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A Housekeeper's Lament

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GingerFox

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When you stay at a hotel, you probably are wound up in your vacation. You hope the weather stays nice. You hope the hotel has an indoor pool. You hope you packed everything you needed. You hope you don't get a flat tire or run out of money.

You also, probably don't give a crap about the hotel room you're in, as long as it's clean.

I'm a housekeeper at a resort hotel in the Poconos.

I'm sorry, let's rephrase...

I'm an underpaid housekeeper at a RESORT hotel in the Poconos.

I work long hard hours for NOT enough money. On the occasion someone leaves a tip. But this occasion is a rare one, unless it's around the holidays, when people feel more giving.

Housekeepers are humans. I don't know if the general public FORGETS this, or what it is...

We do not clean the same rooms every single day, and believe it or not, we get days off.

If the housekeeper did a horrible job? You don't need to harass the housekeeper the next day. It may not be their fault.

The housekeepers ALSO understand how frustrating it is for you that there are no fresh towels available. Keep in mind that the housekeepers only clean rooms. We don't do the laundry as well. That's what the laundry people are for. We can only get the towels to you as soon as the machines are done washing them. Hey, you give us your dirty towels? We can clean them faster.

Do not disturb signs? Are there for a purpose. If you don't want a housekeeper waking you up at 9am? PUT THE SIGN ON THE DOOR HANDLE.

We knock when we start work. If you don't have the sign? We will knock. And we will open the door if you don't answer. Which means, if you sleep naked, you will want to use that DND sign.

I have seen enough unattractive (and attractive but mostly not) people naked to last me a lifetime.

If you don't want any service for the day? PLEASE! If you see the housekeeper in the hallway? Let them know your room number and that they don't need to clean it. There's nothing worse than knocking a hundred times just for the person to say "WE'RE STILL IN HERE" a thousand times. If you don't want anything, speak up. We'll leave you alone. We'll be THRILLED to leave you alone.

If you leave a tip for your housekeeper while you're out? Write a note. We, believe it or not, don't LIKE to take money if we don't know for sure that it's for us. Leaving it on the bedside table will not indicate that it is for us. We get accused of stealing often, even though it's RARE that a housekeeper steals. It's near impossible to get away with. If you want the housekeeper to have a tip, we are not turning your tips down. Just... find a way to indicate that we should be taking the money you leave out.

Please ASK for extra towels. Don't just take them off the cart. When you ask, we will be happy to hand you some extra towels. But we get confused when things disappear. We like to know where they're going. You're welcome to the towels. Just... let us know so we know how many extra we'll be needing for the day.

There are so many housekeeping pet peeves...

OH:

Tip for you traveling people who stay at hotels: If you want your beds made by the housekeeper? DO NOT leave stuff all over them. A few clothes or the remote is no big deal. But a housekeeper will probably NOT make your bed if you have electronics on it. We try not to move that stuff. Because if it breaks? WE cannot afford that stuff. Really. Don't make a big fuss over it. We'll be glad to come back and do it if you want us to. But we probably didn't make the bed because there was something expensive looking on it.
 
I admit that I've never tipped a house keeper and now I feel bad about it :(
 
It's not so annoying that people don't leave tips. Unless of course there room is trashed. I hate getting a trashed room that has no tip in it. People think they pay all this money for a hotel room and they have the right to just TRASH the place. "Who cares? The housekeeper HAS to clean it up... They're PAID they don't MIND...."

No... no we do mind. We're underpaid. $7.40/hr is not nearly enough for some of the disgusting messes I've had to clean up.

Don't feel bad about not tipping housekeepers, though. People generally forget to tip housekeepers. I've never tipped a housekeeper before either. But now that I've had this job for almost a year, next time I stay at a hotel I'm going to leave one. As long as the room is kept nice and the housekeeper does their job properly? I will definitely give them a tip.
 
I will from now on :)
I tip everywhere else, just never thought about tipping the housekeeper. :eek:ops:
 
I leave tips about 50% of the time. Why 50%? It just comes down to if I remember to tip or not. I've also left tips for the people that take care of hotel breakfasts in the morning, especially if the food is hot and fresh and the dining area is clean.
 
Oh god. A new complaint:

I HATE this. I hate when people make soupy disgusting nasty in a coffee maker. BRING a microwave on vacation with you if you MUST do this, or at least cook your soup IN the cup of soup thing. Do you know how GROSS it makes the coffee pot? It makes it super gross. That's... how. Ugh.

Also? Indian food smells disgusting when it sits. Throw that stuff away OUTSIDE the hotel room. Leave it outside your door in the hallway or something. ANYTHING. But that left overs smell? Is absolutely gag-inducing.
 
How about a housekeeping horror story. I bet you've seen some disgusting things in your career. What's the worst? Share with us.....
 
So many. Some are not my own, but happened at my hotel... but I'll tell two of mine first.

Number One Horror Story:
The Orgy.

Now, I can't be sure there WAS an orgy. But I walked into the presidential suite of our hotel. I'm one of our top housekeepers, so I usually clean the suites. Now, the presidential suite has a kitchen, a dining area, a guest room, a living room, a large bathroom and upstairs there is a king size bed on a very large loft (up a spiral staircase) and two chairs. The room has TWO sofa beds.

I walked in and the first thing I noticed was the smell. An overwhelming smell... I recognized as "sex smell." That sweaty smell mixed with the scent of body oils or lubricants of some kind... I walked in the room and quickly noticed that EVERYTHING.. .tables, desks, chairs, beds, tub... floor, walls... EVERYTHING was covered in semen.

It's MY job to clean this stuff up. And your first reaction as a normal person is "WHAT THE CRAP IS THIS NASTY EWWWWWWWWWWWWWW". But MY reaction was more like "Who... has the ability to have this much sex in one night? (because they were only checked into the room the night before...)" My assumption? Orgy or soft swingers. But... who knows. I donned my one-use throw away medium gloves and my all-purpose cleaning spray (the orange stuff) and some rags... The room took me a total of 2 hours to clean. Normally? If the room is just used and not disgustified? It takes about 45 minutes.

Number Two Horror Story:
The Fight after the Weddings

We had three weddings at our hotel in one weekend in the beginning of May. I came in early that day. I have no idea the reason why, but I remember I went in early. I walked in and I saw a man passed out on one of the lobby couches, he was well-dressed. I assumed he had one too many at the reception and passed out.

Before I could round the corner and go down the stairs to the time clock, a man came out of the first floor rooms hallway, looking around, frantically. There was a girl bawling behind him with another girl hugging her. The man looked at the passed out drunk man and kind of marched straight toward him and started whaling on the guy. Just beating the crap right out of him. Blood was flying out of the guy's face. It covered the chair, it covered the ugly cow rug (thank goodness, because at least that thing is now gone....). Everyone stopped and stared. The brave overnight front desk manager (a pierced-faced man, short, but FULL of bulgey muscles) ran to them and pulled the angry man off the drunk guy who was no longer asleep....

We came to find out later... that the passed out drunk guy was from one wedding and the sobbing girl was from another wedding (Along with her group). In the night, the passed out drunk guy had flirted with the girl... they were both at the bar. He was talking to her and she apparently didn't mind because she let him walk her to her room. After getting there, and she opened the door, he promptly invited himself in and raped her. We know this is true because the wall was covered in specks of blood and she had a scrape on her arm from him being a bit violent, I guess.

Police came, we were not allowed into the room until the police had THEIR people clean it and investigate and junk.

So that's the tale of the fight after the weddings... more like the "beat down" after the weddings.

Number Three Horror Story:
The Old Homeless Woman

This tale is not my own. This is a story one of my old supervisors told me.

She came in one frosty winter morning and front desk let her know that they had been kind to an old lady who came in. She was freezing and homeless and begged them for a room. The hotel was virtually empty so they took pity, apparently, and let her stay in one of the dingier rooms. My supervisor said "alright" as if this information made any difference. We have to clean the room no matter who's in it.

Either way, when they entered the room, the old woman was gone. But the room had LOTS of blood in it. Apparently not enough to make it look like she'd been murdered there but enough so that it looked like she gave birth then disappeared with the child or something. However, the woman wasn't pregnant, so, this wasn't the case...

No one found the woman, and police were brought in to investigate but they didn't really figure anything out I guess. :/

Number Four Horror Story:
The Naked Frat Boy (and the frat brothers)

This one is an interesting story more than a horror story, but you'll see why I call it a horror story in a moment.

We rent out second floor to a bunch of fraternities and sororities from the same college once or twice a year. They basically come in, get super drunk and gross and party in the halls.

Now we get clipboards with a list of rooms we have to do for the day. We get the room number and whether they're staying over another night? Or if they're checking out? Or if the room is dirty and empty and it just needs to be cleaned. Stay overs are obviously done DIFFERENTLY than check outs because check outs are cleaned to prepare for new guests. Stay overs are cleaned to keep guests happy.

Now, you can imagine a bunch of twenty-something year old frat boys who were up partying all night do NOT want to be woken up at 9 in the morning by a ginger housekeeper who's still sort of new to the job. They want to sleep in. They want to be left alone. But they don't THINK of DND (do not disturb) signs in the middle of the night when they're high or drunk.

But all I had this day were stay overs on second floor. THE ENTIRE floor was drunk frat boys and sorority girls. (Mostly frat boys, though.)

At first, no one was really awake so the environment was more annoying than it was scary.

I knocked on 2202. An entirely naked (and gorgeous, might I add) 20-something frat man opened the door. No shame, clearly still either drunk or high... just opened the door, groggy. "Yeah?"

"Ummm... hi." I tried my best not to look below his eye level, which luckily was way above mine as he was incredibly tall. "Do you need any... ahem... service today? I mean... towels. Beds made, garbage taken out... anything?"

"Uhhhh I need a new pillow... Mine sucks..."

"Oh... well, I don't have one on my cart but I can get one for you..."

"Oh, ****... dude, no nevermind. It's cool. You're so sweet. Thanks, Ace."

Door slammed in my face. Ace? :/

I knocked on a few more doors, "HOUSEKEEPING!"

"GO AWAY ****!!!!"

That's about all I got... at all.

I gave up around 10:00 and around 10:30 all the stay overs started pouring into one another's rooms. Playing extremely annoying club music (only because it was so loud that you could hear the speakers begging for mercy). I attempted to get someone's attention to find out what rooms needed what done.

Because this is my job. I don't get to party with these people (which WOULD'VE been more desirable). So I have to be persistent and keep on asking if they need things...

2210. The boy with the whiskey bottle. This bottle of whiskey was huge. HUGE and round and full. And this kid, this gross kid with what LOOKED like the military-issued glasses on, stumbled out of the room. "HEEEEEEEEY!!!!!"

"Er hi. Did you..."

"What's yer name!?"

"Umm..." *looks at name tag* "K...Katie?"

"Oh... oh dude... wow... dur. So... so can I have a hug, Katie? My day's been reaaaaal bad."

"You just woke up."

*kid hugs me anyway, stanky whiskey breath*

"Listen... Come in! It'll be fun you can party with us!"

"I can give you towels and make your beds but otherwise I'll just move to the next room"

At this point I'm hugging my clipboard for dear life because I've never been approached like this. I was still only 20, had not been in any bars or dealt with many drunk people. I was horrified, because I was the only housekeeper on the floor. I was thankful that by this point it was just about lunchtime. His friend came out of the room and coaxed him back into their room, giving me his most apologetic look. I was about to cry, and he could tell. I was probably over-reacting, but it was an experience I was NOT used to.

After a few more attempts I gave up and walked toward the elevator looking at the floor, trying not to make eye-contact with 2210 who was wandering the halls again with his bottle of whiskey. "HEY BABE!! BABE COME HERE!!!! Come on, Ginger!!! Over heeeeeeerrrree... You so CUTE!"

I held to my clipboard and walked faster toward the elevator... I hit the button a jillion times before it finally opened. His friend had come to my rescue again saying "DUDE beer pong in 2215!! Let's go, dude!" Whiskey Bottle said "Man, you see that cute little housekeeper? She's hot, dude... She's scared of me, LOOK!" "Yeeaaah man, let's let her go, dude."

I made my best friend (and supervisor) come to second floor with me after lunch. I refused to go there alone again. They were drunk at 10am.... I just couldn't handle it alone.

There are much shorter and less frightening stories I could tell (Walked in on naked sleeping people, quietly crept out, they never knew...) But those are the main "horror stories" I suppose.
 
More painstakingly ridiculous garbage I put up with on a day-to-day basis:

I have to train girls now. I've trained three. 1 got fired, 1 quit, and 1 was amazing. NOW I have to keep training. One today. One tomorrow (a different). And one Friday ( a third...). I am not a supervisor. Why the HELL am I training!? IT'S NOT IN MY JOB DESCRIPTION TO TRAIN THE OTHER HOUSEKEEPERS. I am NOT being paid $9/hr. I am being pied $7.40. The better up my paycheck if I'm going to train all these people.

It is taking everything I have in me not to up and quit.
 
People who work in housekeeping at a hotel are just as important as the upper management at that hotel. If you have nobody cleaning rooms and keeping the hotel looking nice, they can't sell hotel rooms and would have no hotel.
 
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