You usually know what to expect when you check into a hotel, but one man was baffled by a lamp that appeared to lead to an inaccessible room.
Eric Counts, who works in personal finance and owns CreditNerds.com, usually shares finance videos to TikTok, but a throwaway clip he “didn’t give a second thought” to led him to go viral on the app.
Counts told Newsweek that he had been on a work trip to Detroit. He checked into the Hilton Embassy Suites, where he was due to speak at a conference, when he found something he had never seen before. Hilton has been contacted for comment.
“I tried turning on [the] lamp and, when it didn’t work, I just assumed it was unplugged,” Counts said. “I looked to see and noticed the cord went under the door to the adjoining room.”
In a video to his account @creditnerds, Counts shows the standing lamp in his room, where the plug cord goes underneath a door. When he opens it, it leads to another door to a different room, which is locked and unopenable.
Eric Counts follows the lead to a closed door. The lamp appeared to be plugged in to an inaccessible room.
TikTok @creditnerds
“Is this lamp plugged in the next room over? Because it doesn’t work,” he says, trying to turn it on to no avail. “I’ve never seen this.”
Counts told Newsweek: “I thought it was odd and grabbed my phone for a TikTok. I never expected it to get the response it did.”
TikTok users responded in their droves, with his video racking up over 25,000 likes since being shared on May 31, with many viewers giving their own theories.
One wrote: “Is it an adjoining room? A family could’ve stayed and moved the lamp [to] that side and forgot to change back when they moved the lamp.”
Another user told Counts to “call the front desk and ask why,” or even to knock on next door’s room and “ask if the lamp is plugged in and if they could unplug it” before passing the cord back to him.
A third viewer even accused the poster of doing it on purpose “to make your video.”
Counts said the most unfortunate part of his clip gaining popularity was “how many people attack you and treat you like you aren’t a real person when something goes viral.”
“People calling you stupid, and some even said I ‘faked’ it for views. Why would anyone fake something so pointless?”
Counts said that, with the amount of videos he shares to help people understand their credit and personal finances, “I honestly just wish it would have been one of those videos that blew up.”
He travels “dozens of times a year for work”, and stays in hotels regularly, and had “just never seen that before.”
Counts is one of millions around the world who travels for work, with the World Travel and Tourism Council reporting in 2021 that business travel accounts for 20 percent of the global tourism expenditure, according to Statista. Business travelers spent over $740 billion worldwide that year alone, the WTTC reports.
Counts chose not to ask the front desk or housekeeping about the lamp, and assumed it happened by accident.
“I simply turned on a different light in the room. By the time the video went crazy, I had already checked out of the hotel and hadn’t given it a second thought. It’s funny the things that catch people’s attention.”
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