Question of the Day - 28 November 2017

At all hotels and even motels, there’s an expectation, along with official policies, that the sheets and pillow cases are changed between guests. But there's no guarantee that they actually will be.

This issue came to the forefront last year when the TV exposé program “Inside Edition” tested whether or not the bed sheets had been changed after an overnight stay in nine hotels around Manhattan’s Times Square. Using paint that can only be detected using UV light, “Inside Edition’s” undercover team sprayed the words “I Slept Here” on the bottom sheet of each bed. They checked out, then checked back in to the same rooms later that day under different names, only to find that the message was still on the bed sheets at three of the nine hotels: Candlewood, La Quinta, and Residence Inn.

Earlier, the issue surfaced when a hotel guest found a hand-written note under bed sheets, presumably left by a previous guest, at a Courtyard Marriott that read, “If you’re reading this, then housekeeping did not change your sheets!”

Other episodes with hidden cameras have caught housekeepers being less than hygienic in their cleaning practices.

We haven’t heard anything of the sort about Vegas hotels. If you google “dirty sheets vegas,” you’ll find a few stray Trip Advisor and Yelp stories about a stain here and there, but certainly nothing as egregious as what happened to the “Inside Edition” crew in Manhattan.

As for how you can assure your hotel-room sheets are clean on check-in, here are a few ideas.

First, do some homework. Posts on the Internet review sites, such as Trip Advisor, often concern cleanliness at the reviewed establishments. Search for the word “clean” and your results will be specifically targeted.  

One trick we read about used by flight attendants is to pull back the covers and inspect the sheets before you climb in for the first time. If the sheets contain creases from being folded after going through the dryer, you can be certain that they’ve also been washed. If not, you might not be able to tell one way or the other, but creases or the lack thereof are a telltale sign. At least you’ll have a good reason to call down to housekeeping and request a change of sheets.

For that matter, do you need a good reason? Maybe not. When you check in, you could immediately call housekeeping and complain that the sheets are dirty. Pull them off before anyone can arrive and inspect them, then watch as a housekeeper brings and puts down new ones. Any quality hotel or motel chain should gladly change your bedsheets if you call with concerns, so never feel that you’re being unreasonable or too demanding. After all, you’re paying good money for a room in which you should feel completely comfortable.

One travel-advice site we checked suggests that you bring your own sheets. That seems a little extreme in our view. After all, we’re constantly bombarded with other people’s, uh, nasties. As one wag put it, “It’s the cost of doing business on planet Earth.” For example, it’s no secret that hotel bedspreads aren’t washed regularly. 

But by taking a few simple precautions, you can be reasonably sure that you’re not sleeping with last night’s guests’ hair, sloughed-off skin, drool ...