If you were staying in a hotel for 2-7 days would you refuse housekeeping service?
Asked by
JLeslie (
65714)
September 5th, 2020
from iPhone
Using the same sheets for a week and not vacuuming isn’t a big deal, so why risk covid being brought into your room by a housekeeper? Or, do you feel the risk is so small you wouldn’t worry?
Maybe ask for extra shampoo up front.
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24 Answers
I would order pizza and 4liters of pop. If I was trying to save money I would make my own sandwiches.
Edit. I would just ask for extra bath towels. I am ok with it.
I often decline housekeeping as it is (to protect the environment and make low-wage employees’ lives a bit easier), so yes. I wouldn’t have a problem with that.
Yes, I often do that, even before the pandemic.
I’m currently in the middle of a 3 night stay at a Hampton Inn in Cape Cod MA. There is no housekeeping, even if you wanted it. The option is to change rooms.
Not knowing before I came, I decided I was going to tell the housekeepers it’s ok not to come in, and just maybe give her the garbage pails to change at the doorway. However, they don’t even do that. I asked for a big garbage bag and it’s full of garbage now. It has lobster tails and stuff from our first arrival four days ago but I guess they have to deal with it.
It wouldn’t matter to me. As @jca2 pointed out though, the only issue would be the garbage. If it got to smelling bad, I’d find the dumpster and dump it myself.
I stayed in a hotel in Folsom CA last month, first time in a long time. They warned us: no housekeeping for first four nights. But we needed garbage pickup and towels. We put garbage bags in the hall and let the desk know. And we grabbed extra towels of a housekeeper’s cart.
When I travel for work, it is important for me to come back to a room that has been tidied and bed straightened out.
@jca2 and @zenvelo I didn’t even realize housekeeping was limited to begin with.
@JLeslie: That’s why I asked the question yesterday asking if hotels should reduce rates now and one of the things that I mentioned in my justification was housekeeping.
@jca2 I think I interpreted it incorrectly, or read too fast. Your question was what made me think of this question.
@JLeslie: There’s no housekeeping for the duration, so we have a big garbage bag full of garbage (food garbage like lobster tails and salad) for the cleaning person. We probably could have gotten extra towels although we didn’t. We brought our own shampoo and conditioner but I got some extra just in case. There’s no making beds, no vacuuming, no new towels, no taking out garbage, no breakfast service, no lounge area open to eat breakfast, no coffee in the lobby, no pool, no fitness room. You can get coffee on request by asking the front desk person.
For breakfast, you put in your order the night before from a limited menu and request a time, and in the morning the breakfast is in the lounge area to be picked up.
The hallways have bags of garbage from people putting their garbage out. We didn’t do that, we just have the one big bag with four days of garbage.
I don’t think it will take any longer for the cleaning person to clean each room, just that supposedly they’re using Lysol products. I do see how the hotel is saving on labor because each room is not being cleaned daily, plus there’s no staff serving a breakfast buffet and cooking breakfast foods, plus there’s no staff maintaining the pool and fitness area.
The front desk person is a bit busier because people will ask her for cups of coffee. There’s also a coffee maker in the room.
Trash for 4 days usually isn’t a big deal if the food isn’t raw that is in the trash. Raw chicken smells horrible in 24 hours. I guess part of the problem is take-out packaging fill up a trash can quickly. My trash at home is picked up twice a week and usually it’s fine. Seems like they need hallways trash pick-up daily. Did they have someone pick up the trash from the hallway regularly? They could do it like apartments do a certain time every day. When I’ve had concierge trash pick-up they had rules when to put it out so there wasn’t always trash cans in the hallway.
For 2 days I would. If it’s for a week I will usually still refuse it but leave a message at the desk that I just need my towels changed or if I need toilet paper or garbage removed. I don’t have them come in and clean and change the sheets or anything if its less than 7 days. Some hotels have small toilet paper rolls or don’t have a tissue box and if I or my husband have a cold the tissue paper will go quickly.. We are usually very neat and I make my own bed so there is no need. There have been times when my husband would just take them the dirty towels and trash and have them give us clean ones before we step out so they don’t even have to come in.
Yes, I would have no problem with that. Other than, as others said, maybe the garbage.
I disagree. I do a good bit of business travel (well, before COVID). They last think I want to have when I come back is dirty sheets and used towels. If I wanted those I would stay home.
If a hotel is charging me for full service, then I expect to get full service. Service being the key word.
Wow, I don’t need fresh sheets or towels EVERY day.
I could live with the same towels and same sheets but I like the garbage emptied and I like the towels folded and I like the bed made. The main thing is the bed to be made because it makes the room look neat and it feels nicer getting into a bed that’s made.
@jca2 The bed is the last thing I’m worried about. Plus, I feel like I don’t want the maid touching my pillow every day with the covid situation.
@elbanditoroso When you stay a week I think they only change your sheets every 3–4 days anyway.
@JLeslie: I meant before the Covid. Now with the Covid they’re not doing housekeeping at all.
@jca2 Gotcha. Even before covid we usually didn’t get new towels every day. You know how you can hang up the towels to keep them, or put them on the floor for them to remove the towels and give you new ones. The smaller towels I replaced more often than the bath towels.
When we stay more than a week, like at a residence inn, we don’t even want the housekeepers to come in every day.
Ever watch Hotel Impossible, or one of those revamp shows? I saw an episode where the housekeeper liked her fingers before arranging the towels, like how people lick their fingers before separating pieces of paper. Some weird habit.
Plus, if the bed has decorative throw pillows, a horrible thing in a hotel in my opinion, I don’t want them to put that pillow back on bed. Those throw pillow go on the chairs, floor, I doubt they are washed every time.
@JLeslie; I reuse the bath towels, no problem. Wash cloths, I use to wipe the furniture when it gets crumbs or spills on it. Of course I won’t use the same wash cloth on my face. I keep it aside just for cleaning. When the cleaning person comes, I like when that’s replaced because otherwise it just stays wet.
I love Hotel Impossible. I like that guy. He’s funny and has the city accent, and he’s in great shape (jumps over counters and stuff like that haha). I saw the one where the maid licked her fingers to touch the towels. He was like “are you kidding me? Are you kidding me?”
@jca2 Lol. Terrifying. My MIL has said in the past that poor people in her country don’t know how to clean things properly or don’t have certain skills, because they grow up so poor they don’t have the experience. Like, how will they know how to clean wood or tile floors if they live basically in a hut with a dirt floor. It’s not that they are stupid, they just don’t know. It’s the same for worrying about germs, just think how many Americans didn’t know you get sick by touching your face, how can that be?
When I lived in Tennessee, for some reason a lot of the people there who bag groceries don’t know to put raw meet separate from deli meat and raw fruits and vegetables. I never have that problem in Florida. I don’t see how Memphis doesn’t have a disproportionate amount of food poisoning. Maybe they do. Everything is wrapped of course, but just that they do it makes me think at home they must cross contaminate all the time.
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