall the mark in a turnstile, on an escalator, or getting onto a train. But that would mean splitting the proceeds of the risky business with the partner. Our man prefers to work alone.
With crowds like these, who needs to split proceeds with a stall?
His favored victim is a woman. Why? It’s infinitely easier to steal from a handbag rather than a pocket. A purse has no nerve-endings. It’s slung on the woman’s back, it’s gaping open, it has an easy zipper, or a flap. The woman is busy, distracted, she has luggage, or a child. She’s in high heels, she’s “minding the gap.”
Bambi on the hunt.
We spent hours speeding through Gare de Lyon, fastwalking up and down stairs and escalators, through the train station and Metro station, past numerous banks of ticket machines, around and around. Who said thiefhunting is easy work?
Our irregular behavior might have raised the suspicion of station surveillance officers, had the police not been aware of our activities. But Bob Arno’s reputation precedes him and the anti-bandit detail of the Paris police force tolerated our pursuit.
Shoulder-surfing at the ticket machines.
When we first laid eyes on our prey, he was checking out the people waiting to buy tickets at the machines. He sussed them out quickly; the same way Bob and I look for thieves in a crowd. He turned on his heel and strode off at high speed, as if late for a train.
I was struck by his choice of clothing. He wore a shiny black jacket with wide white stripes down the arms, and a beige beret; both of which made him easy to pick out of a crowd. Bob and I, trailing him from a moderate distance, often lost him in the mobs of moving people. But he always surfaced again, easy to spot in his signature style. Had he worn a dull shirt, or a black sport coat like Pierre, like a good percentage of the businessmen hurrying through the terminal, we’d have lost him.
Okay, it's a bad picture. This is a small detail cropped from a fisheye video framegrab. The thief is in the center.
Bob and I split up for the chase. We made wide arcs around the thief, we got ahead of him, we hung back, we lingered behind columns and vending machines. I felt conspicuous in my beige coat. Bob was a striking beanstalk, a full head above the rest of the crowd. The guy had to notice us… any second.
I had two video cameras on me, but neither was my trusty Sony, the one I can work upside-down and blindfolded and shoot from the hip. I didn’t turn them on.
Keep an eye on the pickpocket…
The man was short but his bereted head rode among the crowd’s like a piece of litter on a choppy sea. He darted among the throng in a manner that Bob and I soon found predictable. He dashed from one queue to the next, scanned the potential marks, moved on. He was focused.
But he had tunnel vision. After all this time, he was oblivious to us. Bob and I got closer and more overt, closing in from opposite sides. I fiddled with my camera, afraid to look at its switches for fear of losing the bobbing beige beret.
But I did look at the camera. And when I looked up again, Bob was face to face with the shoulder-surfing pickpocket, and I knew it was all over. In a moment, he’d flee.
“Dear Bob,
My name is Pierre. I’m 33 years old and I have worked as a pickpocket in Paris since the age of 13.”
We received this intriguing email (in French) in October 2009. It ended with an invitation to meet in Paris in order to exchange stories and anecdotes.
Over the course of 44 additional emails, “Pierre” told us about himself and his work. He claimed to have a graveyard factory job. Pickpocketing was a sideline, he said, but one he took seriously. He used to do his thieving in the Paris Metro, but now works strictly out of town. The laws changed recently, he explained, making it easier for police to pick up and hold known offenders.
In November, Pierre wrote that he and a partner would be going to a huge farming expo in Brussels. Neither Pierre nor his partner are involved in farming, of course.
A souvenir; proof of prowess; a trophy.
In December, he attached a photo to his email, captioned “a memory from Brussels.” Fingers grasping a wallet.
Eventually Bob and Pierre spoke at length on Skype (without video). We decided to visit Paris. Not just to meet Pierre, of course; but the rendezvous would be a bonus.
Coincidentally, we are in the beginning of a documentary film project. Not the beginning, really, as the idea germinated exactly four years ago this month. But we have finally begun shooting. We have a first-rate film director, Kun Chang (the driving force behind the project); a mighty production house; and the world’s best-regarded multimedia company as primary investor and distributor. (We’ll formally announce the project soon.) Our film director spent the week in Paris with us.
Pierre picked the place for our meeting: a brasserie called Au Canon de la Nation. We walked over early for a quick lunch. Could this part-time-Parisien-pickpocket possibly know that canon is criminal parlance for pickpocket in the U.S.? The in-joke gave us a little laugh as we took chilly terrace seats on our first day in the City of Light-fingers, wondering if our thief would show up.
He was 45 minutes early! Is that eager, or what? Tall and elegant in a black blazer, briefcase in hand, Pierre wouldn’t raise an eyebrow in any situation. He is what I call a “gentleman thief:” one who can insinuate himself among people of means without looking out of place.
He arrived with a gift: a copy of the book Pickpockets!, by François Abjean. The author was a formidable pickpocket cop in Paris, who arrested Pierre in 1993. The book was stolen from a library, of course. [Update 6/28/10: Pierre wrote today, offended by this reference to the book being stolen. He bought it on the internet, he explained.]
We talked for an hour over a thimble-sized espresso—proving the frivolity of the bottomless American coffee mug. Kun, our director, translated—proving the deficiency of Google translations and Bob’s schoolboy French.
The Parisian pickpocket allowed himself to be photographed from behind.
We all planned to meet again the next day. Pierre would bring his partner, who had already agreed to meet us. Kun hinted to the possibility of filming the thieves, and handed over a bag of disguises from which the two could build new looks. Pierre smirked at the plastic glasses and fake mustaches, but thought it was feasible, as long as his and his friend’s identities were protected.
This was a good beginning for our week in Paris and a promising start of our film project. Bob, Kun, and I left Au Canon de la Nation on a high. Was it just the coffee?
When we interviewed Luciano in Naples, Italy, our translator, a Napolitano, explained how Rolexes are stolen off the wrists of drivers in the summer.
The team targets expensive cars and scopes out the drivers’ watches from the vantage point of a motorcycle. It’s hot. The windows are up and the air-conditioner is on. Traffic is heavy, as always in Naples, and there are no such things as lanes. Cars squeeze into whatever interstices exist.
There’s a Mercedes that fits the bill. A scooter slips alongside it; the scooter driver folds down the Mercedes’ side mirror in order to pass, and winds away through the gridlock. The Mercedes driver opens her window and readjusts the side mirror with her left hand. That’s the moment another scooter zooms up, rips the Rolex or Cartier or Piaget right off the extended wrist, follows the first scooter between stagnant cars, and disappears into an alley.
Violent sex in hotel rooms may or may not excite you, but it’s happening more and more often these days. “Traumatic insemination” is the correct terminology for the savage act these male perpetrators perform.
Yes, I’m referring to bed bug reproduction, and it’s probably occurring in a bed near you. Hopefully, not your own. Hopefully, not one you’ve slept in.
Given the number of nights I stay in hotels every year (200+), this concerns me. I know that mosquitoes are attracted to me, but I’m not aware of having slept with bed bugs. Now that infestations are pretty much exploding across the country, I worry about the possibility, but not in an obsessive way. I don’t inspect hotel beds, for example, though maybe I should.
I’m not just worried about being bitten. I’m afraid of bringing the parasitic hitchhikers home with me, in my clothing or luggage.
The entomologist in my family shared this little zinger from a fellow bug man who travels a lot (but probably not as much as I do):
…when I stay in hotels, all my luggage immediately goes into the bathtub. I don’t drop any clothes on the bed. One of the experts in bed bugs who does a lot of traveling said that he has now found bed bugs in 4 of the hotels where he stayed. He also takes everything that can be thrown into the dryer as soon as he gets home and runs the dryer for about 20 minutes. Another thing to do is bring giant trash bags with you on trips. When you get to the hotel, break out the trash bag, put a piece of luggage in each bag and seal it whenever you aren’t actively dipping into the luggage. It isn’t fun but getting an infestation of bed bugs in your home means all new furniture, rugs, drapes, etc. It is a very expensive treatment and you lose lots of stuff.
(The bug scientist quoted above prefers not to be named.) First I’d ask him: what kind of hotels do you stay in? But that would be naive, because any bed can get them if a bed bug-carrying human or animal has been in it.
The insect we’re talking about, Cimex lectularius, is a wingless external parasite that feeds only on blood, says entomologist Lenny Vincent. It only needs to feed about once a month, but adults can survive over six months without a meal. And the female can lay some 540 eggs during her lifespan.
When I was a child, my parents put me to bed with the same comforting verbal-barbiturate every evening: “Night-night… sleep tight… don’t let the bed bugs bite!” I believed bed bugs were some sort of mythical creature, like tooth-fairies and goblins and bambianikins; fictitious characters to smile about and dismiss.
And to some extent they were fictitious; at least in the U.S., bed bugs were pretty much history, thanks to DDT. Had I known as an eight- or ten-year-old kid that tiny bed-dwelling critters that dine on human blood actually existed, I would have been up all night, or screaming with nightmares. But DDT went away in 1972, and foreign travel increased, bringing new infestations. Now, bed bugs are back.
Back to bed bug sex for a minute. Males are attracted to the scent of a well-fed individual (bug, not human) of either gender. An accosted male will send out a scent signal indicating that he’s not fair game. When the male finds a female, he plunges his aedeagus (penis) into her belly, without bothering to find a proper entry point. Hence the term, traumatic insemination. My guess is that the female vows never to mate with that guy again! You’ll soon learn, little miss bug: they’re all the same….
As awful as a bed bug-infestation-brought-home sounds, I can’t examine every hotel room and bed for bugs. I can’t imagine storing luggage in the bathtub—not all hotel rooms even have bathtubs—nor can I imagine the hassle of the plastic bag wrap. But I may live to regret my laziness. I should take it from an entomologist.
Think you’ve got ’em at home? For $350, you can call in trained dogs to sniff them out with 96% accuracy.
People can look up and report sightings and infestations at The Bed bug Registry, though claims are not verified.
Pest control companies are hawking heat treatments. One provides a bed bug-baking service for any size space. Four hours at 130° does it, they say. Maybe less. Confidentially. So your neighbors (or other hotel guests) don’t know you’ve got bed bugs.
Perhaps even you can smell them. Bed bugs are said to smell like cilantro and unripe coriander seeds. Or, the other way around: “The very name coriander is said to be derived from the Greek word koris, meaning bed bug. The foliage of the plant, and its seeds in the unripe stage, have an odor which has been compared with the smell of bug-infested bedclothes.” The Oxford Companion to Food, 1999.
Ever stay in a hotel that tried to make you feel guilty about using the amenities? The beautiful Excel Hotel Tokyu at Tokyo’s Haneda airport pushes hard against guests’ heartstrings with all the hot-button words: forests, children, money, save, environment.
In order to help the global environment, we have implemented our “Green Coin” program. We are asking our guests to return “Green Coin”, which is attached to this card, to the front desk when the amenities in your room have not been used.
Our “Green Coin” will hopefully decreases the amount of disposable amenities used in all Tokyu Hotels.
The more coins we are able to collect from our guests, the more money we will donate to the OISCA Foundation’s “Children’s Forests” program and “Tokyu Hotels Green Coin Forests.
