Blood in our Holiday Lodge

[LouLou1992]

We are on a family holiday - lodges around a central leisure centre type place. Listed as a ‘5 star resort’.

The lodge is fine - not immaculate and a few things could do with updating. No big problem, a bit disappointing considering we paid £1k for the week, but the other facilities on site are great and it’s comfortable.

However I’ve just discovered the bed sheets on one of the kids beds has blood stains. I’m really freaked out/angry.

I’m going to ask to speak to a manager. What would you ask for/expect in this situation? Just an apology? Partial refund? More/less?

I would expect fresh sheets

I would definitely expect fresh bed clothes regardless of what I was paying.

Obviously more likely to be period blood than someone having come to harm but grim regardless 🤢

I would certainly be expecting something back. If they haven’t even changed bed sheets goodness knows what else they haven’t done.

Are they stains as in washed but stained, or are they blood indicating you have old unwashed sheets?

how revolting. I would expect the housekeeping service to give the place the once over, sounds like they didn’t bother

I'd expect clean sheets and an apology, feed back to housekeeping as they must've seen it when making the bed surely? Anything else would be a bonus.

Unless it is fresh blood , or the sheets appear unchanged from previous occupants, a visit from housekeeping to replace is sufficient. Maybe a round of drinks while they do so. Would it have obvious enough that they should have been discarded? If fresh stains ask to move accommodation and something towards inconvenience.

The answer to this would dictate what I'd expect compensation wise.
Either way you should be getting clean bedding though.

That’s absolutely disgusting. No one wants sheets with body fluids on them esspecially not blood which is potentially contagious.

I would expect fresh sheets, an apology (at the very least!) and a voucher for a free meal or something. I once booked a hotel room in a rather upscale place and clearly the bathroom hadn’t been cleaned. They immediately apologized and upgraded us to a better room.

Thank you all.

They look washed and ironed - so old blood. But there are lots of splatters - looks more like somebody has had a cut rather than period blood.

There are spare sheets in one of the storage cupboards so went to change the sheet myself before handing the stained ones into reception, but have found another set which are also stained with blood (again, washed but stained).

I have spent lots of time in holiday accommodations over the years and not once have I ever seen sheets with blood spatter on them, whether old or fresh blood, that’s just utterly grim. It’s a bit different then at home where I will probably keep a sheet with some staining on it and still use it because it’s my own. But I certainly wouldn’t use it for a guest bed in my home and I equally wouldn’t want to sleep under sheets that had a strangers old blood stains on them.

Do you realise how little time the cleaners get in each holiday lodge in between occupants? I'm not saying blood on your bedding is acceptable, but nor is it anything to really get worked up over. I'd have made them aware of it and got them to change it, then moved on. They have a shit, stressful, incredibly busy job. They may not have noticed.

There was shit on a towel in a hotel I once stayed in

Whilst you should expect clean sheets, you should also take into account that the cleaners are hard pushed for time, and they're only human. They can't realistically be expected to notice every little mark on a sheet. Unless you take your own bedding then there's always going to have been someone else's bodily fluids on your bedding. Blood is just easier to see once it's washed and set in.

Take them to reception and get some fresh ones. That's all I'd expect.

Just to be clear - I am very aware of how stressful and hard a job cleaners have. At no point have I ever suggested otherwise. The lodge we are staying at have lots of text on their website about how they are still ‘covid compliant’ and that they have built in extra time to allow the cleaners to deep clean each lodge between guests. Check in/out times have been moved to accommodate this too.

The blood stains are significant - not just a few dots. They are all over one side (which had been tucked under the mattress) and there are more on the other side which are visible when the duvet is taken off. And now I have found more on the spare sheets.

Don't change the sheets yourself, you are probably better off just seeing the state of the mattress underneath!

I'd go to reception, explain both sets of sheets and ask for fresh ones to be put on, maybe a round of drinks comp as you wait. Then get on with your holiday.

The ones on the bed really should have been spotted as they were put on, but mistakes happen and it's not the end of the world, but the ones in the cupboard - most places like this use outside laundry services and if spare sheets are provided then they're just taken out of the delivery still folded up and put in the cupboard.

I'd have though blood spots on a sheet would be easy to spot by a cleaner regardless of how busy they are.

The laundry company and the cleaner should have intercepted that. It's very off-putting for a guest to have to see.

Since that would not make for a very nice trip advisor review, surely the reception will make it up to you with some complimentary drinks or something.

Even if the cleaner saw the stains on the sheet they might not be allowed to throw them away if the management has decided that they still need to be used.

Most of the companies I've dealt with haven't been great tbh, and there's a fair few rejected items from most deliveries, and where I've worked - we've shopped around but they're all much of a muchness.

And as for the ta review, well people usually review negatively for something like this regardless of any compensation they've had to make things up to them, we're told to be less generous now in all honesty because we were really bending over backwards to make anything that went wrong right, lots of comp stuff - and still getting shit reviews from those incidents that funnily enough didn't mention the compensation offered and given, so when comps are requested and ta used as a threat to get more, we dial it back a bit now.

I'd get the manager to come and look for themselves. It's not really the cleaners fault of the laundry company sent them, but you'd have thought they'd have noticed and used different ones.
Take photos of the sheets in case you need to show them at a later date.

I’d be out of there. It doesn’t say much for their standards of cleanliness & hygiene and I’d be worried what else was lurking around.

If the company are taking 1k of your money the very least you can expect them to do is ensure the cleaners have enough time to clean and prepare things properly. I would call housekeeping and ask them to change the beds and report it in an email to management/ customer services with photos. They need to ensure this doesn't happen again.

It could be a nosebleed, one of my DC had a dramatic one whilst staying in a hotel. I did warn housekeeping though.