TYLER (KYTX) -- A Tyler hotel had some unwanted guests Monday night. Someone's broke into peoples' into rooms while they were sleeping, according to police.
It happened at the Quality Hotel near the intersection of Northwest Loop 323 and Gentry Parkway/Highway 69.
"I'm thinking I'm safe," hotel guest Christine McFarlain said. "And then I wake up, the curtain's blowing out [through my balcony door]."
What McFarlain didn't know was that someone had opened the door, crept inside and stole her backpack. It was in the chair right by the door.
"This door looks like it was fixed to where it wouldn't latch anymore," she said. "I can push it as hard as I want to and keep flipping the switch and it's not going to go."
McFarlain is staying with a group and some of the others told CBS 19 their balcony door locks don't work either.
The hotel backs up to an abandoned lot and a wide open parking lot. The only thing stopping people from getting on hotel property is a dilapidated fence. After that it's just a short jump from a retaining wall onto one of the balconies.
The manager at Quality Hotel said he's about to be finished installing new lights outside the rooms where thefts have happened. There are no security cameras on that side of the building but he said he would consider installing them.
He said new locks that actually work will only come from replacing the doors--and that's five years away.
McFarlain said the manager told her she should have been using a secondary lock which consists of a bar that physically stops the door from sliding. She didn't realize was it was there because it's easily hidden by the curtains.
Police records show at least four other incidents at the same hotel just since July. Those reports don't say whether thieves entered through the balcony doors.
"Me being a female just makes me feel uneasy about the whole situation," McFarlain said.
McFarlain has plans to replace the backpack and what was inside it. But she's more concerned about what could have happened if the thief had bigger plans, and if a male co-worker hadn't been asleep in the other bed.
"I definitely feel a lot more secure about the fact that he was in here that night," she said. "Because, you just don't know."
Locks that don't work aren't a criminal issue. Tyler police said they really can't do anything about them.
Most hotels have policies posted that exempt them from being responsible for lost things so police advise using a safe or find some other way to lock things up in a way you trust.
If you have any information on who may have broken into rooms at the Quality Hotel, call Tyler Police at 903-531-1090.
