hotel rooms cleanliness.

[blackfungi]

i just watched a market place show on the cleanliness of hotel rooms and it was very disturbing. i saw a maid cleaning the toilet bowl and then cleaning the sink and faucet with the same brush! coffee machines, lamps, sheets, cushions etc...were all contaminated with germs.

so what precautions do you guys take when entering a hotel room?

i would definitely wipe down any surface area that i am going to be in contact with. the sheets and the bedding and cushions? i don't know. ask for some fresh linens and cushions from customer service? any tips and advice are welcome. i don't want to pick up something nasty on leaving my hotel room on my next trip.

[Moose]

blackfungi, I always check the beds, under the sheets, at the corners, for bed bugs. I also have antibacterial wipes with me and wipe down the bathroom counters before putting my stuff on them. I also wipe off the faucets. I never use glass glasses, only the disposable ones in factory wrapped plastic. I take my own water heater to make coffee. Some of those coffee pots are a frightening proposition. Other than that I don't do anything special.

Quite some time ago there was a thread about putting your bag under the seat on an airplane, it followed the same line. It was amusing in a place or two if you're interested. I can't seem to post a link but it was from 12.5.11 titled Under Seat Bag Storage.

Moose

[Frank II]

Having stayed in more hotel rooms than I care to think about I always do the following:

Upon entering the room, my bag goes on a luggage rack, table or desk and never on the floor.
Then I check the bed, as described my Moose for bedbugs. But I also add behind the headboard and in any easy chair or extra sofa if the room has one. Bed bugs are not just on the bed but all over the room--including the floor which is why my luggage never goes there.

Then I give the room and the bathroom a quick look over for general cleanliness.

If that passes and I'm staying in the room, I then remove the bedspread and put it in the corner. Bedspreads are not washed that often and I can just imagine what has taken place on it.

I then wipe down the remote control and phone with an antibacterial wipe.

I will use the coffee maker but I wash out the carafe before using it. Many hotels are switching to one cup coffee makers that make the coffee directly into the cup.

In the bathroom, I take either one of the washclothes or a small towel and lay it next to the sink. I put my toiletries on the towel and not directly onto the countertop.

Lastly, I tend to limit my barefoot walking on the carpeting.

Unfortunately, housekeepers only get about 20 minutes to clean a room. They can't be that thorough in such a short amount of time.

[Moose]

What Frank said, I try to NEVER walk barfoot on a hotel room floor. I have a pair of socks dedicated to just that. Goodness knows what's been on/is on those floors.
Moose

[blackfungi]

thanks for the tips. i never thought of that walking on the carpet thing in bare feet. i will now or use those paper slippers some hotels provide. there are things that we cannot see with the naked eye. that show i saw had this germ guy use a black light torch and it revealed some disgusting things on the walls too and the bed linen.

if you watch gordon ramsay's hotel hell, you will know what i am talking about. he went in some hotels/inns and found stains on the bed sheets and hair and such like items. some were definitely from bodily secretions.... disgusting!

and yes.... on the plane, no doubt in november when i am flying to china, i will be bringing some good wipes. now, what are some really good effective one. i was going to bring my clean well alcohol free spray but is there something better out there?

[Moose]

I have Wet Ones in my bags. They are antibacterial made for hands and face clean up. I see no reason they don't work on other stuff too. Purell makes them too. Both come in individually wrapped packages. You can also get small, maybe 1"X1", alcohol wipes, probably at your local drug store. I know you're in Canada but I suspect you can find something even if they aren't these exact brands. They aren't very expensive either. The packaged toweletts don't need to go in your 311 bag, that's a plus.
Take care,
Moose

[Frank II]

It's also a good idea to check any hotels you plan to stay in on TripAdvisor or Yahoo Travel or any other site offering hotel reviews.

[backpack]

The Travel Channel has a show called "Hotel Impossible", besides rundown facilities, no website (in 2012?) and owners who don't think that having a maintenance or housekeeping schedule is necessary, the host has an enormous task in front of him,

I think he also uses blue light on some hotels "facilities", most of the time, he doesn't have to, the beds are just awful and the hotels' owners wonder why they have no occupancy. Most blame the economy.



Just like Frank, I toss the bed covers and place my bag on the wood or steel furniture or the luggage rack.


I find the most essential is a pair of slippers, one's own water bottle, some snacks.


How come Housekeeping has only 20 minutes per room? In most hotels, housekeeping starts making noise around 8 or 9, they wake me up when I want to sleep in. And it is usually impossible to get a room before 3 pm.


That is 360 minutes divided by 20 that is 18 so one person can do 18 rooms.

But if the time per room is 30 (12 rooms) or 40 minutes it would be 9 rooms which means that they would have to hire more personnel in order to get things right.

The price of hotel rooms has done nothing but gone up, I think the only ones getting a benefit are the outrageously highly paid CEOs.

[Spydermann]

Since I work in forensics and I routinely work the scenes of violent deaths, I will tell you what I do, which I see is fairly consistent throughout this thread.

When I come into a hotel room, the first thing I do is put my bag up on the desk and take out my antibacterial wipes, one for each hand. I then wipe down every surface that another human hand is likely to have touched: starting with the inside doorknob, deadbolt and every doorknob in the room, the remote control, the telephone handpiece and dial, as well as all of the lamp switches, the toilet seat and the faucet handles. Then, I throw the wipes away and wash my hands.

The bedspread is taken off of the bed, folded and laid in a corner. I never walk barefooted on these floors, for precisely the same reason I do not lay on top of the bedspread. Use your imagination...

I never use any of the water glasses in a room unless they are plastic and are contained in a sealed bag. And if there are no sealed glasses, I go down to the restaurant and get a glass if needed.

And as I am sure many of you have found, cleanliness is not always dependent on the price of the room. I have had several occasions at a few expensive hotels where the room was subpar, and I have had some delightfully clean rooms at some of the more budget priced motels.

I do not consider taking "cleanliness precautions" in a hotel room to be over the top. In this day of staph infections, MRSA, etc., it only takes 5 minutes and a few antibacterial wipes to keep you fairly safe.

[Yaffesmith]

this is very true and it happens most of the time when you get into some strange locations not up to the mark in terms of the basic facilities..

[papids2000]

We never stay at the big chain hotels anymore. Their level of cleanliness and service has detiorated.
Always try to stay at small boutique hotels, bed and breakfasts or local guest houses. Besides
It helps the local economy more. Of course if you are travelling on business and your company
is paying for it I guess you have to stay where they say. Good luck!

[LindaLo]

Good hotels (expensive hotels) are very clean. In all 5 star hotels that I've been there was a high standard of hygiene. But cheaper hotels are not very clean. I feel very disgusted in these hotels

[giantsteve]

My first step in planning any trip for business or pleasure is to get information about where I plan to stay to try and avoid problems with hotel cleanliness. Like Frank mentioned, I have found Tripadvisor reviews pretty accurate in identifying major issues such as poor housekeeping and have almost never had an issue using reviews on that site as a guide. In addition, I check Bed Bug Registry - Check Apartments and Hotels Across North America to see if there have been bedbug problems with a hotel. Not only will bedbugs ruin your trip, they may hitchhike home with you causing major problems when you return home. Online information is not perfect, but so far it has worked well for me.

[backpack]

Hotels managers have found the importance of online reviews and will write glowing ones after each bad one.

If an hotel has problems during a particular month and year, chances are the glowing reviews were written by the staff.

I always check multiple websites, such as Yelp, Booking.com as well as blogs in addition to TripAdvisor.

Some years ago, a Tom Bihn customer said that she was setting up a revue website as an alternative to TripAdvisor.

I tried to find the Blog post to no avail.

[giantsteve]

Backpack, you bring up an important point about people trying to game the review sites to overwhelm negative feedback and your point about checking multiple sites is an excellent one. I have found it useful to also look at the percentage of "poor" and "terrible" ratings for a property as well as looking at the comments. It's useful to weigh recent bad feedback more heavily that issues years ago. Finally, I look at how many comments have been left by a reviewer and give more credence to users with a larger body of feedback left. Again, not a perfect system, but the wide availability of crowd sourced feedback gives us a much better chance of setting our expectations accurately.