The Floor That “Doesn’t Exist”: Why So Many Hotels Skip Number 13

You get into a hotel elevator. You press 8. Then, while waiting for the doors to close, you casually look at the buttons. 11, 12, 14 You stop. Wait a second. Where did the 13 go? Of course the building has not missed a whole floor. Between the twelfth and fourteenth levels there are no mysterious gaps. There is almost certainly a 13th floor. It just isn’t called that.