Basic Trope: It's the sleazy motel that rents rooms by the hour. The clerk doesn't ask what for and doesn't want to know. The scene of various criminal activity, or at the very least, affairs.
- Straight: Bob goes to the No-Tell Motel to cheat on his wife and do drugs, or Alice visits the No-Tell Motel to investigate a crime that took place there.
- Exaggerated:
- The No-Tell Motel has, among other things, a recreational drug vending machine, a directory of sex workers, and even more outrageous things, is styled to look as over the top as possible, and yes, advertises via matchbooks.
- Every crime, in the city, happened in the No-Tell Motel.
- Downplayed: The inexpensive hotel is clean and safe from crime, but the staff don't pry into anyone's personal life. If Bob and his lover don't disturb the peace or wreck the room, nobody takes much notice of them.
- Justified:
- A story set in the 1930s–1980s, where such motels were far more commonly used and when they were found in such ways.
- The criminals/dealers/prostitutes/cheating couple are too poor to afford something better and more wholesome-looking.
- The people involved see getting involved at such places as a fetish, or a Shout-Out to the nostalgia of the past.
- Inverted:
- The No-Tell Motel is actually the most crime-free, safe place to stay in town — all the really dangerous criminals stay and conduct their business in far better places.
- The setting is in a fundamentalist Police State and all hotels are heavily monitored. Even married couples don't have sex there — let alone any criminal activity.
- The motel treats its adult guests as if they were chaperoned children.
- Subverted: The couple or the criminals are using places that are of higher quality and taste.
- Double Subverted:
- Because the places that are of higher quality and taste are known for this, they become in their own way the Spiritual Successor of the old No-Tell Motel.
- The Love Hotel is such a Double Subversion.
- Parodied: A perfectly sane, upstanding establishment markets itself as the No-Tell Motel simply to get hipsters thinking they're being retro and oh-so-transgressive to stay there.
- Zig-Zagged:
- Some downmarket hotels tolerate or encourage vice on their premises, while others don't.
- The No-Tell Motel tolerates some forms of vice, encourages some others, but treats a handful as beyond the pale.
- Averted:
- No motels are shown.
- Nobody commits unsavoury acts.
- Enforced: A MMO with user made content faces a controversy about what adult content it should allow. They compromise by putting all such areas behind an age gate in a No-Tell Motel with bouncers at front.
- Lampshaded: "The last time we stopped at a motel we hadn't seen before, it was one of those creepy places. Keep driving."
- Invoked: The motel's owner specifically opens up a hotel catering to privacy. Their money is just as good and as long as they don't kill anyone there or trash the place he doesn't care.
- Exploited: The police have bugged one of the rooms and told the management to funnel unsavoury characters into it.
- Defied: The motel's owner cleans it up and hires some security.
- Discussed: "Just because we're not the Hilton doesn't mean we have no standards! Let's get this place cleaned up and hire some security!"
- Conversed: "Was almost late for work because there was a detour while the police were busy at the No-Tell Motel. Again." "Oh, yeah, there was a shooting out front. Something about a drug exchange where both sides showed up with the intention of robbing the other? Yeah. Turned into a giant shootout." "I swear I see that place in the news several times a month." "Yeah, whenever I hear something about a shooting or an OD or a fugitive being found, I automatically assume it happened there and I'm usually correct."
- Implied: A run-down motel with an empty pool can be seen advertising hourly rates on a broken neon sign.
- Deconstructed:
- The No-Tell Motel gets closed down for being that, or is a Red Herring.
- People, criminals or not, stop using the motel/hotel out of fear of arousing people's suspicions.
- Reconstructed: Something bad or criminal did happen at the No-Tell Motel, for the justified reasons above.
- Played for Laughs: The No-Tell Motel is both sleazy and the only place to get any privacy in the town. Thus, criminals of various stripes end up having very awkward meetings related to their crimes.
- Played for Drama: The No-Tell Motel is the last stop for people who have nothing else. Penniless addicts, broke drifters with no home to go back to, and the working poor who can't afford the upfront costs of a rental and aren't eligible for subsidized housing all usually end up here, and runaway teenagers or broke and desperate women usually wind up turning tricks out of here (and there are usually at least one or two pimps operating out of here at a given time). It is also a hotbed of criminal activity beyond prostitution; multiple drug and gunrunning operations use it as a drop zone and rendezvous point (as well as human trafficking operations), fugitives often use it as a stop, and there have been multiple gangland-style tortures and executions in the rooms over the years. At least two shootouts per year occur in the parking lot, and the building is pockmarked with bullet holes, while the rooms themselves are dilapidated with myriad plumbing and electrical problems, plus semi-frequent vermin and pest infestations. It is a monument to human misery.
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