Murder Carpet

When I stay in a hotel it is usually either for work or it is a mid-drive stop on the way to the Midwest. This being the case I will point out the obvious and say that I do not stay at fancy hotels. Work is very generous and always covers rooms at a clean and safe hotel, but definitely not resort-style places. The same goes for when I buy my own hotel room; I look for clean, safe, and close to a coffee shop, nothing fancy.

I do not know if what I am about to discuss is true for the fancy hotels, but I know it is true for the midline:

Question: why do hotels insist on having very ugly and alarmingly murder-y carpet in their hallways? Example below.

This is the actual carpet from the hotel I stayed in on Friday night for work. First of all, why? Why would anyone look at this carpet and think, “Yes, that’s exactly what I want my floors to look like”? And secondly, have the people who decorate hotels never seen The Shining?

For any of you who have not seen The Shining, all you really need to know is this: a lot of bad and murder-y things happen in a giant hotel with very visually aggressive carpet, pictured below.

This movie is why I relate visually aggressive carpeting to murder. And thusly every time I step into one of those midline hotels that have such carpeting, my mind immediately turns to murder. Has a murder happened here? Is this place haunted by the murder victims? Is there a Jack Nicholson-like caretaker who’s been inside just a little too long wandering the halls? These are the questions one must ask oneself when assaulted by ugly carpet.

Really the most important factor for me at a hotel is that I feel safe. I typically arrive fresh from a long day of work or travel and looking to just relax and recover for the next day of more work or travel. The last thing I need is to walk down a long hallway of murder carpet and yet, that is what I most often find. It immediately puts me on edge, imagining I’m going to come upon the creepy twins or the dead woman in the bathtub at any second (references to the movie, not real life experience…yet).

And so I reiterate my question: why, hotels? Why do you do this to people, most especially your staff? Why do you do this to your own eyeballs? Also, who designs and produces this carpeting for hotels? Are they well? Should someone perhaps check on them?

Perhaps these things do not even occur to people who are not hyper-vigilant movie/Stephen King fans. They wouldn’t worry about this at all. They might not even notice the carpet and all the evil it portends. They could probably walk into a hotel with the exact same carpeting from the movie and not even notice, lay their little heads down on the pillows, and sleep like babies. How nice. That kind of life must be peaceful. Not for me, though. I prefer to keep my eyes peeled and stay alert for signs of danger. All I’m saying is that the murder carpet in hotels really sends the wrong message, a definite sign of danger to those of us in the know.

Anyway, sleep well kids.