What is it acceptable to take from hotel rooms?

naterbox, in a way you're right; but the hotel's overall budget will be based on what actually gets used or vanishes, not on making an allowance for theoretical use. So toiletries left or not stolen will help reduce costs overall. To give an 'on its head' example, I've heard people arguing that dropping litter on the streets is OK because there's a budget for cleaning it up and it gives a job to some poor soul. The street cleaners will soon put them right on that! If little litter was dropped, the cleaning budget would be lower and we could all pay a little less council tax. In the same way, if taking stuff from rooms was limited to actually used toiletries, room rates could be less. Rant over!

I take toiletries I've used because they will not be used by another guest, and I've seen a chambermaid throw then in the bin. To me that is criminal waste. I don't know if the items were retrieved later. As far as I'm aware the complimentary toiletries are included in the price of the room.

We do seem now to have a culture of 'if I take it from an anonymous company, then it's OK because everyone does it'; tempered by 'I know it's actually wrong and immoral, and I don't want to be caught, and shamed or worse'. If those thefts, even minor ones, did not happen, then the prices charged would be less. We all know that, but then the thought comes, 'If someone's going to take it, then it might as well be me!' That picture above makes the point of where this is leading: how on earth is the 'lucky acquirer' going to use all those stolen goods that have been so neatly stored? Put them out for guests? Then what are you telling those friends about yourself? Keep them for family use later, especially those towels with the hotel's name on them? Visitors might well spot the damning evidence. In the 1960s at the Longbridge car plant, they took this further - but not by much. It eventually became common practice for workers to source parts, not just for their own, but for their friends' cars from the production line, then for anyone who met them in the pub. So much so, that BL had to buy half as many again as needed of some parts because of disappearances. Not surprising, then, that the company needed state assistance to keep its prices low enough to sell the cars, nor that a few of the workforce boasted that they could build new cars in their own garages (the bodies literally 'fell off the back' of the lorries transferring bodies on public roads across to the assembly plant.) OK, this is different; it's petty theft from a hotel. But while I happily take the remainder of a shampoo or soap for my washbag because I've used it, any more comes into the category 'it's not mine'. Do as you would be done by; if you wouldn't like visitors to take your stuff from your home, then don't do it elsewhere. Does that make me stuffy and prissy? No, it makes me someone who's trying to be honest despite, let's face it, the temptation!