If you’re anything like me, you’ll find travelling and staying in hotels to be among your top five things to do with your time. Getting out and seeing the world is a privilege that should be embraced with open arms. But, wait. Should those arms and legs be covered up? In the hotel room, I mean. Is the hotel room actually clean? Or has it undergone a simple and quick ‘straightening up’ since the last guest left and you arrived. It’s easy to trick ourselves into believing that the world is a thoughtful place, and that every effort has been made on our behalf to ensure our hotel rooms are spick-and-span before we cross the threshold. 

As someone who once worked in a cinema as a student, I can tell you that the sweeping up of the popcorn and the emptying of the cups from the drinks holders was perhaps done properly about 10% of the time. We’d scrape the popcorn under the seats with the side of our shoes and get paid just the same for half a job. That is, unfortunately, the real world. And that may be exactly what’s happening in hotels (with less popcorn and more used sheets and unsterilised surfaces that look OK). 

Now, we don’t need to worry about asbestos in the walls. That’s a thing of the past (although you may wish to see this article which covers some of the early symptoms of Mesothelioma if you require more information). But we do need to worry about bed bugs and catching fungal infections. Let’s look at how to tell if your hotel room is clean.

Initial impression

Look, judging books by their covers works. If something walks like a horse and looks like a horse and smells like a horse, there’s a slim chance you could have a zebra in the vicinity, but for the most part, you’ve got a horse on your hands. If the hotel is staffed by people who look well polished and if the reception area is neater than neat, you can start to breathe out a little. 

Check the bed

Bedbugs are real. Most people believe that the saying “night night, sleep tight, don’t let the bedbugs bite” is just a catchy bedtime rhyme that parents recite as they tuck their children in. But no. They’re real. They are small brown tick-like things that live off dead skin cells in the mattress, but they also bite. Check the bed for anything that looks like crumbs. 

Move things around

The last tip is to move a bedside table or a lamp or a side table. If the space on the floor that is uncovered is significantly more clean, you know that the room is not deep cleaned.