I’ve stayed a lot of motels, and I’ve never noticed that sign.
Ya know what?
You could always ASK the folks at the desk when you check in how they handle this stuff.
If they throw everything away after you leave, of course take it home rather than waste it.
If they only throw away used stuff, just take that.
If they throw away nothing, take nothing.
As has been mentioned numerous times, the existence of these signs is clearly a minority position.
As well, I have offered an additional explanation for such signs: depending on how they’re worded, they may be a courtesy reminder that you can use the toiletries as you see fit, gratis, instead of having to pay for them as may be the case in other establishments in other parts of the globe.
Contrast this to the hotel bathrobes - there the sign clearly states if you take it out of your room you will be billed for it.
My friends/guests seem to appreciate it when I present them with a basket of little soaps/bottles of shampoo/lotions. I, too, think it’s more hospitable to give them these small, never-used items then asking them to use our already-used soaps/shampoos/whatever.
This is GQ but I might as well throw my opinion in with everyone else 
If you use the stuff and just take home unfinished open bottles, everyone seems to agree that’s fine.
If you take home unopened bottles that remain at the end of your stay, that’s fine too. It’s certainly not stealing.
If you pack unopened bottles into your suitcase every day in addition to what you actually use, it’s not stealing but it’s cheap-assed and bordering on kleptomania.
If you walk down the hall to the maid’s cart and grab a handful of goods to fill your pockets, that’s really cheap-assed and probably stealing.
Story: When I was 5, my family was out to dinner at some chain restaurant. My dad pulled a sugar packet out of the little holder in the middle of the table, and handed it to me and said, “Here, put that in your pocket and take it home.” He was just having a joke with his little boy. But I yelled, “Daddy, that would be stealing!” My mom was worried that they thought we were trying to steal the silverware or something.
At my house, we pick the pubes out of the soap for guests. We’re fancy that way.
(Actually, we use shower gel. But if we had pubes in the soap, be assured that our hospitality extends to de-pubing it for your protection.)
We do the opposite.
As a child I was always taught “its the curls that let them know you care”
Maybe my upbringing wasn’t as fancy as yours…
This isn’t really that complicated. You are allowed to use complimentary items during the course of your stay. You are not allowed to use them in a different context. Nearly every hotel room will have a sign saying just that. Just because you haven’t noticed them, doesn’t mean they aren’t there.
Thus, taking them is theft. I would consider even taking used items without permission theft, since they aren’t yours to take. Just because it is theft though, doesn’t make it a big deal. The cost to the hotel is minimal, so I think it is fine to take items if you can get more practical use out of it than the hotel would have.
The fact that the hotel accounts for patrons stealing their items, doesn’t mean they consent to it. It is just simply good business to account for what will likely happen whether or not you believe it should happen. If a store raises prices to make up for losses from shop lifting or fraud, it doesn’t mean they are okay with you stealing their stuff.
According to this article in the LA Times:
What’s interesting to me is this bit:
I’ve been to hotels where the ammenities like robes and slippers are on a menu, so if you pilfer the item, you get charged that amount. I have not, however, seen shampoo or soap on that list.
My aunt used to work as a maid in a nice hotel in the Denver area. She’d frequently bring the opened but left teeny shampoos, conditioners, and lotions home with her - apparently her hotel didn’t mind if the maids took them home instead of throwing them away. She never brought any used tiny soap bars home, however.
So you now know better than me in regards to what i did or did not see in a hotel room? I think that i’ve seen such a sign in maybe 1% of the hotels I’ve ever stayed in, and I don’t exclusively patronize Peninsula or Four Season hotels, either. Red Roofs and Super 8’s lack these signs just the same.
Thus your first paragraph is completely unsubstantiated from a legal perspective if such a sign doesn’t exist. Which makes the first sentence of your second paragraph similarly unsupported.
But do you use tweezers or just gouge them out with your gnawed-to-the-quick fingernails?
Exactly. Giving guests a small bar of soap taken from a hotel rather than furnishing a full size bar for them to use is pretty much the definition of cheap, a word that is also defined as “stingy” or “miserly”. The fact that the hotel soap gets used doesn’t mean that giving it to your guests in order to save the cost of a standard sized bar isn’t cheap or miserly. And even though your guests would likely never say so, I would imagine that’s their impression too.
Just sayin is all. You might be creating negative impressions with your guests that you’re not aware of, RW.
you would honestly think that someone putting you up for a night in their home completely without cost to you is cheap because they didn’t fork over a full sized bar of soap that was destined for the trash bin after one use? you call this “not generous” i call this “not being completely wasteful”
someone’s creating some impression, for sure, but it ain’t the host.
Exactly. You can take the signs, but it makes you a bad person. Unless you would derive more use from the signs than the big wasteful hotel would, in that case you have a moral imperative to take the signs.
Jeez, you’d think that this was a gray area or something.
I wasn’t disputing whether you saw the signs. I was disputing whether the signs existed. Fine print has a tendency to blend in. To be fair it probably isn’t always a sign. Sometimes the policy is a packet left in the room or some other form. From a basic liability matter though, I’d be surprised if nearly all hotels didn’t have a written policy to that effect.
I would also dispute your assumption that if hotel gives no opinion on the matter, taking items is justified. Do you assume you can take any food you want home from a buffet, absent a sign that says you can’t?
If I paid for the buffet? yes. within reason (i.e. not picking up the entire tray of general tso’s chicken and dumping it into the 5 gallon ziplok bag i brought along)
Why do you not think it is assumable that if you pay for food, you are not free to do with the food as you please (again, subject to the rule of reason here). And, again, a buffet is not a good example because the hotel itself is regulating the amount of the good it is providing you.
And fine print that isn’t reasonably presented to the party of a transaction isn’t part of the transaction. See this microdot i put on the rate card that you accepted back from me, Ramada? It says you have to pay me to sleep in your room! ha ha!
That’s exactly what I’ve done. Unanimously, with every single hotel I’ve ever visited there has been slightly amused raised eyebrows followed by ‘of course, take them’. It’s the same story if your fridge is stocked with a few drinks, whenever I’ve asked they just say ‘yes, take them, we put them there for you’.
It’s only stealing when the hotel specifically and implicitly explains that you should not use them out of the hotel.
I think you meant “explicitly”
And “can” instead of “should” 
aargh… “you are free to do with”… not “you are not free to”