A couple of years ago, 20/20 had a special on cleanliness of hotel rooms, everything from Holiday Inns to Ritz Carltons...almost everyone of them flunked. They went in with some infrared devices and picked up all sorts of bodily fluids and other disagreeable stuff in the rooms/bathrooms they surveyed.

I was sitting in a Sheraton bed watching the report unfold and could feel my skin crawl!!! Needless to say, since then, I have never been able to sit on any room furniture, bedspread or closed toilet seat without putting a clean towel first to sit on!

A couple of years ago, 20/20 had a special on cleanliness of hotel rooms, everything from Holiday Inns to Ritz Carltons...almost everyone of them flunked. They went in with some infrared devices and picked up all sorts of bodily fluids and other disagreeable stuff in the rooms/bathrooms they surveyed.

I was sitting in a Sheraton bed watching the report unfold and could feel my skin crawl!!! Needless to say, since then, I have never been able to:

Sit on any room furniture, bedspread or closed toilet seat without putting a clean towel first to sit on!

Walk barefoot on any carpeting or bathroom surfaces...I carry a pair of flip flops to avoid contact.

What were you expecting, an operating room? You're over-reacting.

I am anxiously awaiting her next exciting expose on airline seats, theater seats, restaurant kitchens, car rental shuttles etc.

MisterNice

Where do you get a clean towel, you certainly wouldn't be able to use the one in the Hotel room, as we all know what those are used for (just stirring the pot here).

Magellans and others are making a fortune selling silk bed liners for travelers, it packs real small and protects you from everything the uv light made glow.

Yep. pretty bad! I don't over-worry about that stuff; instead, as I'm checking in I always request that the spread and blanket on the bed be cleaned prior to sleeping there (or replaced by clean ones). If they give you grief, claim severe allergies. A reputable hotel will do it, and if I'm in a disreputable one, then I'm probably not worried about it! Seriously, just have them do that and it solves most hygeine problems. When I suspect they will do nothing, I tell them I'll stack the blanket and bedspread outside the door for them to pick up and for them to knock when they have the new ones ready. Sure, they still may be different unclean ones, but I took my shot and again, reputable hotels will try to please you.

But not much you can do about the rest of the room!

I originally meant this statement to post as a reply to the Hotel Pet Peeve Thread but I must have hit Post New Topic instead. Doh, my mistake

JS - I'm not expecting an operating room, but I do expect cleanliness.

Mister Nice - I travel enough to feel I've got something to contribute if someone asks for an opinion. If you found my comments so 'scintillating' why reply? Also, realize that my reaction could be gender related. Men may not care as much about levels of cleanliness, women sure do care about it! So I found the program interesting, you would have probably changed the channel. So stop taking a cheap shot at me.

i agree, that was a cheap shot, and undeserved. if you don't like the topic, don't read it.

for the record, i am a male who is very concerned about this sort of thing. reading too many books like 'the hot zone' and 'the coming plague' i guess!

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The three words I never want to hear: 'Full Y Fare'

WSJ did a similar study of the re-circulated air (as well as the seats, I think) on various different airlines. While the results weren't surprising, they were, in some cases, not pretty.

The article was accompanied with pictures of petri dishes -- mold et al. At least they wash the sheets in the hotels...

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"What do you mean you didn't get miles for that?!"

FWIW, I've heard (and this may be urban legend-type stuff) that since the smoking ban on airplanes has been in effect, the air on planes is actually changed fewer times per hour than it used to be and is now actually more 'unhealthy' for you (due to re-circulating germs, etc.) even tho it smells better.

There is likely no public place in the world that is truly "clean". Have you ever used a public phone?

The real question is why don't people get sick a lot more than they do. The answer is our immune system. If you are basically a healthy individual who does not isolate yourself from the outside world, you have probably been exposed to most of the germs that can cause problems and are self-immunized against them. Why do tourists get sick in many countries while the natives don't? Same reason.

You are actually better off exposing yourself to the non-sterilized world in many cases than being overly protective. That doesn't mean you shouldn't try to be as clean as possible, but medical science tells us it is not necessary to be excessively fanatic about this issue in most cases.