While hotel rooms are nearly unavoidable when traveling away from home, germs can be!
Make sure your group is prepared with antibacterial hand soap, disinfecting wipes, and common sense. While each lodging establishment has a code of cleanliness to abide by, there are always a few that slip through the cracks unbeknownst to their guests. Maybe it was a busy weekend and one of the housekeepers was in a rush to get weary customers out of the lobby and into their rooms, so they scrubbed a tub with the toilet brush, or perhaps they cut a few corners and didn't disinfect remotes and phones so they could get to their lunch break. Messages between staff members are not always communicated and rooms are not always properly cleaned.
From walls to windows to air conditioning units, cleaning everything every day just doesn't happen. The worst part is that you would never know the difference.
Cleaning Pixabay Public Domain Group Tours Blog
Here is our list of the biggest cootie catchers in common hotels:
1. Remote Control.
This is an obvious one as it dictates the only source of standard entertainment in hotel rooms.
2. Door Knobs.
Another usual suspect, it's impossible to get into the room without handling this.
3. Light Switches.
Touched by the guests, the housekeepers, the inspectors, the management, the pest control guy, the carpet cleaners, and everyone in between.
4. Sheets.
Sometimes, particularly neat guests don't untuck their sheets. Instead, they rest on top of them with a blanket of their own from home. On occasion, they might even make their own beds to save housekeeping trouble. This may leave only a few wrinkles behind. If the bed looks clean after check-out, its components aren't necessarily washed and replaced.
5. Bedspread.
Even when the sheets are changed, the bedspreads are very rarely washed in between every single stay. This can apply to the provided blanket(s) as well. You're better off just removing these.
6. Toilet Handle.
Depending on whether or not rags were switched out in between cleaning the bathroom floor, toilet seat, sink, or tub, it's unlikely that a brand new rag was used only on the toilet handle.
7. Faucets.
Same as the toilet handle, the fewer rags required to clean a room the faster it goes.
8. Toilet.
Back to common sense, this can never be clean enough.
9. Bathroom Floor.
A popular method of cleaning hotel rooms leaves the bathroom floor the last thing to be wiped down before vacuuming, so it may get scrubbed with the same rag that just wiped down the inside of the toilet.
10. Tub.
Check for a soap scum ring, this stuff builds up fast and can be difficult to remove. Also, check the ledges used for shampoo and shaving cream where stubborn residue can be found.
11. Pillows.
Pillowcases should be washed in between each stay, however, the pillow covers and pillows themselves are rarely laundered.
12. Alarm Clock.
If it has a radio-equipped, it was probably handled.
13. Mattress.
Aside from being flipped every few months, these are expensive to replace, and not generally at the top of the budget expenses. These can easily store skin cells, hair, mites, pollen, bodily fluids, and other bacteria.
14. Phone.
Touched by many hands, also consider the faces that have been pressed against the handset. A quick button wipe down to make sticky spots vanish does the trick to make it appear clean, but that can unfortunately suffice.
