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Housekeeping Disasters Revealed: Guestroom Drinking Glasses

TalentChris · December 13, 2007

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Earlier this month the Chicago Sun Times ran a story titled: ”Hold the Ice: What’s in your glass might surprise you”.

The article revealed failed results of an ‘ice cube test’ from 49 fast-food and casual-dining restaurants and hotel bars in the city. The Chicago Sun-Times found that more than one in every five samples contained high levels of bacteria.

Today I discovered a hidden camera video story exposing some awful housekeeping techniques in Chicago at an Embassy Suites property, a Holiday Inn, and a local Sheraton. Housekeeping room attendants were seen using dirty face towels to dry glasses that were sanitized with Windex, and handled with gloves that just came out of the toilet.

This is terrible press for any hospitality operator, but if proper (sanitary) cleaning procedures are formalized, trained and re-iterated, this should never happen in a reputable establishment.

Unfortunately, some operators aren’t so diligent in their procedures. We all know that room attendants are doing more work in guestrooms than ever before, but glassware sanitation isn’t the place to cut corners. 

The hotels in the video might easily have exposed their guests to harmful viruses and bacteria. For their effort, they got to star in this hard-hitting video blog:


Chris

Post it at Trend Hunter....

Good idea HH--hadn’t thought of it.

See?

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Upon reading this article I was not surprised to hear of this. Having been a housekeeper in my early days for a very reputable brand, we were told to soak the glasses in the bathroom sink in hot water and to polish with a towel. This was an acceptable practice my management and when I voiced concerns on the lack of sanitation, I was told it was the only means of having the glasses cleaned.

I have witnessed housekeepers doing this too.  Absolutely DISGUSTING.  I haven’t stayed in a hotel in a long time, but it’s guaranteed that I will NEVER drink or rinse from hotel cups.  I’d rather bring my own.

Whoa...there’s nothing like a little insider perspective to drive home a point.

Thanks for sharing!

Me too, just about every hotel I have ever worked in used the towels to do the cups etc.

They also used the dirty towels to wipe over the sinks and baths after ‘cleaning’

Needless to say I am an expert in changing this practice, and I am absolutely livid if anyone slips up and ‘forgets’ their washing up brushes and t-towels.

I found these nifty little dish scrubbers called ‘dishmatic’ in the supermarket, you fill the handle with detergent and it dispenses in the sponge at the end, you just replace the sponge when needed.

To Queen of Clean, I witnessed that too.  They would take the towels guests have dried their body parts with and use that to clean the counter and basin.  That is so nasty. 

You can’t really blame some of them considering their supervisors are so demanding and MEAN sometimes like drill seargents.  15 rooms in an 8 hour shift, lunch and breaks.  It’s virtually impossible to not skip corners if you have a quota like that.  It’s horrible. 

I left higher chain for smaller hotels.  I don’t cut corners and I don’t get barked at by supervisors.

I saw a movie on internet where the cleaner it’s just called cleaner for no reason… She didn’t washed even the glasses… she putted them under the water jet and after this putted them back to their places…

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