In which our correspondent finds danger lurking in every corner of her hotel room…
As most of you know, I am usually an unsociable cow on my travels – don’t try to catch my eye in the hotel bar or talk to me on the plane, because you will get short shrift. And that’s just the way I like it.
However, on a recent flight, I surprised myself by having a really enjoyable conversation with my neighbour. In fact, I started it myself, so pleased was I to find a woman of my own age sitting next to me in business.
But in retrospect, I rather wish I hadn’t. You see, in between the two of us waxing lyrical about the travails of life on the road as a female, my new friend recounted a story from her youthful years as a chambermaid. Turns out she paid her way through university by working in a hotel, and has never forgotten how they taught her to clean the bathrooms – using the previous incumbent’s dirty towels to wipe down all of the surfaces before putting them in the wash.
Ever since, no matter what the star rating of the hotel, she travels with her own towel, a J-cloth and some Flash decanted into a hand luggage-friendly bottle, then rises five minutes early to give the shower a quick once-over.
A bit over the top, I thought – did she have some kind of obsessive compulsive disorder to go to such trouble? But, then, when I checked into my hotel later that day, I started thinking about it. And once I started looking around the room, I couldn’t get it out of my head. Where previously I might have noted with pleasure that my bed had been turned down invitingly, now all I could see was the filthy footprint of whatever unhygienic person may have lain in it before me.
Who’s to know, after all, what kind of debauchery has gone on in our hotel room? Let’s face it, there’s a lot of weirdos out there, and a lot of them come to hotels to engage in the kind of activity they can’t get away with at home.
Sitting down gingerly on the edge of the bed, I took no satisfaction from the fact it was nice and firm, just the way I like it, instead wondering how I would ever get a decent night’s sleep thinking about what some perv may have been up to in it the previous evening.
Illustration by Ben Southan
Then, looking down, I spied the carpet. Normally I’m not a fan of those wooden floors you sometimes get in hotels – all a bit cold and Scandinavian, I tend to think, and I’ve always liked to sink my toes into the thick, luscious shag you get in really posh places. But now it occurred to me what a germ magnet a hotel room carpet must be, and the dead skin cells and nose pickings that must be lurking within, no matter how diligent the housekeeper has been with her Henry hoover.
Yuk. The thought made me feel a little grubby, so given I had a spare hour before my dinner meeting, I decided to have a bath. I tiptoed across the room to locate the slippers – who knows what verruca-covered feet may have entered the bathroom before me – and went to turn on the bath taps. Suddenly I got a flashback of a time I’d been in a hotel once before and watched with revulsion as, with a loud gurgle, a clump of someone else’s hair rose up through the plug hole. Yuk. Maybe a shower would be better.
I got into the walk-in shower. Damn – this was one of those eco places with the body wash dispenser mounted on the wall to save on plastic. It doesn’t normally bother me, but now all I could think of was what part of their anatomy the last person had soaped down before touching it. Safer to go without, I reckoned.
I had a rudimentary wash and towel-down, decided against slipping into the robe – I normally like putting them on, especially the really thick ones about four sizes too big, but who knows what vile beast may have worn it before – and dressed quickly.
I still had half an hour to kill and was in no mood now for catching up on emails. A little mindless TV would do the job, I thought. I sat down on the sofa, reached for the remote – then put it down again abruptly, wondering when it was last wiped down, and what dubious channels the last guest might have been switching to. And there was no way I was touching those magazines on the coffee table – those shots of beach beauties in bikinis may only be intended to sell holidays, but God only knows what other purpose they may have served for a lonely man flying solo.
Yeouch. There was only one thing for it – find a convenience store before dinner, buy some all-purpose cleaner and roll my sleeves up. Or if I was tired when I got back, perhaps I could set the alarm early and do it in the morning… Maybe that woman wasn’t such an OCD case after all.
