People have high expectations every time they check in at a hotel. The hotel staff need to be courteous, the food needs to be great, and above all else, the room needs to be clean.
However, an alarming experiment conducted by Inside Edition recently showed that most hotels — even those with international chains — do not change their bed sheets regularly.
The Inside Edition crew conducted the "Hotel Sheet Test" by checking in at a hotel, then checking in the same room the following day using a different name. To determine the hotel's cleanliness, they sprayed harmless, washable flourescent paint on to the bedsheet with a stencil that stated "I slept here."
People can't tell anything is written there, but once the UV light is turned on, the paint suddenly becomes visible. They did the test on nine hotel rooms, but only revealed the results from three.
The first hotel they checked in was the Candlewood Inn and Suites in Manhattan. The result? The sheets weren't changed. When the manager was confronted, she was at a loss for words. She then replied, "I expect them to be changed everyday. That is a policy of our property."
The next hotel they booked was the La Quinta Inn and Suites, which is located not far from Central Park. Once again, the results were dismal. The cleaning lady insisted that she cleaned the sheets, but the spray paint suggested otherwise. The manager said, "There are no words for me to say. We expect our housekeepers to change the sheets."
Lastly, they went to the Residence Inn by Marriott. Since it is an award-winning hotel, the crew decided to spray "Yuck" on the top sheet and "I slept here" on the bottom sheet. For the pillows, they marked the sheets with the logo of Inside Edition.
At first, the results looked promising. There wasn't a sign of paint in the pillow sheets, but the top and bottom sheets carried the guilty paint. The manager refused to talk about the incident, but then provided this statement: "We make it a custom to change every check-out sheet. However, I do not know what happened in this situation."
The Marriott corporation has already apologised for the incident, and all of its chains have assured guests that they uphold high standards of cleanliness.
