How to Avoid Dirty Hotel Rooms

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Hotel rooms are supposed to be pleasant places to relax and unwind after a long day of traveling, working, or sightseeing. We like to be able to make ourselves, spread out, and enjoy the amenities. However, when you get unlucky and find yourself in a hotel room that is not well maintained, dirty, and even smelly, this can ruin the whole experience. It can taint vacations, make you miserable, and even interfere with your ability to relax.

Finding a clean hotel room

But there are easy ways to avoid filthy hotel rooms. First and most important, you can check online reviews. Any reputable hotel should have at least a few reviews online. If not, this should raise warning flags. Of course, there are some countries where the internet doesn't have such a large role in people's lives, so there will probably be fewer reviews, but if you're going somewhere that you know is well-traveled and plugged in, try to find those places with abundant reviews.

Of course, any time you look at the reviews for something, there are going to be a certain number of people who give positive reviews based on nothing. In many cases, people just write online reviews of things, for whatever reason, even though they've never even been there. So look for the reviews that go into real detail about the place.

Meanwhile, it can be quite illuminating to skip straight to the negative reviews. You may come across a few people talking about something that really bothers you (for example, mold in the bathroom), but which doesn't necessarily bother everyone. On the other hand, every business has a misstep here or there, so if a hotel only has one or two bad reviews, you need not take them as gospel.

What if you end up in a dirty hotel room?

In spite of your best efforts, there's always a chance that you're going to end up in a dirty hotel room no matter what you do. If this is the case, and if you don't have time or money to go to a nearby hotel that is actually clean, there are certain things you can do.

First, get rid of the comforter on your bed. As soon as you get in the room, throw the comforter in the corner and leave it there. This is because many corner-cutting hotels feel that they don't have to wash the comforter between every customer. Yes, they will give you clean sheets (and if they don't, you're really in trouble), but they may have no qualms about giving you the same blanket that the last guest used, which is just icky.

Second, there are certain hotspots that tend to collect germs. The big ones are the doorknobs, the telephone, the remote control, the light switches, and the drawer handles. If you sense that your room is dirty, wash these things immediately. If you don't have any cleaning supplies, some hot water and a towel will do. And if you want to be bold, track down a housekeeping staff member, tell them your room is dirty, and ask for some spray cleaner.