Is it just me that cleans up hotel rooms before leaving ??!

[YouJustWouldntLetItLieWouldYa]

Dp thinks it's odd, I bag up absolutely all rubbish, leave bins etc on counters, used towels will be put in the sink and if I have time i'll strip the bed.

In dps fairness he made the comment when I pointed him to the loo with a bottle of shower gel and wad of loo roll after he left a skiddy in their but seriously, I can't be the only one who does this ?? Am I really the only one who would be mortified at the thought of someone tackling the remains of my breakfast in the loo bowl ??!

And people could be very surprising. I was dreading getting a big frat boy party (this was in the US) set of rooms, but they'd left them empty and pretty spotless and a good tip, whereas a quartet of sweet Florida retirees had trashed their two rooms - towels used to scrub dogshit off shoes and left on the floor, wine spilt on curtains and bed and left to soak into the mattress, and left me a dollar.

When in a pub I always put my empty glass on the bar when I'm leaving too.

I hate this - DH does it. Where I grew up it meant you were never coming back

It was like being in an episode of Downton Abbey with a stickier character than Lady Violet, StealthPolarBear.

According to this woman, thanking staff/servants for doing their jobs is vulgar. You should just let them get on with it as if they are not there. Apparently they prefer that. Acknowledging their existence embarrasses them and marks you out as irredeemably common. I looked it up when I got home and found reference to it in pre-WWII etiquette guides and lots of stuff written by Julian Fellowes.

She was talking about me and my gauche behaviour at thanking staff as if I wasn't there. It was an odd evening.

No, I wouldn't strip the bed or wipe anything because the staff are paid to do that but I make sure the room is left in a decent state. I am neat, anyway, so the room is always left tidy while we are using it during the holiday.

I hate this - DH does it. Where I grew up it meant you were never coming back

FurryLittleTwerp that sounds like a Mafia coded message like Luca Brasi sleeping with the fish.

I always strip the bed and take the sheets down to the breakfast room if I have had a Spud Trainspotting incident.

in restaurants - plate stacking is just not the done thing and is very bad manners. It would single you out as someone unused to 'naice' establishments.

The horror, the horror

I always say thank you to anyone alleviating me of a domestic chore - even though I'm already paying them - so grateful am I not to be cooking or washing up . Julian Fellowes strikes me as someone I wouldn't want to go out for dinner with tbh.

I don't however like the US customer where the waiter sometimes sits down at the table with you and tells you their name. They're performing a job for money, we aren't about to become bosom buddies.

Do some people stack dinner plates? I have never seen anyone do that. Doesn't it suggest you don't know how to act in a restaurant/hotel setting?

I always strip the bed and take the sheets down to the breakfast room if I have had a Spud Trainspotting incident

{grin]

" Doesn't it suggest you don't know how to act in a restaurant/hotel setting?"

well without wishing to be accused of snobbery, yes it does suggest that.

I don't like that either rookiemere. In NYC a restaurant greeter complimented me on my perfume and tried to guess it. She got it wrong and after several attempts I had to tell her because it was getting embarrassing. I sat at my table trying not to waft too much at the other diners because I was convinced I'd put too much on. As a direct result, I don't wear perfume any more

Sympathies limited - there's a fine line between friendly but unobtrusive service and that seems to have well and truly crossed it.
It's a bit like when you're getting your groceries these days and the shop assistant feels obliged to comment on your items, because of some head office diktat. I'd really rather they didn't.

I don't however like the US customer where the waiter sometimes sits down at the table with you and tells you their name. They're performing a job for money, we aren't about to become bosom buddies.

I was chuckling about this myself when reading the don't-speak-to-waitstaff-posts. I'm American and even I am put off sometimes by the over-friendliness of some waitstaff in the US. I've never had one sit down at the table though. But as DH is probably the most gregarious man on the planet and loves to engage any and all folks, I often do leave knowing much of the server's life story.

We are "rough as" so we probably don't know how to act in a restaurant setting. We are also both very uncomfortable with the idea of people "serving us" in any way, we are the type to serve others rather than be weighted upon.

I hate it when porters take our luggage etc and we had to abandon having a cleaner as we felt too guilty to leave her anything to do.

I am sure we are on the wrong but it is ingrained.

Like FlyingGaribaldi, I used to be a chambermaid and tidying is great but please don't make a slept in bed - it's really annoying!

Honestly if it's reasonably clean and tidy, it's very helpful. I've cleaned baths where it looks like people have shaved their whole body hair, had shit (and worse) smeared on the walls, glasses of juice knocked over and left dripping onto the carpet, shitty nappies shoved down the side of an armchair ...

Cleaning hotel rooms is a real eye-opener about how disgusting other human beings are. And I worked in a 5* hotel!

There's some right goody two shoes on here! Stripping the bed is beyond ridiculous. How do you know they want the bed stripped in the way you have? Perhaps you've taken off the mattress cover and the extra cover and and and... just leave room cleaners to do their work!

Have to add, I leave a room tidy, once my possessions are gone it's tidy anyway but picking up bins and putting them on tables and stripping beds is one step too far. I was a chambermaid in my teens and I had a way of doing it and someone stripping the bed would've totally thrown me!

As for stacking plates. Bloody hell, how irritating! I would be so pissed off if I went out to a restaurant with someone who did this. Of course, I help waiting staff by passing plates and I thank them but stacking plates is like being in IKEA and putting them on the trolley!

Both my DH and I used to work in bars, clubs etc and he has this very very annoying habit of collecting up glasses when we're out with friends. I try to stop him. He did come a cropper when he grabbed the local hard nut's not quite empty glass by mistake

My mother is a bedstripper, it's a kind of reverse snobbery 'oh, I'm not good enough to have people serve me'. Really annoys me (not least because she had a very middle class upbringing, father in a professional job, private education etc so it's not like she doesn't know the rules). She acts like she's not good enough for things and takes offence when none is intended, she once was very rude to a waiter who told her a restaurant was fully booked (it was early in the evening and so most of the tables were still empty) and accused him of turning us away because we weren't appropriately dressed (we were all wearing 'smart casual' clothes so perfectly reasonably dressed for a meal out). I had to apologise to the poor man as my brother steered her away and gave her a bollocking for being rude.

Wherever I am I flush the toilet after I use it and always put rubbish in the bin so that's the same in a hotel room and used towels are in the bathroom on the floor or in the bath so it's obvious which have been used and which haven't. But that's it. If I've pay for a cleaning service (in a hotel or a self catering establishment) I'm not doing any more than I'd do at home for my cleaner.

No goodytwoshoes wearing here, we grew up very poor. Years of manual work had wrecked my mums body before she even hit her 50's, the constant bending and lifting wrecked her.

Which is the reason I leave everything raised, rubbish etc on the counter, I can still see my mum holding her back as she struggled to bend to put her shoes on. I think this makes a big difference to my attitude. If the room is a mess and we're out for the day I have been known to put the do not disturb sign on the door so they don't come in and clean up

We only stay in the likes of premier inn / holiday inn etc really so nowhere too posh, i'm certainly not intimidated by the thought of anyone cleaning up after me, just hate the thought of anyone having to deal with my crap !! My attitude towards hotel stays is that theyre somewhere to sleep so we can go off and do something, I certainly don't see them as a massive luxury and wouldn't spend a huge amount of money staying in one, it's just a bed at the end of the day.

I am probably over-reacting to this partly because the OP has started a thread about it. In other words, is the type to draw attention to this faux-humility - which means it stops being humility and becomes a PA way of making other people feel bad. All this "don't mind little me" behaviour comes up regularly on nightmare MIL threads

I think you're overreacting Maudlin :)

yes, I admit it, I am!

it's because I feel busy and under pressure so when I feel like someone is fucking with my precious leisure I am on a very short fuse :)

When they are doing it AND implying that they're being considerate, it just compounds the rage :)

Honestly, a room without rubbish strewn everywhere and no skid marks in the loo is just lovely. And I'm totally with you on the scraping plates

Maudlin - stop being a dick.