How do good hotels always feel so clean and fresh?

Housekeeping. You may think your own home is nice and clean, but even if you're an obsessive-compulsive neat freak, hotels play it at an entirely different level. We have to. 

For example, do you change and launder your sheets every day? No? But you put fresh sheets on the bed if you're expecting house guests for a few days, on any bed intended for their use, right?  And you supply them with fresh towels, not one you used yourself once already. And even then - well, when was the last time you steamed the carpet in your guestroom, or turned the mattress over?

All hotels deal with are house guests.

How do hotels dispose of 'slightly dirty' towels?

'Slightly dirty' towels go into the hotel laundry: we don't give up on them that easily. Towels are only retired if they show a stain that won't come out  or they start to get discolored or frayed. (If it's not too noticeable, we dye it blue and use it as a pool towel: otherwise, it gets dyed red and the housekeepers use it as a cleaning rag.)



Originally appeared on Quora

If I check into a hotel room, and something about the room is unacceptable, how do I proceed?

Don't be shy about saying something. Housekeeping issues, dirty linens on the bed or dirty cups in the sink, are particularly unacceptable, and no decent hotel will expect you to endure that. If nothing else, they'll switch you to another room if you tell someone at the desk right away.




Old linens should be replaced as needed, and if an older, cheaper hotel tries to get too many more uses out of them, they're going to look dirty even if freshly washed. One problem I've frequently encountered in such properties back in the day is that a guest will complain that the sheets on the bed are dirty. That's a no-win situation for both the guest and the clerk. Back in my day, I could get you new sheets - but they're going to come out of the same laundry room from which the housekeepers got the 'dirty' ones that are now on your bed . . . 

So, if you suspect that's the case, I'd find another hotel the next time you're in that town.

Originally appeared on Quora

Is it stealing if you take certain items in your already paid-for hotel room like soap, shampoo, stationery, etc?

We expect guests to either use or to take consumable items - soap, shampoo, stationery, etc. You're welcome.

Things like towels, hair dryers, lamps, TVs, TV remotes (I think some guests are mutant aliens who eat TV remotes. Like, gee, the remote can't be counted upon to work with any TV anywhere except the one in the room, but they do travel . . . ), alarm clock radios, comforters, coffeemakers, bedspreads, blankets, etc., are obviously intended for the next guests, are part of the furnishings, and we don't want you taking them. They are also a bit more costly - in a cheap motel, almost as much as you paid for the room in some cases, and definitely more than our profit margin in many more cases - so yes, we go a little nuts when people help themselves to them.

Bathrobes occupy a grey area in the middle. Some hotels provide them as part of the bedding, and want to launder them and hang them for another guest when you check out. On the other hand, in a more upscale property, some people actually assume that they're gifts - with the hotel's blessing. Something like that is a good promotional item, if a little on the pricy side for a midscale hotel: if you did it at all, you'd only do it for your most important customers. I wouldn't provide them in every room to every guest, but a VIP might find a bathrobe monogrammed with the hotel logo left in the room, as a gift. (Not all of them get opened or taken in places where I've seen it done that way.)

Why do most hotels use only white linen?

When you have to buy more, white is just about the easiest color to match. 



And you're always buying more. Why? Occasionally rips are a problem, but usually it's because of a stain that won't come out. Which is another reason: stains show up more readily on white linen. Sometimes, stains are a good thing -- they tell you that it's time to retire that sheet or pillowcase and replace it with a new one. A guest who finds a stain on a colored sheet won't spot it until he or she is looking at it much more up close and personal - and then he or she will be very unhappy about it.  (It's like a law: in the mind of most guests, any mystery stain on a sheet or other bedding will be blood, or something even more disgusting.) I want my housekeepers to spot any stains on my linens before they go on the bed, and then exchange it for one that isn't stained.

You can't always count on getting your replacement linens in the same shade of blue, green, peach or pastel yellow that you got last time if you go with colors.

Indeed, hotels that still use bedspreads at all are moving in a big way to white bedspreads - for all the same reasons.

Originally appeared on Quora

What happens if a guest steals a towel or pillow from a hotel room?

If you can get it out of the building without us spotting you, we’ll let you keep it. Since that usually involves smuggling it out in your baggage with your dirty socks and underwear, it’s conceivable that we might not want it back.

If you do it several times, if every time you rent a room from us the housekeepers tell us that there are things missing from the room, and we’ve become pretty confident that it’s you, we’ll stop renting rooms to you.

Originally appeared on Quora