Wilma Smith was vacationing with her grandchildren in Orlando when she met a maid on a mission. When she returned from one of the theme parks one afternoon, she found the door to her room at the Days Inn propped wide open.
“We had cameras and laptops in there,” says Smith, a retiree who lives in Darby, Mont. “The maid had been there. Nothing was taken, but we were a little put out by it.”
Hotel guests today are facing off against increasingly zealous and indifferent housekeeping staff. Sometimes, these maids on a mission don’t even wait until you’ve left the room before they start cleaning.
“They have rigid schedules that are at the convenience of the cleaning staff,” says Terry Shults, who works for the University of Texas, and has experienced the hyperactive hotel staffers across the board, from budget hotels to luxury resorts. “One hotel liked to pick up all the sheets and towels in the morning and return them in late afternoon. Another liked to clean from 11 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. and take a break while in our room.”
Guests like Shults, meanwhile, were “always welcome to stand out in the hall or sit in our car if we were parked in front of a ground-floor motel unit,” he says.
What’s going on here? Hotels, like other businesses, are constantly trying to improve the efficiency of their work force. A skilled manager can save thousands of dollars in labor over the period of several months by skimming just a few seconds off the time it takes to service a room, although the results are not always as productive as they expected.
At a time when the lodging industry is raking in record profits — it earned an eye-popping $48 billion in 2007 — the pressure to squeeze a little extra work from their staff, and improve on last year’s numbers, is particularly intense.
But that’s not the only reason that more doors are being left ajar and guests are being shooed into the hallway. At the risk of oversimplifying this problem, it often just comes down to bad communication. And I’m not necessarily thinking of English-speaking managers who can’t communicate with non-native-speaking housekeepers, but also guests who simply refuse to talk with either.
Between the rush to clean rooms and this apparent communication gap are all the makings of some very dissatisfied hotel guests, not to mention exhausted hotel employees. You don’t have to end up as an angry customer. Here are six tips for avoiding housekeeping hell:
1. Three words: do not disturb.
Remember what I said about communication? The best way to keep a housekeeper from barging in on your room is to hang the “do not disturb” sign on your door. I know guests who never remove the notice. How do they get their room serviced? They flag down housekeepers who are making their rounds and tell them they’re ready — or they just turn the sign around (you know, the one that reads, “Please service my room.”)
It’s important to be as clear about your wishes as possible. Which is to say, either flip the sign or tell a housekeeper you need your room cleaned. Lee Camp recently stayed at a motel in Crestview, Fla., and he removed the “do not disturb” sign before leaving for the day, hoping his room would be serviced. It wasn’t. “There were no clean towels, the garbage had not been emptied, the ashtray wasn’t cleaned, the bed wasn’t made and there was no coffee for the next morning,” remembers Lee. “Basically, nothing had been done to the room.”
2. Mention your housekeeping preferences in your guest profile.
Hotels keep sophisticated guest profiles that track their likes and dislikes. If you’re a frequent visitor or if you belong to the hotel chain’s frequent-stayer program, chances are the property already knows that you don’t like being disturbed early in the morning — or at all. I wrote about hotel guest preference programs almost a decade ago and since then, the systems have only become more sophisticated. They’re now able to communicate your likes and dislikes to other properties within the hotel chain, and there’s very little the databases don’t know about you, particularly if you’re a frequent guest. It can’t hurt to let a hotel representative know your preferences and to specifically ask about a notation being made in your profile regarding your housekeeping needs. Who knows, it might prevent a housekeeping headache.
3. Don’t give them a reason to visit your room.
Not every hotel employee that intrudes into the privacy of your quarters is there to clean. There are maintenance people, technicians, managers and … the dreaded minibar police. Ron Dylewski, a videotape editor in Pittsburgh, had an encounter with the snack cops at a luxury hotel recently. “They wouldn’t be denied,” he recalls. “I was badgered, and they knocked on my door several times — the implication that I’m going to walk out without paying my minibar tab.”
The solution, of course, is to not accept the minibar key when you check in. Think about it. The items are marked up by hundreds of percent, so why would you even want access to them? In my experience, hotels take a hard line on minibar charges, and they go to great lengths to make sure their guests are billed.
4. Do it yourself — and save the environment.
Those signs that encourage you to consider re-using the towel in your room may save the hotel money, as my colleague Amy Bradley-Hole pointed out recently. But on some level, they make a lot of sense. They force you to ask a number of other important questions. For example, is it necessary to change your sheets regularly, or to even have the bed made? What harm could come of asking a housekeeper for a few extra towels and giving her a few days off? Unless I’m on an extended stay, I prefer to reuse my towels, make my own bed and keep the housekeepers out of my room. I don’t think it’s responsible to throw towels away after just one use, but beyond that, I like the privacy. I don’t want hotel employees moving my stuff around.
5. Reward good behavior …
There’s no rule that you have to wait until the end of your stay before tipping your housekeeper. If your maid is behaving, why not reward her — or him — by leaving a little something in the envelope before leaving? Or, if you’re afraid they might not understand that you’re tipping them early, just hand them the envelope or at the very least, tell them how much you appreciate the fact that they are respecting the “do not disturb” sign.
6. … and punish bad behavior.
As a hotel guest, you have numerous options when it comes to retribution. Withholding a tip, reporting the employee to a manager and complaining to headquarters are just a few of the choices you have as a disgruntled visitor. The sooner you speak up, the better.
I regret not having done that once. I was a guest at a small inn on one of Washington state’s breathtakingly beautiful San Juan Islands. It had been a lovely stay, but on my last morning in town, I returned from breakfast to find my luggage standing outside the door. Funny thing was, I hadn’t finished packing yet. I opened the door to find a maid reclining on the sofa, puffing on a cigarette.
“Ya missed your checkout time,” she snarled, taking another drag and turning her head away.
“My things,” I protested. “I wasn’t finished packing.”
“Took care of that for you,” she exhaled.
Sure enough, she had crammed the rest of my belongings into my bag and then wheeled it into the hallway so she could take her cigarette break in my room. I would have said something, but I had a plane to catch.
Needless to say, I did not leave a tip.
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{ 21 comments… read them below or add one }
As a former housekeeper, I agree with the point that any bad behaviour should be reported.
However, I don’t think you really understand what it’s like to be a housekeeper. First of all, it’s back-breaking work and the pay usually isn’t that great. (I remember reading that a high percentage of maids suffer some sort of injury — I had to give up the work myself to due to repetitive stress injuries).
Second, the industry standard is to clean 16 rooms in eight hours. With such a tight schedule, cleaning rooms at the leisure of guests can be very difficult without same advanced warning. (Especially when our day starts well before check-out time) I agree with the point about letting management know your preferences. It can help a housekeeper schedule their day.
Third, don’t think that not leaving a tip is sending a message. Many people don’t tip, period. If something happens that you’re not happy about, you should report it to management. Otherwise you’re just reinforcing the image that “rich tourists” don’t care about anyone but themselves.
On the other hand, if you want to show your appreciation for good service (“reward good behaviour” — what are we? dogs?), a tip certainly goes a long way. If you treat staff with respect (rather than a slave) you’ll receive better service.
Staff are often treated poorly by both management and guests, and receive little or no appreciation for their hard work. However, guests are customers and they deserve to be treated fairly and receive excellent service. If hotel staff are increasingly “zealous and indifferent”, have we stopped to ask why?
What is causing this ever-growing divide? Increasing economic pressures and rising costs? The attitude of entitlement on the part of the traveler? Class differences? Exploitative senior management?
I think it all boils down to how to treat people.
Beth,
I hope that not all housekeepers think of tourists as ‘rich’. I have to save all year for a vacation. And I still have to pinch my pennies when I’m on vacation.
I’ve started leaving housekeeping tips recently. It had never occurred to me in past years.
One time, a housekeeper saw me entering my room and said “thank you for the tip, sir!” It felt very nice. I was staying two nights and received good service throughout the stay.
@ Beth: Many guest look down upon the ‘cleaning’ crew, that is true. But the cleaning crew should also not forget that while they are also a part of the hospitality industry.
I understand that your work is hard, but that quite frankly is something between the cleaners and their employers. Go on strike. It’s fine by me. While this may sound very harsh, you don’t care much for my work problems either, when I visit a room you need to clean.
As far as I am concerned, my bed does not need to be cleaned, I don’t need new towels (never stayed more than a week in a hotel, and you get at least three). Basically, I only want my trash taken out, especially since hotels usually give you minuscule trash bin that overflow after the first bottle goes in.
Last, we complain a lot here on this forum about service being taken away. Once service I would not complain about being taken away, is the daily clean towels, and sheets in hotels. As far as I am concerned, hotels should reverse their policy. In stead of standard giving guests news sheets and towels, they should ask guests when they’d like news sheets and towels. The amount of water that is cleaned by washing perfectly clean towels and sheets is a disgrace to the hotel industry, especially in dryer areas. This should not be a financial matter, it is a moral matter.
I don’t like being rushed out of my room by 10:00 every morning. Personally, I’ve made it a point to call in advance and TELL motels they are off my list if the require check out earlier than noon.
Secondly, I’m always telling them I want NO ROOM SERVICE anymore, because I don’t like playing this chicken and egg game with the room service.
Lastly, my vote is for private bed and breakfasts. Motels are just to COORPORATE to be pleasurable anymore.
The rooms should be equiped with electronics switches calling for room service and an on-staff maid should work all day, not 10-noon.
IT amazes me the number of people that do not consider tipping he housekeeping staff!
I have to confess to being intensely private and it bothers me to have a stranger in my hotel room to pick up after me. After all, I am able to pick up after myself, right? I’ve found that when I’m low on towels I can either pick them up at the front desk on my way by, or they will have them delivered to my room (some Marriott hotels were flabbergasted that I would do it on my own). I then leave the towels and tied up bags of garbage outside my door when I leave in the morning (around 8). When I come back, the towels and garbage are gone and clean garbage sacks are laid at my door.
One note if you prefer to do this is to keep your do not disturb sign up and call the front desk, too. That way it keeps the maids from having to check back throughout the day. That way they know what to expect. I actually have had maids leave me a thank you note with the stack of garbage bags!
Stefano, housekeeping does work all day. It’s not just your room they clean, you know. Also, I don’t understand your statement about room service at all.
We stayed in one place in Omaha for 2 nights. After spending our full day at the zoo, we got back to a room that hadn’t been cleaned. There was a do not disturb sign in the key slot of the room, but we hadn’t put it there. The only thing we can figure out is that it is easier and quicker to put a do not disturb sign out than to actually clean the room. When we called to complain, we received no adequate response from the manager. It took an additional 2 hours to even get clean towels.
We’re supposed to tip the housekeeping staff???
I have relatives who have been hotel housekeepers, and some of the disgusting things they have to clean up are unbelievable – everything from used contraceptives to human and animal waste. I travel regularly for work and this involves staying in hotels regularly (21 nights so far this year). My attitude is that the housekeepers have a job to do, and I assist them by keeping my room as neat and tidy as possible. Sure they will have to replace towels and clean up, but if my room is reasonably tidy, it won’t necessarily take the half hour allotted. I also tip in those countries where it is customary.
We were at a hotel on New Orleans on our honeymoon when the maid tried to come in at 7:30 AM in spite of the Do Not Disturb sign. Thankfully we had put the chain on the door. She opened the door a crack and yelled “housekeeping”. We told here we were still sleeping and she said that she would come back later. She then proceeded to try to get into the room in the same manner every 15 minutes.
We called the office and someone came up and talked to her. After that she decided to vaccum outside our door banging the door or the wall outside with every sweep, and then spent the next 1/2 hour making very loud comments in the hall about lazy people who had nothing better to do than sleep all day.
We left the hotel early, cancelled the rest of our stay and went somewhere else. This wasn’t some cheap hotel chain, the room was several hundred dollars a night. We surely expected better!
I know that hotel service is a crummy job, my younger sis did it for several years while she was in college. However, I still think the cleaners could treat the the guests with respect. We try to treat them with respect everywhere we go, we keep our room neat, pick up the towels and always leave a tip (except for the woman in NO)
I have no idea what is the ‘correct’ amount to tip. I generally tip ‘one currency unit’ per person per day.
USA: $1 per day per person, min $2.
Europe – $1 Euro per day per person – min 2
Britain – pounds – same thing.
This actually kind of works in China – 1 yuan is like 15 cents – tipping is seen as an insult – except in the most Western of hotels where they are just as tip greedy as anywhere else in the world.
I’d ;like to hear from the maids here – since – a cabbie is making $2 – 3 a trip max as well. . . .
My sister cleaned rooms for years and the stories she told me disgusted me. Families with young children who litterally left humane waste spread across the walls in a very upscale hotel in downtown Ottawa among others. She was always pleasently surprised by any tips left behind.
Our father, a very frequent business traveler, started paying a lot more attention and tipping better after she started the job when he realised what the room attendents had to put up with.
My sister to this day claims that the housekeeping department is the best department in the hotel with the best, friendliest people. They just happen to mostly be immegrants who speak poor English, work back breaking jobs and make very little money.
Team Canada (Hockey) stayed in the hotel she was working at in Ottawa once and it greatly affected how she watched the game after a player who’s room she’d looked after during his stay left all his spare change (with one and two dollar coins this amounted to almost fifteen dollars) and a note thanking the housekeeping staff for their hard work. To this day she claims him as her favourite player and cheers avidly for whichever team he plays for.
The moral – they are good people who work hard who are often forced to give much more respect than they get so if you don’t want them to touch your things leave out the DND sign call for fresh towels and enjoy your stay they’ll use those thirty minutes alloted to your room to clean someone else’s who hasn’t hard the courtesy to pick up his used contraceptives off the floor.
When I was growing up, my parents always tipped the maids whenever we went on vacation. I continue the practice as an adult traveler, on both business and pleasure trips.
Some companies I’ve worked for have refused to reimburse housekeeping tips because they are “not necessary”, but will refund anything I might tip to a doorman who got me a cab. I always thought that was a ridiculous point of view, particularly since I tend to ship samples to my hotels for meetings, and that requires disposal of boxes that are sometimes quite large.
Especially now that I have children, I try to make the room a little more orderly before my family and I head out for the day when we are on vacation. It’s courteous and I think the right thing to do. I always tip more per day when on a family trip, because there is more mess. And if one of my kids should throw up in their bed, as happened a couple of years ago, we give extra for having to clean that up. We also call housekeeping to say what happened before they come to the room, apologize profusely, and try to clean up some of the mess ourselves. We travelers need to show a little courtesy on our side sometimes.
Sure, I’ve had maids knock before I’m ready to leave my room in the mornings. But a simple, “We’re still here, but we’ll be gone in about 20 minutes” or something similar will help to put everyone at ease. Then housekeeping is able to make a note on their schedule to come back soon. Or, if we won’t be leaving, I’ll say so and just ask for clean towels, which they can usually give me right then. If I think I’ll be sleeping late, Do Not Disturb goes out the night before.
I know how much I hate to clean up my own home, so part of the joy of vacation is not having to make the bed for a few days. I’m happy to show my appreciation for that to the housekeeping staff. I’ve been lucky not to encounter surly or aggressive housekeeping people during my travels, although they must be out there just as in any profession.
BTW – I tip $2-5 per night on a business trip (depending on box disposal, and it’s usually just one night) and about $5 per night on a family vacation. That’s what I learned from my dad. Someone above asked about the suggested rate.
I was staying at a hotel one time on the Oregon Coast and after spending the afternoon on the beach I went back to my room to shower and change so I could meet some friends for dinner. After I got out of the shower I realized a forgot my towel to went to grab it off my bed. As I left my bathroom the hotel maid was in there making my bed and had thrown the towels in with there other dirty towels, I was very angry with her I was standing there naked telling her to leave my room and she kept mumbling something in spanish. err. I finally got her to leave and proceeded to get ready. I know I forgot to put up the do not disturb sign but I was in a hurry, and she should have left when she heard the shower going. I normally leave a tip for the maids but not this time, but I did mention it to the front desk the time of check out the next day.
One view from the back of the house, I am an executive housekeeper at a mid size limited service hotel. I believe the problems and issues some guests may have with housekeeping is a result of poor training, retraining and a managers diligence to correct the behaviours. While I know all to well the time contraints placed on the housekeeping staff to clean rooms in 30 minutes, I am also aware that there are a wide range of organizational skills among the individuals on the staff. Working with those who may less organized to help them save steps, as in trips to their carts, what order to clean, how to clean thoroughly is all my responsibility. Being aware of who among them struggles, who are the natural “easy way” cutting corners individuals, who are the detail oriented, who goes that extra mile to provide outstanding service, All of the posts have a familiar ring to them, if there is no one to hold them accountable, then that bad behaviour continues.
Now, I want to say something in their defense, the business traveler, who tips them when they are neat and tidy, limited time to clean, gets their attention, as does the guests who trash a room, leaving personal spent sexual items for them to find and dispose of, womens used sanitary items left laying all over, vomit and feces all over the toilet, in the tub, the bed etc. It is outrageous what some people will ask of a person to clean up after their thoughtless, pig stye lifestyle. We do our best to provide you with the best possible service while you are our guests, but do you really expect us to pick up your dirty underwear, socks and piles of dirty personal clothes off the floor so we can walk over to the bed to make it up, to welcome you back from a long day? Some of you, and you know who you are, spit in the tubs, the sinks etc and we are supposed to clean it with a smile. You check out of your room, leaving in your wake, a mess no mother would ever be proud of, we know you paid hard earned money to stay, be comfortable, expect a clean room, and we have done our very best. A thank you, a tip, a smile from more of you would make our days a little better. Some of you seem to think that no smoking means for other people, it really means for all people. it’s not even about the damage, the smell you leave behind, but also the allergens for the next guest who may react violently to them. We change out the bedding, we run the air purifier, after you have done your selfish act. and yes we charge you for your transgression, 40 dollars for a cleaning fee, because you see this goes above and beyond our daily duty. Please don’t take our profession for granted, what makes us different from the hair dresser, barber, bartender, waitress that provide a service for you, or the cabbie, the luggage handler, and the many others on your list that you tip??? We make your bed, clean your toilet, change your sheets, and sometimes keep your secrets. We are human, we do make mistakes, but we are hard working, we care and we have pride, and we care about the service we provide for you.
I know what housekeepers go through because I deal with it on a daily basis. Housekeepers are the underappreciated and unnoticed employees of a hotel. At my hotel, each working housekeeper is alotted 15 rooms to be cleaned daily! Very often, when a housekeeper goes into a room to clean, the bad stinch in the room makes it very unpleasant. Depending on how many people are occupying the room, it makes it that much more difficult. If there are 4 people in the room, there would be luggage all over the room, and it would be difficult to move around to clean the room. There would be clothes on the bed. I always wonder “does the guest expect the housekeeper to actually fold the clothing?”. There would lots of scraps to be vacuumed on the carpet.
But the most disgusting part comes when cleaning the bathroom. If there is a female or more than one female occupying the room, they leave their feminine hygien exposed in the garbage can!, eventhough we provide little wrappers specifically to dispose them. And in the bathroom floor, there are lots of hair, as well as in the bathtub. I remember when an extended stay guest complained about no cleaning up hair in the bathroom. I mean come on!, first of all it is very disgusting that the guest leave exposed used feminine hygein products in an overly filled garbage can. Then to having to clean the bathtub of hair and whatever thing, after making the beds maneuvering around luggage and other belongings.
As for the front desk staff, guests are ever more demanding. Especially those who always want to negotiate to rediculously low rates. They want to use the front desk person in every way they can by asking where are the local attractions, booking air line tickets, etc.
Sure, there are plenty of maids/housekeepers who are stupid, but there are just as many if not more “guests” who are ingrates, at best. It’s a pleasure to serve and to even go aboveboard to make guests happy who treat us like human beings, but it is a chore in every sense of the word to have to deal with guests who think they’re better than you are simply because you clean their nasty toilets for a living. I’ve found too that those who complain the most about not having a clean unit are 9 times out of 10 the filthiest people I’ve ever had to clean up AFTER. Feces on the bathroom floor, used tampons on floors, you name it I’ve seen it. I’ve even had a guest’s little kid pee on the floor right in front of me and tell me to clean it up. Tips? Ha. I have had one tip, PER YEAR for the past 7 years. And it’s not because I’m a bad housekeeper, I’ve won housekeeping awards and am considered one of the best for the company I work for, so why have they become so cheap? It’s enough to not care about the job we may do for guests, considering they don’t care to acknowledge our hard work. pfft. Personally I can’t wait to retire and leave this business unless my bad back (from this work) puts me down first.
My family and I were in Fort Braggs for Christmas… we left the room for a brief moment to go and get some food… and ick up tickets for an event…
This is Christmas time folks… upon returning to our room we find the maid in our room two small children ( i believe they were here children) running about and playing with my grandson’s toys that were left in the room with our personal belongings as it was still our room for 2 more dazes… Needless to say things were out of sort and I am missing some jewelry and a few other items… Reported to the manager… Just makes you wonder can you trust anyone… I want my jewelry back! Christmas gifts… never even opened.
I am a housekeeper I clean thoroughly I rarely recieve tips outside of change left on the dresser that the person forgot to grab upon checking out. It is a thankless job. Today for example we had 60 rooms to clean our hotel is extremely understaffed because of cheap management @ 3 pm we finally made it to the third floor where I was yelled at by a guest and called a horrible housekeeper because her room had not been cleaned yet then said that I needed to find a new job, i apologized to her but explained that she was one of the last rooms to be cleaned…we only have 3 housekeepers for an 80 room hotel. What some people fail to realize is most of us work under terrible conditions especially where I am employed but we try to accomodate everyone but I cannot clean everyones room exactly at the time they feel it should b done so b a little more compassionate and reasonable. I do not recieve breaks I work 6-9 hours a day 9 days in a row, when I clean an extremely messy room the fee they charge that person doesn’t go to me it goes in the owners pocket but I am still expected to stay on time…I’m sorry some of u feel put off by housekeeping tryin to clean your rooms like they r supposed to just because it’s not when u think it should b done. When I stay at hotels I leave my DND up if I know I will b in the room and it’s not a good time I will forego my bed being made because I don’t want to call housekeeping back to a room she has already passed, honestly she can clean while I’m in there that doesn’t bother me she has a job to do and I require her services so what’s the big deal?!