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Confessions of a hotel maid - read if you dare!
I'm pretty sure I won't have to tell any of you just how unsanitary many hotel rooms are. We've all heard about the exposés on TV where someone would shine a CSI style ultraviolet lamp around the bed, lighting up the kind of stains you really wish you had not known about.
MSNBC has posted an article from a former hotel housekeeping staff member - and the story may make you think twice about drinking out of the bathroom cup.
For starters, after several weeks on the job, she decided that using the vacuum was just too much work, and simply picked the worst of the crumbs off the floor by hand.
Once she learned the in's and out's of how the room inspector worked, she even stopped cleaning sinks and simply wiped them dry to make them appear clean. Sometimes she was not in a "scrub the tub" kind of mood, and simply did a quick spray and wipe.
Thankfully she informs us that she never skipped changing the sheets - apparently even a hotel maid has her limits as to how low she will go.
Of course, things are not just bad for the guests. The housekeeper describes an incident where someone had soiled their bed linens so badly that all the sheets had to be disposed of in a biohazard bag. Sleep well!
I wonder if the housekeeping is more attentive in any of these ultra-weird hotels:
Filed under: Hotels and Accommodations
Reader Comments (Page 2 of 9)
brachm5 Jan 24th 2009 12:00PM
Who checks on the people who are supposed to clean these rooms? Is there even such a service? When I check into a hotel, I ask to see the room first. I look under the bed and if it is dirty, I ask for another room and tell them why. Let's face it, not everyone is going to do what they are supposed to do if noone is going to random check on them; like children, people will try to get away with having to do as little as possible and still get paid.
Barb Jan 23rd 2009 9:56PM
I have always been suspicious of the cleanliness of hotel rooms. Housekeeping carts never seemed to be stocked with clean glasses. They only contained the paper covers placed on top of "clean glasses."
One day my fears were realized when passing by the open doorway of another guest's room. I was totally grossed out by the sight of a housekeeper rinsing out the mop she was using to wash the bathroom floor-in the TOILET!
Now whenever I travel, I carry antibacterial wipes and cleanse everything in the bathroom including light switches and doorknobs. Oh- I even wipe the TV remote!
Jack Jan 24th 2009 11:26AM
Just what is wrong with rinse the mop in the toilet. If the toilet has been flushed and cleaned the water in the toilet is just as clean as what you get out of the tap. Besides if she is rinse in the toilet it is being rinces in clean water, where as rinse in the bucket is just rinse in the dirty water she has moped up.
Desiree Jan 23rd 2009 9:57PM
Hello,
I worked as a housekeeper, at a Holiday Inn Pennsylvania. Many of the housekeepers I worked with did that kind of stuff also. I know a couple who don't even change their sheets. I could never bring myself to do that, I always got yelled at because I took so long to clean my rooms. I AWLAYS made sure I scrubbed everything out, and everything was clean because I know how it feels to be given a dirty room. I really P**ses you off.
Dr. Ed Gunther Jan 23rd 2009 9:58PM
Don't get too bent out of shape. We should all know that any hotel room should be treated like a public place. A few obvious precausions should suffice. Our bodies are quite capable of taking care of the minor amounts of microbs generally present in even a moderately clean room. Most public places you encounter in everyday life is much worse - food stores, airports, malls, movie theatres, restaurants, and gas stations don't even mention. You can't go around w/ wipes trying to lead a steril life which doesn't exist. In fact, our bodies need exposure to many microbs to build a resistency to them - too steril a lifestyle can leave you vulnerable. Now, that said, do use your head & realize that the bathroom glasses & coffee cups/pot may just have been wiped to look clean. I usually grab a few disposible cups from the lobby & use them. Bacteria are all around us. There are millions on your finger right now. The vast majority are non-pathogenic (can't get sick from them) and the rest our defence mechanisms generally handle with ease. On rare occasions a pathogenic strain overcomes our defences we get an infection - thank goodness for antibiotics. Even MERSA has 2 new antibiotics that are highly effective against - the newest is 100% effective. If you want to worry, you can think about a pandemic of an oriental avian flu virus - that's scary. So, bag the wipes, enjoy your stay, and do wash your hands after being in any public place (especially with handrails).
G. Snider Jan 23rd 2009 11:22PM
Dr Gunther, If you are a Dr., your spelling skills, even with medical words, are very poor. When e mailing about medical topics, I highly recommend the use of your spell check. Where did you attend medical school??
Fran Jan 23rd 2009 11:42PM
For a doctor, your spelling and vocabulary are not up there with that degree. MRSA is known to mutate--since when is there 100% effective treatment? Common sense in medicine dictates hand washing with soap is the most effective way to stop the spread of germs---and it needs to be done often.
Wipes are great but they do not kill everything.
terry Jan 24th 2009 12:05AM
I guess then if you are a real dr then you wouldnt mind if one of your patients were like me with cancer and an implanted port to get sick from one of those rooms??? I know where ever i stay i ask that i can watch the housekeepers reclean my room or that i be given the cleaning supplies and I clean it myself. I got a strict precaution of being sick as I dont want to spend about 3 to 4 weeks if not longer in the hospital! I am just glad you are not one of my many doctors and I got quite a few of them!!!
Azy Jan 24th 2009 1:40AM
I'm not a doctor, but I am a writer. Funny, from time to time even my spelling and grammar go off skew, especially when I'm not editing my work. And have you checked the grammar in your local newspaper lately? BLECH! It's a middle school English teacher's nightmare!
Besides, who the deuce cares if he's really a doctor? If he were telling you to squirt monkey urine on a rag and carry it around rather than using antimicrobial wipes, what difference does it make? It's the bloody Internet, for the love of all things! Reader be ware! (I rest my case, if you're observant enough to notice the evidence.)
Then there's that pesky little fact that he isn't the one writing the article, nor is the article written on the subject of disease control and prevention. No, rather, he's doing just as everyone else in here is doing: he's INFORMALLY commenting on a topic that interests him. And, to top it all off, what he said is mostly accurate. So, grammarian or not, at least his knowledge of the subject is somewhat reliable. I mean, obviously there are those who have suppressed immune systems; and I'm not too sure about that 100% effectiveness statement regarding MRSA (an acronym for Methicillin Resistant Staphylococcus Aurelius therefore no 'E' involved), but what the heck, the rest of it was really very good, even for a load of BS.
Take care,
Azy!
Dr. Ed Gunther Jan 24th 2009 2:35AM
I reread my blog & indeed the spelling is atrocious. I generally do use a spelling checker & usually wouldn't dare to send anything w/o checking it 1st. So what? Yeah, I know, it's a reflection on me. They don't teach spelling in med. school, and I coasted through grammar school because I was bright. Indeed, I am a practicing physician, a U. of P. grad., and I'm pretty good at what I do. If you think I'm a bad dr. because of my spelling, you're wrong. So, I'll ask you to look beyond the spelling, which doesn't change the validity of my statement. Hotel rooms are what they are & your complaining won't change the whole nasty system. I'm just saying, don't worry too much, treat them like the public places they are, & use some common sense, like hand washing. One thing that helps a bit is staying at the newer hotels and the better hotels. I have found that the Hilton Garden Inns tend to be newer and generally very clean, yet quite reasonable. Unfortunately there is no spelling checker here, but I can do it when I really try. :) Dr. Ed G.
Ruth Robinson Jan 24th 2009 4:25AM
So many errors in both grammar and spelling makes your opinions suspect....No spell check in the application you are using?
Dr. Ed Gunther Jan 24th 2009 2:30PM
Ruth, Azy, & the Gang,
No, I see no spelling checker here. Like I said, I reread the comment and saw a number of miss-spellings. Azy has it right. I'm not writing for a journal, but a comment on the web. I wrote quickly, w/o proofing it. That said, I saw no errors in grammar, so today I copied it & pasted it into MS Office Word. It found NO errors in grammar, and the few miss-spelled words, I'm happy to say, are ones I actually knew. That's not always the case, as I typically miss-spell the easy ones & correctly spell the technical ones. This is probably because I was quite dedicated in both undergard. & med. school, but didn't give a hoot in elementary school. I suspect I'm not alone. I did run across an english prof. in undergrad. school (Rutgers U.) who incorporated spelling into his 201-202 classes. I asked if he thought it appropriate to teach spelling at that level. He said that being their last english course they better learn soon, because most can't spell to save their lives. I'm sure that the last few generations were better at it, as it was more critical then. Today we rely (probably too much) on spell checkers & calculators. Can you imagine the average kid today trying to calculate change at a restaurant? Now, if any nit-pickers want to disregard the content of my statement, go ahead. I stand behind everything I said as being scientifically sound advise. Azy hit the nail on the head. I quickly wrote a casual comment on something of interest to me. By the way, Azy, I know the acronym for MRSA - just a slip that comes from not proofing it. In fact, I was reading a journal article on MRSA (2) days ago, which is where I learned of the antibiotic which is 100%. Now, since I have such a sophistocated group (unlike most blogs), I'll point out that "100% effective" is incorrect wording. The correct terminology is 100% susceptable. We rate antibiotics by the susceptability of a given microorganism, in a lab cultured environment, when exposed to the antibiotic. That means it knocked out 100% of the bacteria growing in a petri dish. So, in humans we can expect it to approach 100% effectivity in a healthy (non-immunosuppressed) person. Why? That's because most antibiotics are not bacteriocital (don't kill bacteria), rather they are bacteriostatic. So, most work by interfering w/ reproduction, like cell wall synthesis, and it is up to your immune system to kill off what's already present in your system. The immunosuppressed are always at a greater risk, and I can't tell you if you're at greater risk in a good hotel or your local hospital. Personally, I would take my chances at a good Hilton.
Again, just use common sense. I'm sure there are many well run hotels with conscientious staff members. Since you can never be sure, take appropriate precautions. You'll never know if that clean looking glass was run through a dishwasher or wiped out with a toilet rag. For those of you who are healthy, an average hotel room posses no greater threat than any other public place, and less than most..... & the threat is extremely small. When I shower in a room, I'm well aware that the shower may not have been cleaned. It doesn't bother me in the least since I may just be standing where someone else stood. I'm not licking the walls. If that bothers you, then I would definitely avaoid the hot tub w/ a half dozen other bathers. So, let's not try to lead a sterile existence which doesn't exist, can never exist, & would be detrimental to us if it did exist. Remember, a mere 100 yrs. ago the avg. women only bathed once a month and shampooed with egg whites, and men less. I was recently in Greece and tried to buy some laundry detergent to do some hand wash. I was unsuccessful in finding any. A Brit explained to me that these folks simply don't wash their clothes, or do so very rarely. After staying in a number of hotels around Greece, I can tell you that (regarding hygiene) I would rather stay in a 20 yr. old econolodge in the US. Be happy with what you have, because it's never been better. Now, I ran this through a checker & I spelled definitely & existance wrong. I don't give a hoot if you believe I'm a doc or not. Words like immunosuppressed & bacteriocidal MS Office Word doesn't even recognise. If you have any further questions, you can email me at cruisedoc@aol.com PS Thanks Azy. -Dr. E. Gunther
Azy Jan 24th 2009 4:22PM
Hey Doc? If you're not really a doctor of medicine, you certainly deserve a BS in, well, BS. ::grin:: Personally, I couldn't care less one way or the other.
Oh, and as an FYI, MS Word's grammar checker is about as useful as a dead fly on a buffalo's rump. Just thought you might like to know. Oh, and are you British? You're spelling carries an Anglo-French influence on some words. Like me, you spell recognise with an 's' rather than a 'z'. Perhaps your default dictionary in Office is set to British? I learnt British variants in school just so I could argue with my teachers on spelling test results. You know, if it's in the dictionary, they can't mark it wrong! It's since become habit.
Oh, and one other thing, the Linux-based web browser Firefox 3.0 has a built in spell checker that works in most web forms. You may wish to look into it. It's free, and it's far nicer than Explorer.
AND finally, speaking as a former travel counselor (that's what the 'c' in TC3/2/1 stands for) many of the nice, new hotels are old crap hotels that have been bought and remodeled. Much of the time they don't even bother changing the phone numbers. If they keep the same rotten staff, then it doesn't matter which chain they belong to, they're still gonna suck.
Did I mention that my husband and I once found a used condom in our room? And one time a friend of mine and I went to a wedding in another state, and there was a blob of something that looked, how should I say this...biological, plastered to the head board. They gave us another room, and that one was skanky, too (pubes in the sheets and everything!) Finally we bought some cleaning supplies and washed the linens ourselves. THAT place, Holiday Inn Express (Freeway) Lexington KY, USA, was nasty. (Trying to stay on topic, I guess. LOL)
Take care,
Azy!
Dr. Ed Gunther Jan 25th 2009 4:18PM
Dear Azy,
Nice reply. One can tell that you are worldly, intellegent, and look beyond the cover. I do have a BS degree from way back, but I never BS. Absolute truth is I'm a practicing primary care physician. Also, truth is I hesitated with 'recognise', as to whether it was an 's' or a 'z'. i went to change it to a 'z' & the spelling checker said 's' was right. Seems I can't win here, but like you I take it light & enjoy exchanging thoughts w/ others. Me British? Nah! I'm from Haddonfield, NJ, a historic town which at a point in history was a British colonial town. That's as close as I come, other than the fact that I love the UK and enjoy spending time there. Who was it that said, "a man who is tired of London is a man who is tired of life". I did take a spelling test in Canada once (long story) at about age 11, & was pissed off that I missed the word 'colour' only because we spell it differently in the states. Beyond that, I'm not talking about major hotels which are often just refurbished, rather the new express type hotels which were obviously new builds, like Hilton Garden Inns along an interstate. I did stay at an HGI in a city (DC) which was just a remodel job. Thanks for the info. on firefox......I can use it :) Above all else, I'm thankful that none of the above kind people are patients of mine. I run a sparkeling clean office, but I'm sure they could find something wrong. :) Dr. G.
meghann Jan 23rd 2009 10:02PM
I was a hotel houskeeper at a holiday inn in MI. First off, that is the nastiest job I have ever had. My second day on the job, i went to pour out a can of sprite before I threw it in the garbage bag. As i was pouring it out, i noticed that the texture and the color was not that of normal sprite and it was slow to drain out of the can. As I got a closer look, i screamed real loud and threw the can; getting the substance all over me. What was it in the can you are wondering???? Well, lets just say he had a $300 pay per view bill when he checked out, and it wasn't wrestling he was buying.
diana Jan 24th 2009 12:02AM
I used to be a housekeeper. NEVER, NEVER, EVER DRINK COFFEE OUT OF THE COFFEEMAKER located inside your room. The majority of housemaids use the same cloth to clean the toilets and floors. Also, BRING YOUR OWN SHEETS AND PILLOWCASE because most maids do not change the sheets after a guest leaves. Some guests loved to play hide-and-seek with the most disgusting items so don't be surprised to find condoms in the cream and sugar baskets. Had an experience where we came into work to find that someone had pooped in the public Jacuzzi. Manager told us to simply remove the evidence (poop) and it was back to business as usual.
meghann Jan 24th 2009 12:23PM
I do assure you that I did did EVERYTHING correct as a housekeeper. Changed every sheet, i even changed the comforter if there was the tiniest little spek. I used a comletely different rag and diifferent liquid to clean the bathrooms and the main living area. The coffee makers were washed seperatly and in dish ditergant (yes, in the bathroon sink). WE vacuumed EVERYTHING, we even dusted the tops of the doors and headboards. If there was a room that need to much attention, we would close the room until it was complete and bring in 2 or more housekeepers to help. The hotel manager would go into every room behind us and go down the check list. If there was even a piece of hair on the bathroom floor, she would make us re-do the entire room and we would get bad marks for the day (mean the next day we have have twice the numbers of rooms to clean). That was at a Holiday Inn Express.
meghann Jan 24th 2009 12:24PM
oh, we also had someone poop in our public pool (little kid, they couldn't help it). So they closed the pool for a week, drained it and sanatized it.
Dan Jan 24th 2009 5:31PM
I would much rather have seen a condom than get crabs like I did while staying at a nice extended stay hotel in an upscale area in Atlanta. That was "fun" to explain when I arrived home. It took me three treatments and a shave to rid myself of those things. Ugh! Yes, it was the hotel bed or couch and no, I was not with anyone.
Maryloo Jan 23rd 2009 10:30PM
OOOOh, how awful--all that pain and agony, and no sympathy i suppose! That's why I always ask for a linen change upon arrival! They will do that for you if you ask nicely and don't tell them any bad stories or anything.