To expect hotel room to be cleaned before 4pm

It was eight till 4.30 when I worked in housekeeping, too, and stayovers just got done when we could fit them around cleaning rooms guests had vacated.

Sometimes that might mean the room was cleaned while the guest was at breakfast, but if they were still in the room till around checking out time, from then on cleaners are being leaned on to turn over rooms ahead of checking-in, so someone staying over probably won’t get done till just before the day shift ends.

Yabu. Keep your own space today.
Most cheap hotels like that will have to focus on quick turn around.

Also, how messy/dirty are you making a room in one night? If I don’t want to be disturbed, I’m quite happy to skip the daily clean.

I think YABU, you posted just before 3pm, if staff are employed until 5pm then they still have 2 hours to get your room done.

Someone's room has to be the last one done.

They used to put us in the laundry if we couldn’t get into any rooms — which was less time-pressured, but boiling hot, damp, heavy work, feeding wet sheets through these giant sort of mangles…?

Did you accidentally leave on a DND?

I worked as a hotel room cleaner at a high end hotel in the US years ago, and it was very time-pressured — managers were very clear on your priority having to be to clean rooms guests had left so they were available for new guests to check into, and on an unlucky day, departing guests would leave at noon, leaving you three hours to fully clean all your rooms before new arrivals started checking in. Our shift started at 8 am, but in practice, bar the odd guest, no one staying over wants their room cleaned that early, as they’re sleeping, or at breakfast with the DND still up, and as it wasn’t a business hotel, few guests checked out early.

I get that none of this is the guest’s problem, and it’s certainly not the guest’s fault the hotel doesn’t hire an army of cleaners who only have to turn over three rooms between 12 and 3, but presumably from the hotel’s POV, few employees want a job that’s only three hours a day, and they don’t want to hire cleaners who stand around in the corridors outside rooms they can’t clean because the guest is inside.

That is one job I don’t miss. And it’s spoiled hotels for me, because I know how much hard work goes into making a room look as if no one else has ever stayed in it.

I complained about this in a big London chain and was given a comp breakfast worth £30. I won’t go back. I had been out all day and just wanted to crash, not face a dirty room.

It’s really hard getting housekeeping staff nowadays. So they will first concentrate on changeovers 10-4pm then they will do guests who are staying. I used to housekeep in a hotel and it was always 9-3 hours now they’d have you in 8-6pm doing communal areas, then changeovers then the people who stay over.

Definitely not acceptable. Most people would be returning from days out around that time. I find it pretty surprising as whenever I'm in a hotel, they're usually hoping to turf you out early to get started on the cleans ASAP.