To complain about cleaner walking in on me naked

[Yolojo]

Staying in a chain hotel, Western Europe, 8am. I'm up but also naked in bed, having a coffee. Someone knocks on the door, I ignore it, not sure if it's my door or someone else's. Then the door opens and a man calls out something, I dive under my sheets and I think I shouted out 'there's someone in here', so the door closes. I throw some clothes on, go in the corridor and say to the guy that check out is 11, and also angrily 'don't come in my room, what the hell!' I didn't have a 'do not disturb ' sign on my door, but then I wouldn't expect to have to use it if I'm checking out before 11. AIBU to complain?

YANBU. i would complain.

8am is far too early for cleaners to be making their rounds.

@MistyRuins, way back in the late Jurassic when I worked in a hotel, housekeeping used to get a list of occupied rooms from the front desk. The list got to housekeeping by means of an interdepartmental runner. Nowadays it's probably all accommplished by the magic of computers.

Also, housekeeping didn't start their rounds until a civilised hour.

The list that housekeeping got differentiated between guests staying put and those due to check out.

The rounds only started after checkout time and the purpose of indicating what rooms were checking out was to do a thorough search for items left behind, which were taken to the front desk department.

8am is too early! But I'd put the do not disturb sign on next time

Of course you were being unreasonable, he knocked and you didn't respond!
To all te numptes who say they used to work in a hotel blah blah blah,things are very different now.Hospitality is on its knees. Severely understaffed
Mydd hasa summer holiday in a 170 bed hotel. One day only 1 housekeeper showed up! Every one on leave or sick was bullied to come in and every other department had to help out. Thus isa place that pays well enough nmw.
If housekeeping don't start early you wouldn't be checking in til evening.
Poor guy. What a rude unhinged fruit loop he must think you to be

I have never had the cleaners try and come clean that early, especially on checkout day. Occasionally they've knocked half an hour or so before checkout, but not that early. So I would have been surprised too.

On the other hand, if there's a Do Not Disturb sign I'll always use it when I'm in the room, and if there's a chain or lock that will stop someone getting in even if they have a keycard, I'll use that too. Lesson learned for next time I think.

@fUNNYfACE36

I'm not a numpty, thanks, and if your 'logic' is to be accepted, what's to stop housekeeping from starting even earlier?

One person has 170 rooms to get through - so why not turf the guests out of their beds at 6? 5? Heck, 4:30 while we're at it.

8 o'clock is too early for housekeeping to be knocking and it's not up to the guests to be accommodating when it comes to their daily plans or their occupancy of the room if the hotel has staffing problems.

What do you want the OP to do? Pull on clothes and stand in the corridor while the guy cleaned her room, then go back in and get back into bed or into the shower, after he had cleaned up and made the bed?

The room can be occupied until checkout time because that's what the guest has paid for, and tough noogies for the hotel if there are not enough staff to get around to cleaning before check in time rolls around again.

Your post is ridiculous. The hotel is there to provide a service to the guests, not the other way round. If housekeeping is to make their rounds at 8 then check out time should be 7am.

I can't understand why you didn't have the bolt latched on the door.

What do you want the OP to do?

Maybe use the do not disturb sign? Or respond when the guy knocked?

I've stayed in hotels that have had people cleaning at 8, I've been in hotels where I haven't seen a cleaner, presumably because they were working other floors before they got to mine. I don't think 8 is an uncivilised time to start - it's a pretty normal time to start many jobs.

We all are aware that housekeeping get lists. But there is this thing called human error that happens. Maybe the wrong information was fed info the computer. Maybe the cleaner read the room number wrong. Maybe he was new and hadn't been given information pertinent to the job. There are many reasons why getting a list won't stop an occasional mistake from happening.

But popping up a DND sign and saying a quick 'sorry, this rooms occupied' will help prevent what happened to the op.

Good to see the tables have turned on this chat and most think 8am is too early to be knocking on guests doors. DND or not cleaners should be leaving paying guest in peace, guest shouldn't have to put a sign up just in case the cleaner decides they want to do that room at silly o'clock.

Hardly anyone has suggested that 8' o'clock is OK.
The fact that the OP was lying (naked, as for some reason she felt the reason to specify) on her bed, drinking her coffee and didn't answer the knock on the door THEN thinks the poor non seeing through walls cleaner is the U one is what has posters thinking wtf.
That and her managing to book the only hotel seemingly in western civilization without a lock on the door.

At 8am, she could have been asleep in her bed without the covers, completely naked (it is warm, after all). You can't expect an asleep person to be woken up by a knock.

I don't think the DND sign is required on the last day - you don't perform normal housekeeping until the guest has actually checked out (because you need to strip the sheets etc, not just make the bed, and wait until the outgoing guest has gone and won't mess up your work). I think the cleaner screwed up entering that room before the checkout time.

A lot of people seem to have missed the fact that the cleaner does not make the bed etc whilst you're at breakfast on your last day, because you're supposed to shortly bugger off and stop using the room!

Totally agree with you. Regardless of whether or not a DND sign has been used or even a lock out on the door cleaners should not be going round knocking doors potentially waking guests up.

She could have, yes.
She could have been doing lots of things.
But she wasn't.
She just didn't answer the knock on the door. Her choice. But that meant the cleaner thought nobody was in there.
Anyway, I'm sure the cleaner will be told off and she'll get her money back, so job done.

Rightly so otherwise the cleaner will forever be knocking guest up if he is not told.

You didn't check before you yelled at the poor man

Check what?

If it was standard practice

But why was the cleaner even checking if anyone was in there when it wasn't check out time yet, and it was the last day of the OP's stay?

It's normal for cleaning staff to know which rooms have guests checking in that day, guests checking out, and which have guests staying overnight.

As I keep saying, as a former hotel cleaner, many hotel systems and timings have a complete disconnect with the hours of the housekeeping staff. If you start work at 8 am, check-out isn’t till 11 and check-in is at 3, and you have 12 rooms, 10 of them end-of-stay cleans for new guests, there’s no way you can get those 10 rooms properly clean in time for check-in. Occasionally departing guests, especially business customers, will leave early and staff will be made aware, but sometimes with no bill to pay they will have left without anyone realising, often leaving a DND on the room door, so certainly when I was a hotel cleaner, we were encouraged to start knocking on doors from early on in our shift in order to try to get through, or face the wrath of management dealing with lots of new arrivals complaining their rooms weren’t ready. It’s a crap system.

Because some guests leave early and the earlier cleaners can start, the less rushed they are.

Check out may not be until 11am, but someone may leave at 7am, so it makes sense for the cleaners to check the rooms without DND cards out, just to see if they can get a head start.

I don’t think you’re in the wrong here. I’d quite likely have been fast asleep at 8am if I were in a hotel room alone, and the knock would have woken me up - which I wouldn’t have loved!

I get that they want to start early, but they look at the list of people who’ve checked out already, surely…?

so certainly when I was a hotel cleaner, we were encouraged to start knocking on doors from early on in our shift in order to try to get through

So @HerTableLaid you were encouraged to wake people up early? And make them feel hassled to leave a room that they'd paid for up until 11am?
I know it's not the room cleaner's fault but I would not be back to your hotel

I find that a do not disturb sign, put outside your door is the best thing when wanting a lie in.

Many people , particularly those who are passing through on business , get up early , pack, have breakfast ( or not) and go.
Most people don't bother with the DND sign.
Maybe the cleaner assumed.
It doesn't matter now.

Housekeeping staff often have many rooms to 'do.'
Assuming that everyone leaves at 11 means they've only got a small window of opportunity to work in.

We often stay in hotels and the housekeeping are already under way when we go down for breakfast.

Going forward, just put the sign on your door.

But that list is out of date as soon as it's printed! You could print a list, hand it out, and five minutes later, another ten guests could have checked out.

If you don't want to be disturbed, you need to use the DND sign.