So you wake up in your lovely hotel bedroom, stretch and roll out of bed to open the blinds and… AGH. There’s a blood stain right there in the middle of those crisp, billion thread count sheets and the trail of evidence leads straight to you.
While it’s probably not the worst thing you can do to your sheets (we’re looking at you, Amber Heard), it’s certainly cause for some high anxiety!
Carrie Chiasson is General Manager at the fabulously luxurious Niramaya Villas and Spa in Port Douglas, QLD. And she’s seen it all.
“Suspect stains on sheets are absolutely a part of the job when you work in the hotel business,” she says. “When it comes to blood, we deal with these types of things all the time so it’s not new to us; as a woman it’s a commonplace event and a natural part of life. There’s nothing to be embarrassed about, and there’s no need to create any additional drama around it.”
Phew. So that’s the mortification dealt with. So, on a practical level, what is the best way to deal with the situation?
“We appreciate honesty!” says Carrie. “This is always the best policy to ensure the housekeeping team is properly equipped to tackle the stain. As with any stain, the earlier we’re aware of it, the easier it is to manage. We’d simply arrange to have the sheets collected immediately and a new set put on the bed.
Reporting it discretely to the front desk over the phone is the best way to avoid a potential additional charge on departure, should the stain becomes imbedded and impossible to remove.”
At this point, there’s the opportunity of a quick exit to the poolside where you can pretend nothing happened. But if you want to speed things up, you could always strip the bed yourself and bundle the sheets into a plastic bag, ready to be collected. That’s not something you need to do though – if you’re at a five star resort, it’s obviously all part of the service.
“The housekeeping team will wear gloves and bundle up the sheets to ensure the stain is completely covered, then the sheets are placed in a special linen bag designed to identify to the laundry team that it must be handled differently to the regular linen. The stains can then be pre-treated, cleaned and sanitised accordingly.”
So there you are. Crisis averted.
