To fluff or not to fluff, that is the question

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winewitch

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Had a guest upset that we had not fluffed.
We have a doorhanger that says "privacy" on one side and "housekeeping please" on the other. We have a sign in each room stating that if the guest requires daily housekeeping to place the sign on the door, otherwise we will not enter the room, except to clean every other day.
No sign on the door for the last two days, when I explained, she said, "Well, nobody told us"-she was appalled. I apologized, but give me a break!
DH says, oh well! Ticks me off because we are not mindreaders here, the majority of our guests don't want us going in the rooms...It is our preference as well when travelling...I think maybe one guest has put the hanger on since we opened and the others that did, came back and said, "oh, we did it on accident, you didn't have to fluff, don't bother for the rest of our stay!"
These were guests you could not please anyway, so I know it wouldn't have made a difference...They were turned off from the moment they checked in after they heard there were no good restaurants of the specific ethnic type they were looking for and none of our suggestions were satisfactory...They acted like this was going to ruin their weekend, like I have any control over what restaurants they are going to want to eat in or like! What else can you do? All of the restaurants we recommend are really great! Like, surprisingly great for our small town!
To top it off, of course they booked our cheapest room and had a bandb.com gift card, oh joy! Love paying those commissions for @#$% guests!
Arrggh!
 
I refresh the rooms every day. I tell them that the rooms are refreshed between 10 am & 2 pm. I would rather get trash out of the rooms, pick up any wet towels, and turn off bathroom fans and such so they're not running all day sucking the A/C out of the room. I replace wet towels every day. Change the bed linens after the second night of their stay. I've only had one guest tell me that I didn't need to change their sheets on the second night...they were here 3 nights. That was appreciated!
As a guest, I know that I expect my room to be freshened every day :)
 
I am with you. I only "freshen" when asked. There s no way I want someone messing in my room if they don't have to. I tell my guests that I would not enter their homes without permission and while they are here, that is their home. My Mamma only raised one dumb fool and she lives in Missouri! Why would I make work for myself? I think I have enough to handle already.
 
I refresh the rooms every day. I tell them that the rooms are refreshed between 10 am & 2 pm. I would rather get trash out of the rooms, pick up any wet towels, and turn off bathroom fans and such so they're not running all day sucking the A/C out of the room. I replace wet towels every day. Change the bed linens after the second night of their stay. I've only had one guest tell me that I didn't need to change their sheets on the second night...they were here 3 nights. That was appreciated!
As a guest, I know that I expect my room to be freshened every day :).
We encourage water and energy conservation in our desert climate and our towels dry quickly, so it's not necessary to change. Again, only once or twice has a guest asked for more towels. We have signs to remind guests to turn off the A/C and lights when they come and go...they are really good about it, I think only one or two have ever left the A/C running. We also have an evaporative cooler, so often they don't use the window A/C's.
 
I am with you. I only "freshen" when asked. There s no way I want someone messing in my room if they don't have to. I tell my guests that I would not enter their homes without permission and while they are here, that is their home. My Mamma only raised one dumb fool and she lives in Missouri! Why would I make work for myself? I think I have enough to handle already..
Amen!
 
Well, I have 2 rooms booked for a company all the way trough September. One room is occupied constantly, so I replace towels daily, empty the trash, and make the bed. I change the sheets wednesdays and sundays (for them), other wise every 2 days.
The other room is mostly empty, witing for V.I.P's....
I hand one engineer check in last sunday, suppose to check out wednesday, so I did not change the sheets. Then, on wednesday morning, his stuff was still there, and his office called that he would stay another night. I am not changing sheets for one night. Well, after all was said and done, he finally left last sunday....never changed his sheets...but, also, he always had his personal clothing, like boxers and such, laying on the bed. I am not touching his underwear, and I won't just throw it on the floor either. If you want me to change the linens, move your belongings.
I did fluff everything else everyday and the bed was easily made since he barely moved any bedding...
 
We have only the 'do not disturb' sign which we say in our guest information book that guests should use if they don't want housekeeping. Otherwise, we provide the fluffing. I don't consider it added work - just part of the job like washing towels and vacumning dust from under the bed. Towels can be reused and we don't change sheets unless they will be with us more than three days.
When I am a guest, I don't care about my bed being made but I want my trash emptied every day. If there is no place to hang my towel so it dries, then I might want a new towel, too.
The thing to know is people don't read and they don't remember, even if you tell them when they check-in. If there was no sign at all - I might have asked. !Maybe! But you can't be mind readers and they sound like crummy guests anyway.
 
Wet towels on furniture, spilled drinks, wine bucket still full of ice dripping everywhere, food scraps that STINK UP THE ROOM in a to-go box in rubbish bins. Too many reasons to go in the rooms and freshen it up in my estimation. Like the other thread on who is your messiest guests - you cannot say unless you go in. You would never know and might be sorry.
I had the guests in their late fifties who used a twaste basket as a wine bucket. They placed it next to the bed on the wood floors which are permanently damaged. These were professional people in a luxury car. IDIOTS!
 
We have only the 'do not disturb' sign which we say in our guest information book that guests should use if they don't want housekeeping. Otherwise, we provide the fluffing. I don't consider it added work - just part of the job like washing towels and vacumning dust from under the bed. Towels can be reused and we don't change sheets unless they will be with us more than three days.
When I am a guest, I don't care about my bed being made but I want my trash emptied every day. If there is no place to hang my towel so it dries, then I might want a new towel, too.
The thing to know is people don't read and they don't remember, even if you tell them when they check-in. If there was no sign at all - I might have asked. !Maybe! But you can't be mind readers and they sound like crummy guests anyway..
I agree...it's not added work for me, it's part of the service that guests expect at the prices at most B&Bs these days and a service that we provide. We have "Do Not Disturb" signs as well....the only time they're used is when they put the "Service, Please" side on the door
regular_smile.gif

These nice, thick, spa quality towels here don't dry even if hung up & with the A/C going. They get fresh towels....
 
we always fluff unless asked not to.
just a do not disturb side on our cards because if they flipped to the wrong side ... oops.
this is a new one on me, having a guest complain about being fluffed. i have had guests tell me, you don't need to service our room today once they realize it's being done each day. no, they often don't read, they don't hear you when you tell them about the 'fluffing' ... but to get mad about it? what is the problem? worry that someone will look at or touch their personal items?
i have to agree, guests do odd things with wet towels and can be pretty careless so i am glad of a quick chance to remove anything that is where it should not be.
 
We too fluff every day. We ask that if they want their towels changed to put them on the floor ... to me wet towels on the bed or chairs in the room, mean change. We also sweep every day... we have critters and we like to sweep them out every day in case any crawled in during the night or in the day when they leave their doors open. We do change towels every second day if the towels are on the floor or not. Face clothes every time they are found wet and used.
We also like to collect pool towels from the rooms, we only have 9, and if someone takes them to the rooms we cannot wash them every day and put them back. Not sure why people think they need to hoard those in their rooms but we remove them if they take them.
We make the beds but only if they don't leave suitcases etc on the beds ... we are not a maid/servant. Although one guest said that when our maid came in if they would ... I didn't let the sentence finish, coz I said ... umm that would be me so you can ask me and I will get that done. We now tell our guests that we are the ones that will be cleaning the rooms as they think that we have Mexican staff. They are surprised. :)
We don't change sheets on 4 night stays, but if anything over 4 nights, we change mid way. We don't like ironing :s
Some of our guests do not leave the property and after the kitchen is clean and waiting for the dishes in the dishwasher is when we do the rooms, we ask them if they are still here if we can enter their rooms as they are usually by the pool any way.
We HAVE to empty the garbage every day, we do not put toilet paper down, so it is a must empty every day.
If a guest says that we do not have to fluff their rooms, we only pass to do the garbage and we tell them we will empty that every day.
 
General question about the signs for housekeeping/ no housekeeping...
We were going to try them this year just to make life a little easier. Hubs is concerned guests will go out in the morning with the 'do not disturb' sign facing out and THEN, when they go out for dinner, flip it to 'housekeeping needed'.
We wouldn't see that, we don't go near the guest rooms after we are done cleaning unless it is to bring a new guest to their room. Likewise, we would not break out the cleaning gear after 1 PM.
Has anyone had issues with this? With guests expecting '24 hour' housekeeping when there are housekeeping signs available to them?
 
General question about the signs for housekeeping/ no housekeeping...
We were going to try them this year just to make life a little easier. Hubs is concerned guests will go out in the morning with the 'do not disturb' sign facing out and THEN, when they go out for dinner, flip it to 'housekeeping needed'.
We wouldn't see that, we don't go near the guest rooms after we are done cleaning unless it is to bring a new guest to their room. Likewise, we would not break out the cleaning gear after 1 PM.
Has anyone had issues with this? With guests expecting '24 hour' housekeeping when there are housekeeping signs available to them?.
We have had one problem with that - they kept the 'do not disturb' on til lunch then took it away. They were unhappy that no one came in to make up the room in the afternoon - my housekeeper had already gone and I had no idea whether she'd done it or not. I have in the guest book that all makeups are done by noon, but - they don't read of course. Still, it has only been a problem once, so I don't know if that's a big deal.
 
General question about the signs for housekeeping/ no housekeeping...
We were going to try them this year just to make life a little easier. Hubs is concerned guests will go out in the morning with the 'do not disturb' sign facing out and THEN, when they go out for dinner, flip it to 'housekeeping needed'.
We wouldn't see that, we don't go near the guest rooms after we are done cleaning unless it is to bring a new guest to their room. Likewise, we would not break out the cleaning gear after 1 PM.
Has anyone had issues with this? With guests expecting '24 hour' housekeeping when there are housekeeping signs available to them?.
I guess it's something to tell folks on the tour & add to the room books...when you refresh the rooms. Then, they can't complain if they're hanging around and you can't get in there. I've stayed at a couple of places & left my room to hang out on the porch or grounds so that whoever was freshening the room didn't have to worry about working around me.
 
General question about the signs for housekeeping/ no housekeeping...
We were going to try them this year just to make life a little easier. Hubs is concerned guests will go out in the morning with the 'do not disturb' sign facing out and THEN, when they go out for dinner, flip it to 'housekeeping needed'.
We wouldn't see that, we don't go near the guest rooms after we are done cleaning unless it is to bring a new guest to their room. Likewise, we would not break out the cleaning gear after 1 PM.
Has anyone had issues with this? With guests expecting '24 hour' housekeeping when there are housekeeping signs available to them?.
i just have do not disturb on a sailboat card ... you can see on the rooms and rates page on my site ... guests hang them there if they don't want the room fluffed.
only problem is ME ... when i have people peeking into rooms, i have hung them so peekers think maybe someone is in the room. and then when i check guests in i have to remember to take the card off the knob ... forgot once, guest left it there the whole time and it dawned on me that they never even noticed it. never took their key, never locked their door, woman asked for some new towels as they went out for the day. so i ran in and fluffed their room. and put the card in the room.
 
General question about the signs for housekeeping/ no housekeeping...
We were going to try them this year just to make life a little easier. Hubs is concerned guests will go out in the morning with the 'do not disturb' sign facing out and THEN, when they go out for dinner, flip it to 'housekeeping needed'.
We wouldn't see that, we don't go near the guest rooms after we are done cleaning unless it is to bring a new guest to their room. Likewise, we would not break out the cleaning gear after 1 PM.
Has anyone had issues with this? With guests expecting '24 hour' housekeeping when there are housekeeping signs available to them?.
i just have do not disturb on a sailboat card ... you can see on the rooms and rates page on my site ... guests hang them there if they don't want the room fluffed.
only problem is ME ... when i have people peeking into rooms, i have hung them so peekers think maybe someone is in the room. and then when i check guests in i have to remember to take the card off the knob ... forgot once, guest left it there the whole time and it dawned on me that they never even noticed it. never took their key, never locked their door, woman asked for some new towels as they went out for the day. so i ran in and fluffed their room. and put the card in the room.
.
I took a peek! Those are really cute
teeth_smile.gif
Gave me an idea to make some prettier ones using our inn logo. Thanks! Hey, and you have some new pictures on your website that are really nice!!! Good job!!!
regular_smile.gif
Makes me want to escape up North but unfortunately we had to use our regular vacation place or lose it, so we already made plans. boo hoo....
cry_smile.gif

 
General question about the signs for housekeeping/ no housekeeping...
We were going to try them this year just to make life a little easier. Hubs is concerned guests will go out in the morning with the 'do not disturb' sign facing out and THEN, when they go out for dinner, flip it to 'housekeeping needed'.
We wouldn't see that, we don't go near the guest rooms after we are done cleaning unless it is to bring a new guest to their room. Likewise, we would not break out the cleaning gear after 1 PM.
Has anyone had issues with this? With guests expecting '24 hour' housekeeping when there are housekeeping signs available to them?.
i just have do not disturb on a sailboat card ... you can see on the rooms and rates page on my site ... guests hang them there if they don't want the room fluffed.
only problem is ME ... when i have people peeking into rooms, i have hung them so peekers think maybe someone is in the room. and then when i check guests in i have to remember to take the card off the knob ... forgot once, guest left it there the whole time and it dawned on me that they never even noticed it. never took their key, never locked their door, woman asked for some new towels as they went out for the day. so i ran in and fluffed their room. and put the card in the room.
.
I took a peek! Those are really cute
teeth_smile.gif
Gave me an idea to make some prettier ones using our inn logo. Thanks! Hey, and you have some new pictures on your website that are really nice!!! Good job!!!
regular_smile.gif
Makes me want to escape up North but unfortunately we had to use our regular vacation place or lose it, so we already made plans. boo hoo....
cry_smile.gif

.
Samster said:
I took a peek! Those are really cute
teeth_smile.gif
Gave me an idea to make some prettier ones using our inn logo. Thanks! Hey, and you have some new pictures on your website that are really nice!!! Good job!!!
regular_smile.gif
Makes me want to escape up North but unfortunately we had to use our regular vacation place or lose it, so we already made plans. boo hoo....
cry_smile.gif
I agree, great pics SS!
 
I fluff daily and have a note in the guest book that fluff service is done before 2pm. Those that stick around usually just say that they will be glad to step out while I do the cleaning.
I have a "Saving Mother Earth" sign in our bathroom that states that if you will reuse your towels another day, please hang, otherwise place on the floor to be replaced. I change all wet face clothes every time.
I have 'Do Not Disturb' signs only, not both as I think they could flip to show the wrong side. It was funny, a couple of weeks ago I told some guests I would place something in their room for them - they nodded and headed out. When I got up there, the sign was on the door. 'Do Not Disturb' means to me do not enter so I didn't. I had it waiting and handed it to them. They looked a little puzzled until I replied about the sign. They laughed and said Oh we just didn't want you to bother with cleaning - you could have entered. All was well and they know I respect their privacy!
 
I am with you. I only "freshen" when asked. There s no way I want someone messing in my room if they don't have to. I tell my guests that I would not enter their homes without permission and while they are here, that is their home. My Mamma only raised one dumb fool and she lives in Missouri! Why would I make work for myself? I think I have enough to handle already..
I fluff every day and I've saved myself $$$$ in potential damage. By this I mean wet towels on wooden furniture or beds, etc. I've had guests weight their wet laundry with books on my wooden mantel and turn the gas fire on to dry the clothes - almost caused a fire. Heat turned to the maximum and windows open. All lights on. There are so many stupid and dangerous things that guests do that I simply MUST go in and do a fluff every day. It is a rare occasion that I won't and even if someone says "don't worry about our room" I will go in after they are gone and ensure everything is okay.
 
I am with you. I only "freshen" when asked. There s no way I want someone messing in my room if they don't have to. I tell my guests that I would not enter their homes without permission and while they are here, that is their home. My Mamma only raised one dumb fool and she lives in Missouri! Why would I make work for myself? I think I have enough to handle already..
I fluff every day and I've saved myself $$$$ in potential damage. By this I mean wet towels on wooden furniture or beds, etc. I've had guests weight their wet laundry with books on my wooden mantel and turn the gas fire on to dry the clothes - almost caused a fire. Heat turned to the maximum and windows open. All lights on. There are so many stupid and dangerous things that guests do that I simply MUST go in and do a fluff every day. It is a rare occasion that I won't and even if someone says "don't worry about our room" I will go in after they are gone and ensure everything is okay.
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I have never had guests leave messes like that other than the one-night guy who was ticked because I said I was going to charge him for that night of his reservation whether they stayed or not - he tried to cancel a 3-night reservation on arrival. HE DID leave wet towels everywhere. 2 people used every towel in the room, all 4 robes...... with a one night stay! I knew to go up the second they left.
I also do not have any gas heaters - although there is an electric baseboard heater that is the source of heat for the room - as we have disconnected all the gas that went to the fireplaces in our house.
The Guest from Hell has not found me and I certainly hope he does not ever!
 
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