How bad, as in 'how dangerous', or 'how extremely gross'? Not very. Usually, when they occur, they're pretty obvious, like the ones you mentioned. Usually, someone, often a guest, will spot something with the potential for extreme grossness before it gets too gross. Even the less obvious ones - dust across the top of a picture frames, film in the tub, grunge around the base of the toilet, something under a bed (beds should be on box bases, not angle-iron frames; but in some hotels, some still aren't) - are pretty obvious if someone just looks.
As far as dangerous or extremely gross goes, the worst I've seen - at separate incidents, in separate hotels of varying quality - were sharp objects left laying around: once the blade of a carpet knife left in the floor of a room where the carpetlayers weren't doing a very good job of picking up behind themselves (the hotel was being remodeled on the fly) resulting in injury to a guest; another time a hypodermic syringe left in the drawer of a nightstand (fortunately no injury beyond a disgusted guest who demanded a refund right away, although I'm aware of a situation that did occur at a Motel 6 in Virginia Beach where a small child had an unpleasant encounter with a previous guest's syringe while crawling around in the floor, and had to be hospitalized).
Used condoms tend to be a bit of an embarrassment when missed and left behind by housekeeping staff. We have a room: in a double room, both beds get stripped and remade, even if it appears that only one was used. It's not unheard-of for a guest in a double to pull back the bedspread and blanket and find a used condom. How it happens: a couple rents a double room, uses one of the beds, then remakes it themselves, thinking they'll be charged for an extra person if both beds are found unmade.
Another occasional embarrassment occurs when a guest checks in and discovers himself that not only did the room attendant not clean the toilet, the previous guest didn't even flush it.
We had a somewhat ditzy room attendant at one hotel who'd strip the sheets, then after she finished cleaning everything else, forget to make the bed before moving on to the next room. At another hotel, when I first became the manager, picked up on what was happening, and started bearing down on them; housekeepers never looked inside the refrigerator and microwave . . . and of course, when a guest checked in who wanted to use the refrigerator or microwave, he'd see something he didn't want to see.
Most housekeeping issues can be dealt with by the simple expedient of having someone check behind them. I'm a believer in not marking a room 'vacant and ready' until it's been gone over either by a manager or the housekeeping supervisor. Many larger hotels have a 'room inspector' who does nothing but check rooms behind the room attendants . . .
There is such a thing as a lady who loves to clean. I've known a few (there's no reason a guy can't be the same way). But it's like a law: there's a limit of one per hotel, even if you're blessed to have even that one. 'Maids', like janitors and street sweepers, don't rate very highly on the socioeconomic scale in the eyes of many. "You might want to treat them with some respect", I've told younger managers who had to have it called out for them. "They're what keeps you from having to put on an apron, roll out a cart, and do it yourself." Cleaning (scrubbing floors, swabbing toilets, etc.), and making rooms, is something many people consider demeaning, the kind of work you do if you don't have a choice, or can't get a job doing something else. Many people don't expect too much of them in terms of caring about what they do, accordingly.
But as long as people who run the hotel see it that way, they're never going to get much better out of their housekeeping help. I've known more than one who refuses to pay room attendants more than minimum wage. "It's a minimum wage job", he told me. My own feeling is that minimum wage gets you minimum people. Hotels, and hotel managers, who feel that way are going to have to check behind their housekeepers all the more, and even that's not going to do but just so much good.
If they don't check behind them as much as they should, you're going to see housekeeping lapses.
Originally appeared on Quora
As far as dangerous or extremely gross goes, the worst I've seen - at separate incidents, in separate hotels of varying quality - were sharp objects left laying around: once the blade of a carpet knife left in the floor of a room where the carpetlayers weren't doing a very good job of picking up behind themselves (the hotel was being remodeled on the fly) resulting in injury to a guest; another time a hypodermic syringe left in the drawer of a nightstand (fortunately no injury beyond a disgusted guest who demanded a refund right away, although I'm aware of a situation that did occur at a Motel 6 in Virginia Beach where a small child had an unpleasant encounter with a previous guest's syringe while crawling around in the floor, and had to be hospitalized).
Used condoms tend to be a bit of an embarrassment when missed and left behind by housekeeping staff. We have a room: in a double room, both beds get stripped and remade, even if it appears that only one was used. It's not unheard-of for a guest in a double to pull back the bedspread and blanket and find a used condom. How it happens: a couple rents a double room, uses one of the beds, then remakes it themselves, thinking they'll be charged for an extra person if both beds are found unmade.
Another occasional embarrassment occurs when a guest checks in and discovers himself that not only did the room attendant not clean the toilet, the previous guest didn't even flush it.
We had a somewhat ditzy room attendant at one hotel who'd strip the sheets, then after she finished cleaning everything else, forget to make the bed before moving on to the next room. At another hotel, when I first became the manager, picked up on what was happening, and started bearing down on them; housekeepers never looked inside the refrigerator and microwave . . . and of course, when a guest checked in who wanted to use the refrigerator or microwave, he'd see something he didn't want to see.
Most housekeeping issues can be dealt with by the simple expedient of having someone check behind them. I'm a believer in not marking a room 'vacant and ready' until it's been gone over either by a manager or the housekeeping supervisor. Many larger hotels have a 'room inspector' who does nothing but check rooms behind the room attendants . . .
There is such a thing as a lady who loves to clean. I've known a few (there's no reason a guy can't be the same way). But it's like a law: there's a limit of one per hotel, even if you're blessed to have even that one. 'Maids', like janitors and street sweepers, don't rate very highly on the socioeconomic scale in the eyes of many. "You might want to treat them with some respect", I've told younger managers who had to have it called out for them. "They're what keeps you from having to put on an apron, roll out a cart, and do it yourself." Cleaning (scrubbing floors, swabbing toilets, etc.), and making rooms, is something many people consider demeaning, the kind of work you do if you don't have a choice, or can't get a job doing something else. Many people don't expect too much of them in terms of caring about what they do, accordingly.
But as long as people who run the hotel see it that way, they're never going to get much better out of their housekeeping help. I've known more than one who refuses to pay room attendants more than minimum wage. "It's a minimum wage job", he told me. My own feeling is that minimum wage gets you minimum people. Hotels, and hotel managers, who feel that way are going to have to check behind their housekeepers all the more, and even that's not going to do but just so much good.
If they don't check behind them as much as they should, you're going to see housekeeping lapses.
Originally appeared on Quora
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