More Yuk! Hotels That Don’t Change The Bed Sheets After You Check-Out
Dating back to my days in culinary school, I’ve always been a bit of a sanitation nut. I used to teach the certification course for proper sanitation, and frequently found myself at or near the top of the invisible leaderboard for folks who wash their hands the most.
I feel the same way about travel in general, and hotels in particular. I’m not as much of a nut as my mother was about such things. As kids, we weren’t allowed to walk around hotel/motel rooms in our bare feet. Maybe we should have picked better hotels? Anyway.
Just a few days ago we had a teaser about a hotel that wasn’t always changing the sheets when guests checked out.
Inside Edition told us they had checked out a total of 9 hotels and would have a full report on all of the hotels shortly.
Well, they’ve posted the full report now, and it’s pretty bad. 3 of the 9 hotels failed to change the sheets in between stays:
At the Candlewood Inn & Suites near Manhattan’s Times Square, we sprayed down our mark. And incredibly, when we returned the next day under a different reservation “I SLEPT HERE” was still on the sheets!
And:
At a La Quinta Inns & Suites location not far from New York City’s Central Park, we did our test again, spraying a bedsheet with our message ‘I SLEPT HERE.’
Would the message still be there when we returned the next day under a new reservation?
When Mercogliano turned off all the lights in the room, and turned on a UV light to inspect the sheets. Once again, she found the message.
And, that original Residence Inn:
At a Residence Inn by Marriott also near Times Square, a hotel rated One Diamond by AAA, Inside Edition did the test once more, but this time sprayed the word “Yuck” on the top bedsheet and “I Slept Here” on the bottom sheet. The pillows were also sprayed with the Inside Edition logo.
The next day the team discovered that the pillowcases had been changed on the bed, but the same could not be said for the sheets, where “YUCK” and “I SLEPT HERE” were still seen.
But, hey. They changed the pillowcases. All good, right?
Invisible Issues
It’s hard to pick up on things like this if you’re a guest checking into a room. Everyone should have a basic expectation of cleanliness, but that’s obviously not the norm.
None of these properties would be considered “luxury” or “5-star”. I would guess the percentage of hotels not changing the sheets in nicer hotels is much less than the 33% found in the Inside Edition test.
I usually make a point to throw the towels in a pile on the floor in the bathroom that way the housekeepers don’t try to re-use them, but I don’t think I’ll start stripping the bed in an effort to force them to change the sheets.
I will, however, look a bit more carefully at the bed sheets the next time I check into a hotel. Ick!
The post More Yuk! Hotels That Don’t Change The Bed Sheets After You Check-Out was published first on Pizza in Motion
That’s an excellent way to spread lice, mites and other contagious and/or possibly infectious agents. There are local health laws, no?
Terese, plenty of local health laws, but maybe not enough appetite to enforce? Hope this article spurs some more attention.
“I would guess the percentage of hotels not changing the sheets in nicer hotels is much less than the 33% found in the Inside Edition test.”
You would guess incorrectly, Ed, as I just posted a video in a recent article pertaining not only to this same story; but also to a 2013 report in Canada, which includes a Fairmont hotel property.
Yikes! I hadn’t heard of that Canadian report, but I do recall the video of the housekeepers cleaning the glasses in rooms. Ick. I’d still argue that the percentage of high-end hotels is less than 33%.