Woman realises hotel peephole gives direct view into her room

‘What it’s like travelling as a woman,’ reads traveller’s warning

The hotel room peephole in Erin’s video (TikTok/@ErinVabney)

A woman has warned fellow female travellers to watch out for “trick” peepholes in hotels, after discovering that hers allowed passers by to look directly into her hotel room.

TikTok user Erin Vabney was staying in Las Vegas when she realised that the peephole in her hotel room door had been “installed backwards” - offering staff and strangers a direct view into her room, rather than doing its proper function of allowing her to see who was standing outside.

Erin seemed unsurprised by the disturbing discovery, saying it was “very common” in hotels she’d stayed in.

“What it’s like travelling as a woman,” she captioned her video.

“Always check your peepholes. Mine was installed backwards so anyone could see into my hotel room. It’s very common for peepholes to be tampered.”

The TikTok video, which has had 2.2 million views so far, shows Erin coming out to the corridor and zooming in to focus on her room’s peephole.

The peephole clearly shows the corridor into her room as well as part of the bedroom, meaning anyone walking past could see her in there without her knowledge.

“Great, another thing to worry about,” commented one follower.

“I have a whole playlist [of TikTok videos] in my favorites called ‘What to look for in hotels’,” said another.

Others shared tips for stuffing the peephole with toilet paper on the room side, or covering it with a Post-It note to foil any would-be peeping Toms.

It follows a wave of TikTok users revealing that they have found hidden cameras in their rental apartments.

In February, Texas-based Brittany Walsh posted a video showing the centimetres-wide device - about the size of a ping-pong ball - she’d found plugged into the wall in her vacation home.

Meanwhile, British TikTok user Marcus Hutchins, describing himself as an “ex-hacker”, shared his tips for spotting hidden cameras in Airbnbs in a video that quickly went viral.