Funny enough, I was just doing some research on public opinion on another hotel etiquette topic, when I came across an interesting online discussion that caught me off guard.
The extent to which some hotel guests help housekeeping
Housekeepers are among the hardest working and lowest paid people employed at hotels, and they deserve our respect and appreciation for what they do. In the United States, I think it’s fair to at least consider tipping them, in the context of our overall tipping culture.
I always try to leave my hotel room looking reasonably decent. Like, I’ll typically put towels on the bathroom floor or in the tub, and will make sure that things that belong in the trash are in the trash, etc. However, I stumbled upon a Facebook group (while Googling something else) where someone shares how before checking out of a hotel, she puts all the trash together, strips the bed, etc., and asks if that makes it easier or more difficult for housekeeping.
To be honest, the thought of stripping a hotel bed never even crossed my mind as something that a guest would consider doing. For that matter, I would assume that hotels don’t actually want us to see the condition of the mattress protector and comforter without the covers, since it’s probably not pretty.
I was expecting for the comments section to just have people saying “yeah, I don’t do that,” but nope. There are lots of people in the comments saying they do the same thing, and hotel housekeepers saying they appreciate when guests do that.
Some people in the comments section take it even further, and take their trash with them (though I’m not sure if this is out of kindness and respect, or paranoia):
Same but I go one step further and actually remove the trash. It’s the “leave no footprint” model and is probably more important than stripping the beds, the goal being there should be nothing identifying you as the person who stayed there (yes, trash can be an identifier).
The ulterior motive for stripping hotel beds
There’s another interestingly angle to this. Some people don’t just strip the hotel bed to make the lives of housekeepers easier, but instead, to make sure that they actually change the sheets between guests. One former hotel housekeeper comments the following:
I was a hotel maid for a while, it’s nice to have the wet towels on the bathroom floor. The bedspread should be put on a chair and the rest of the bedding on the floor somewhere. I, too always strip the bed because there are some maids who don’t change the sheets.
Indeed, we know that sheets don’t get changed between guests more often than you’d hope.
Bottom line
I was today years old when I learned that some hotel guests actually strip their own beds prior to checking out. I don’t assume it’s a significant percentage of people, but it does seem to happen. This is apparently done by some both to help housekeeping, and to make sure that they actually change sheets between guests.
Am I the only one who is surprised that some guests do this, or who never even considered this?
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