A woman says she was “panicked” after someone tried to break into her room. She says she was staying at the Sonesta Select Atlanta Cumberland Galleria Ballpark Hotel in Atlanta.

Haley Bartoletta posted a TikTok on August 18 warning people in downtown Atlanta about this hotel.

TikTok has been viewed almost 300,000 times.

Bartolleta says she and her sister checked into the Sonesta hotel before attending a concert at a nearby venue.

Until they got back from the show, everything seemed “perfectly fine” with the hotel, she says.

“It was like someone was hotboxing with cigarettes in our room,” Bartolleta said of the smell in their hotel room.

As her sister fell asleep, Bartoletta heard someone enter their room.

Eventually, Bartoletta fell asleep, but around 1:30 a.m. she heard something, she says.

“There was a noise, like someone was trying to break through our neighboring door,” she says in her video.

She woke her sister and together they walked to the lobby to request a new room.

“We leave all our stuff in the room because at this point I just want to get out of here as quickly as possible,” she says.

A man who looked “on some kind of drug” walked down the hallway, she said, and they quickly got into the elevator.

Bartoletta says the hotel receptionist’s reaction when they told him what had happened was “strange.” He didn’t ask any questions or apologize, she says.

He did offer them a new room, she says. The new room number was 517, and their previous room was 617.

“My thoughts immediately went to sex trafficking,” Bartoletta says. “Maybe dramatic, but I was already on my guard.”

How common is human trafficking in hotels?

Hotels are prime targets for human trafficking, according to Van Law Firm. And hotels are involved in 60% of human trafficking cases.

After packing their things from their old room, she and her sister went to the fifth floor.

“The same man who was walking down the hall when we left our room on the sixth floor is now walking down the hall on the fifth floor,” she says. “As soon as we get out of the elevator, I see him. I literally grab my sister, we turn around and we go.”

She says the hotel receptionist didn’t say anything to them when they left.

“I feel like this is a lesson in just being very aware,” she says. “It could have been nothing, but it could have been something, and my gut feeling was telling me something wasn’t right.”

A few commenters said they had a similar experience to Bartoletta’s at the same Sonesta hotel.

“I STAY THERE TOO, and we had an adjoining room again, and they tried to get into our room through the adjoining door too,” wrote one commenter. I thought we were going crazy, we put the table in front of the door…”

“Oh my sister and I stayed there recently and I woke up to a sound like someone was trying to open our door,” wrote another. “It was so loud. We shoved a towel under the door so it wouldn’t open.”

“Never stay at a Sonesta or any of those hotels,” said one commenter. “Pay the cost of more expensive hotels, especially in larger cities…”

What is a Sonesta hotel?

The U.S.-based chain is huge, with more than 1,100 hotels. But that’s relatively new. The 87-year-old brand was considered a boutique label until the pandemic, when it suddenly took over struggling properties from brands like Intercontinental, Candlewood Suites, Knights In, Red Lion and Holiday Inn.

How do you stay safe in a hotel?

Van Law Firm advises people to keep their hotel rooms locked 24/7. Also, guests should only open their doors to familiar faces.

The company also says that traffickers sometimes pose as hotel employees to gain access to rooms, so it is important for staff to have easily identifiable identification.

The Lawsuit Information Center shares data on lawsuits against hotels for human trafficking, for “looking the other way.” Since March, there have been at least 10 people who have filed such lawsuits.

Commentators offered advice on what to do in a situation where you are concerned about human trafficking.

“You should have called the police to escort you out of the hotel,” one viewer wrote.

@haleyymasonn The exact name of the hotel – Sonesta Select Atlanta Cumberland Galleria Ballpark #safety #storytime #hotel #atlanta #atl ♬ original sound – haleymason

“We’ve gotten to the point where we take a hidden camera with us and plug it in when we leave the hotel room,” shared another.

The Daily Dot reached out to Bartoletta via email, but she did not immediately respond. The Sonesta Select Atlanta Cumberland Galleria Ballpark Hotel also did not immediately respond to The Daily Dot’s request for comment.

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