5 ms·

I would assume the reputable but cost-cutting hotels would still be doing a full clean between guest visits, just cutting down on the daily room cleaning while

I would assume the reputable but cost-cutting hotels would still be doing a full clean between guest visits, just cutting down on the daily room cleaning while a guest is still there.

lotsofpulp 4y ago
Every single hotel or motel should be doing full clean between guest visits, otherwise it should not even be allowed to operate. But if a hotel starts letting people stay weeks without checking their room, they will inevitably end up with hoarders and people that keep food lying around and then comes cockroaches and rats and odors, etc.
- midoridensha 4y ago
  >Every single hotel or motel should be doing full clean between guest visits, otherwise it should not even be allowed to operate. The keyword here is "should". I don't have much faith that hotels will actually do this.
  - vkou 4y ago
    Even bad hotels do this, because people lose their shit and do chargebacks if they end up in an uncleaned room. Source: a close friend works at a really bad hotel.
    - midoridensha 4y ago
      So if your friend says this, this implies that uncleaned rooms do happen from time to time, right?
      - vanviegen 4y ago
        People make mistakes.
      - vkou 4y ago
        No, it means that when housekeeping fails to clean a room, for whatever reason, he can't rent it out. The people losing their minds and screaming at him is what happens when something else that isn't quite to their satisfaction happens. Like, say, the hotel requiring a deposit and a major credit card and ID to book a room.
      - maccard 4y ago
        This happens in 5 star luxury hotels too. People make mistakes.
    - Gigachad 4y ago
      I recently made a bad choice in hotel and ended up at a fairly dodgy looking place, most of the lights in the room didn’t function and the shower didn’t work properly, but it was spotlessly clean so I accepted the mistake.
- emptybits 4y ago
  > But if a hotel starts letting people stay weeks without checking their room, ... Yet I think people regularly stay for weeks with Airbnb/Vrbo without any host inspection or cleaning. I agree with your conclusion (filthy guests who stay weeks invite pest problems) ... so if the big bad old hotel industry needs to market their advantages, maybe there's an Institutuionally Clean angle.
  - thefounder 4y ago
    That's one of the reasons some people(i.e me) avoid airbnb as much as possible. It seems airbnb is not even cheaper than a hotel (in most cases)
  - mcv 4y ago
    This is really the heart of the issue with all these new "disruptive" industries. They're cheaper because they avoid a lot of the regulation, but all that regulation exists for a reason. Whether you're replacing taxis with Uber or hotels with airbnb, you're saving money by allowing room for all the problems that made the regulation necessary in the first place.
    - MarkPNeyer 4y ago
      There’s always a trade off between “cost” and everything else. If you’re wealthy enough they cost doesn’t really matter to you, regulation is fine because it leads to higher quality experiences in general. But if you’re not as wealthy, saving money might be more valuable to you than having a room cleaned daily, or having a really nice tv, or a great mattress, etc. Regulation involves a group of people picking one point on a trade off curve for everyone. Branding and reputation systems allow for multiple different spots on that reputation curve.
      - gtowey 4y ago
        > But if you’re not as wealthy, saving money might be more valuable to you than having a room cleaned daily, or having a really nice tv, or a great mattress, etc. The problem is that without regulation there is little incentive for business to be honest about the quality of service you're getting. It becomes a race to the bottom as they charge premium prices for cut-rate quality. It's hard for people to take your business elsewhere when you need a place to sleep and arrive late at night to a room that isn't what you expect. They just have to make their dispute process hard enough to keep customer money. And if you day that's fraud, sure it is, but fraud is only something you can charge a business with because of regulation. IMO regulation isn't perfect, but we should aim to fix it instead of throwing it out the window entirely
- rob74 4y ago
  Even if there is some food lying around in a room on the 3rd floor, the cockroaches and rats won't just materialize out of thin air. Unless the hygienic conditions are generally bad anyway, but then the hotel has a bigger problem than one dirty room...
  - TeMPOraL 4y ago
    > the cockroaches and rats won't just materialize out of thin air In practice, you can assume they do - it's a simplified but accurate model of reality when you're not researching the life of insects and rodents. Yes, life does not appear "out of thin air", but it constantly tries to get in, will exploit any crack in your defenses or attention to chase after anything that looks or smells like food or safety. It's simpler to just assume annoying critters materialize out of thin air if you leave the right conditions, and ensure those conditions are never present. It's kind of like thermodynamics / statistical physics: the air around you doesn't really have "pressure" or "temperature", but you may just as well assume they're a thing, since the alternative would be to talk about kinematics of air molecules.
    - MarkPNeyer 4y ago
      We had a mouse problem once. The ended up being a small hole drilled in the side of the house to install a cat5 cable for a security camera. The hole couldn't have been more than 1.5 cm in diameter, and it had a cat 5 cable running through it - but apparently this was enough space for a mouse to squeeze through.
      - thirteenfingers 4y ago
        Obligatory Matthias Wandel video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jHOx39xJack https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jHOx39xJack
      - ghaff 4y ago
        Living in a couple hundred year old house in the country, I find the idea that you'd actually keep mice out of a house like this somewhat hilarious.
- ChuckNorris89 4y ago
  >Every single hotel or motel should be doing full clean between guest visits, otherwise it should not even be allowed to operate. 'Should be' yes, but you'd be surprised how many don't follow through on this, and not necessarily due to lack of policy. Cleaning staff have very tight schedules, being allocated only a few minutes to completely clean and setup the room for the new guest but if the old guest didn't follow through on the exact checkout time, then that throws of the schedule of the cleaning staff completely, meaning they often cut corners to meet their deadlines.
  - robertlagrant 4y ago
    This is undoubtedly true, but I don't think it affects the main point. Doing less room-cleaning (or charging more for each time it happens) doesn't mean inter-guest cleaning is affected.
- snarfy 4y ago
  This is how you get bed bugs.

I would assume the reputable but cost-cutting hotels would still be doing a full clean between guest visits, just cutting down on the daily room cleaning while a guest is still there.

lotsofpulp 4y ago

Every single hotel or motel should be doing full clean between guest visits, otherwise it should not even be allowed to operate. But if a hotel starts letting people stay weeks without checking their room, they will inevitably end up with hoarders and people that keep food lying around and then comes cockroaches and rats and odors, etc.

midoridensha 4y ago
>Every single hotel or motel should be doing full clean between guest visits, otherwise it should not even be allowed to operate. The keyword here is "should". I don't have much faith that hotels will actually do this.
- vkou 4y ago
  Even bad hotels do this, because people lose their shit and do chargebacks if they end up in an uncleaned room. Source: a close friend works at a really bad hotel.
  - midoridensha 4y ago
    So if your friend says this, this implies that uncleaned rooms do happen from time to time, right?
    - vanviegen 4y ago
      People make mistakes.
    - vkou 4y ago
      No, it means that when housekeeping fails to clean a room, for whatever reason, he can't rent it out. The people losing their minds and screaming at him is what happens when something else that isn't quite to their satisfaction happens. Like, say, the hotel requiring a deposit and a major credit card and ID to book a room.
    - maccard 4y ago
      This happens in 5 star luxury hotels too. People make mistakes.
  - Gigachad 4y ago
    I recently made a bad choice in hotel and ended up at a fairly dodgy looking place, most of the lights in the room didn’t function and the shower didn’t work properly, but it was spotlessly clean so I accepted the mistake.
emptybits 4y ago
> But if a hotel starts letting people stay weeks without checking their room, ... Yet I think people regularly stay for weeks with Airbnb/Vrbo without any host inspection or cleaning. I agree with your conclusion (filthy guests who stay weeks invite pest problems) ... so if the big bad old hotel industry needs to market their advantages, maybe there's an Institutuionally Clean angle.
- thefounder 4y ago
  That's one of the reasons some people(i.e me) avoid airbnb as much as possible. It seems airbnb is not even cheaper than a hotel (in most cases)
- mcv 4y ago
  This is really the heart of the issue with all these new "disruptive" industries. They're cheaper because they avoid a lot of the regulation, but all that regulation exists for a reason. Whether you're replacing taxis with Uber or hotels with airbnb, you're saving money by allowing room for all the problems that made the regulation necessary in the first place.
  - MarkPNeyer 4y ago
    There’s always a trade off between “cost” and everything else. If you’re wealthy enough they cost doesn’t really matter to you, regulation is fine because it leads to higher quality experiences in general. But if you’re not as wealthy, saving money might be more valuable to you than having a room cleaned daily, or having a really nice tv, or a great mattress, etc. Regulation involves a group of people picking one point on a trade off curve for everyone. Branding and reputation systems allow for multiple different spots on that reputation curve.
    - gtowey 4y ago
      > But if you’re not as wealthy, saving money might be more valuable to you than having a room cleaned daily, or having a really nice tv, or a great mattress, etc. The problem is that without regulation there is little incentive for business to be honest about the quality of service you're getting. It becomes a race to the bottom as they charge premium prices for cut-rate quality. It's hard for people to take your business elsewhere when you need a place to sleep and arrive late at night to a room that isn't what you expect. They just have to make their dispute process hard enough to keep customer money. And if you day that's fraud, sure it is, but fraud is only something you can charge a business with because of regulation. IMO regulation isn't perfect, but we should aim to fix it instead of throwing it out the window entirely
rob74 4y ago
Even if there is some food lying around in a room on the 3rd floor, the cockroaches and rats won't just materialize out of thin air. Unless the hygienic conditions are generally bad anyway, but then the hotel has a bigger problem than one dirty room...
- TeMPOraL 4y ago
  > the cockroaches and rats won't just materialize out of thin air In practice, you can assume they do - it's a simplified but accurate model of reality when you're not researching the life of insects and rodents. Yes, life does not appear "out of thin air", but it constantly tries to get in, will exploit any crack in your defenses or attention to chase after anything that looks or smells like food or safety. It's simpler to just assume annoying critters materialize out of thin air if you leave the right conditions, and ensure those conditions are never present. It's kind of like thermodynamics / statistical physics: the air around you doesn't really have "pressure" or "temperature", but you may just as well assume they're a thing, since the alternative would be to talk about kinematics of air molecules.
  - MarkPNeyer 4y ago
    We had a mouse problem once. The ended up being a small hole drilled in the side of the house to install a cat5 cable for a security camera. The hole couldn't have been more than 1.5 cm in diameter, and it had a cat 5 cable running through it - but apparently this was enough space for a mouse to squeeze through.
    - thirteenfingers 4y ago
      Obligatory Matthias Wandel video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jHOx39xJack https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jHOx39xJack
    - ghaff 4y ago
      Living in a couple hundred year old house in the country, I find the idea that you'd actually keep mice out of a house like this somewhat hilarious.
ChuckNorris89 4y ago
>Every single hotel or motel should be doing full clean between guest visits, otherwise it should not even be allowed to operate. 'Should be' yes, but you'd be surprised how many don't follow through on this, and not necessarily due to lack of policy. Cleaning staff have very tight schedules, being allocated only a few minutes to completely clean and setup the room for the new guest but if the old guest didn't follow through on the exact checkout time, then that throws of the schedule of the cleaning staff completely, meaning they often cut corners to meet their deadlines.
- robertlagrant 4y ago
  This is undoubtedly true, but I don't think it affects the main point. Doing less room-cleaning (or charging more for each time it happens) doesn't mean inter-guest cleaning is affected.
snarfy 4y ago
This is how you get bed bugs.