Why Isn't There a 13th Floor in some Hotels?

It's most noticeable in the elevator: in tall buildings, you may see buttons for every floor except 13. For the superstitious, staying, living, or working on the 13th floor can cause a sense of discomfort, sometimes so much so that they switch floors or take their business elsewhere. But according to a 2007 Gallup poll, a whopping 87% of people don't mind staying in a 13th-floor hotel room.

For years, hoteliers have succumbed to good old-fashioned superstition when they’ve crafted their blueprints. And while the practice of “removing” the 13th floor—or erasing its traces—may seem a bit drastic, it can be partly attributed to a very real phobia. Specifically, triskaidekaphobia, which is an extreme suspicion of the number thirteen. To wit, Friday the 13th gets a bad rap as an unlucky day, but there are also folks who believe it’s no coincidence that Princess Diana died at the 13th pillar of the Pont de l’Alma tunnel, or that the Space Shuttle Columbia disaster occurred on the 113th flight of the shuttle.

Superstition and 13

Common knowledge has it that fear of the number 13 dates back to one of the earliest written texts -- the Code of Hammurabi. The story goes that the writers of the code left out the 13th law on the list. However, the list has no numbers. Nonetheless, a superstitious fear of the number 13 did crop up. The number 13 may have been bad in early religions. Some say Loki was the 13th Norse god. Judas was the 13th to sit for The Last Supper. However, the superstition was not blatant until the 17th century.

Elevators

The main area where you will notice the difference when it comes to omission of the 13th floor is in the elevator. You may also notice it in stairwells. These are, for the most part, the only tangible differences. Therefore, hotels are not leaving out the 13th floor. Hotels are simply labeling the floor differently in the few places where these businesses label the levels. According to Otis elevators, up to 85 percent of elevator panels omit the number 13.