HotelChatter

HotelChatter Discussions

Does Housekeeping Really Listen When You Don't Want Your Sheets Changed?

October 29, 2007 at 11:38 AM | 4 Comments

Our Paris correspondent Monica Guy has put forth a very interesting question about changing the sheets during your hotel stay.

You know those cards that most hotels now have in the room?

Every year blah blah millions of litres of water blah blah save our planet blah blah If you would like to re-use your towels, please hang them on the rack. If you would like them changed, please leave them on the bathroom floor. Thank you for saving the planet blah blah blah.

Those ones. Has anyone ever got that system to work?

I'm a bit of an eco-warrior in my spare time, when I'm not flying around in noisy polluting aeroplanes burning carbon like there's no tomorrow. I'm also clean. My sheets and towels don't need changing every day.

But! In every hotel I leave my towels neatly placed on the rack. I leave a large note in the bathroom and on my bed, in English and in the native language - in Spanish as well if staying in Miami or California - stating:

"Please do not change my towels and sheets today. I want to use the same ones. Thank you." I ring up the hotel desk and housekeeping and tell them I specifically do not want my towels and sheets changed. I tell all the maids I see in the corridor not to change anything. I wait until they come to clean the room, and remind them again.

But nobody pays the blind bit of notice. The housekeepers change my sheets and towels every single day, sometimes twice a day if I've been wasteful enough to shower in the afternoon.

Is it a lesson in not being anal? Or am I doing something wrong?

Does anyone else ever have the same problem? Let us know.