I usually have a hard time sleeping in a hotel. The loud airconditioner, lousy pillows or bed, smelly room or very old toilet and room decor are some of the things keeping me awake at night. What most people don't think about is how clean the room is particularly the bed sheets, comforters, coffee maker and drinking glasses.
Here's an article excerpt written by an ex-hotel housekeeper that would make you wonder the next time you stay at a hotel. Her advise...
1. Always check the room for bed bugs.
They sound cuter than they are, and if you bring them home with you, it will be an exterminating nightmare. Housekeepers have entire staff meetings dedicated to the silent discovery and treatment of the bed bug; it’s a huge liability for hotels, as we’ve become quite the litigious society.
2. Never, under any circumstances, use the coffee maker provided in the room.
I had a special pen I kept on my cart. I never touched it past the cap. See, this was my condom pen. I would use this pen to peel condoms from the fronts of television sets, the walls, tubs, and yes, from inside the coffee pots.
3. Examine the sheets/towels before use.
The thirty-minutes-per-suite quota is occasionally unrealistic. But it’s finish on time or risk being let go. So if the housekeepers were running behind, they would just pray there weren’t any dirty briefs down by the foot of the bed, and pull the old sheets taut, dusting off the visible hairs, some of which were short and curly.
4. Don’t use the glasses and mugs. At the very least, rinse them in scalding water.
At both the hotels I’ve worked at, the dishwasher was always broken. And I mean always. In fact, at the unnamed hotel, I’d never even been privy to seeing the damn thing. So the rushed housekeepers simply rinse the glassware in the bathroom sink and use a toxic, pink porcelain cleaner for those stubborn juice/coffee/lipstick stains.
Read full article here.
Additional articles and videos: ABC News,
Video 1, Video 2, Video 3,
Laugh! Why you should always tip the hotel maid... Video
