Urban travel legends

The despicably dirty hotel
Of course, not every tale is a myth. Sadly, the one that claims hotel maids do terrible things while “cleaning” your room can be all too true. Hygiene standards at hotels are, frankly, in the toilet.

The exact shape of this rumor changes from time to time. One year, horrified guests whisper that maids are using water from the toilet to clean the mugs next to your in-room coffeemaker. Another year, someone will claim that black-light inspections of hotel duvets and bedspreads reveal colonies of germs and parasites. Travelers routinely swap tales of hotels plagued by bedbugs. Eventually some local television station, usually during a ratings period, will send its intrepid “investigative” team to uncover the despicable sanitary conditions at area hotels. (An Atlanta station’s recent exposé of how maids clean glassware is on YouTube.

Hotels in every price range underpay and overwork their housecleaning staff, who then take appalling, unsanitary shortcuts in order to get their work done. And that’s no surprise: Noted lodging consultant Michael Matthews once estimated that the average hotel maid “has just four seconds per square foot to clean a guest room and is paid half a cent per square foot for her labors.”

Makes you long for the days when hotels put cheap, disposable plastic glasses in your room, doesn’t it?

The fine print ...
A followup to my column about the hidden fees on overseas ATM transactions: Effective January 26, Citibank will now charge a 1 or 2 percent fee for using any overseas ATM, even those located in Citibank branches ... The British government has lifted the one-carry-on rule that hobbled travelers using London’s Heathrow Airport. The ban has also been lifted at London’s Stansted Airport and many other British airports. However, the one-bag rule remains in force at Gatwick and Luton, two other London-area airports.

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