If you have a 'guest bedroom', please answer my trivial question

[YankNCock]

Do you keep the bed made up all the time? Or strip it down and leave it like that until the day guests are arriving?

I like having it made up in case me or DH would unexpectedly need to sleep in there, and it just looks nicer. The mattress has a big tea stain on it, so leaving it uncovered looks awful.

But if I keep it made up, DS (2.5) gets in there while I'm sorting laundry and jumps on the bed or drools on it or something, so if there were clean sheets on it, I'd have to change them again before people use it. And folding laundry on it, you get bits of lint and stuff...and leaving the sheets on for ages I'd think they'd get a bit musty?

So what do you do with your spare bed?

Guest bed made up all the time; though it gets good use as it's a) the snoring room b) the coolest bedroom during the baking hot bits of the Aussie summer, which we are not having at the moment:(

Utterly at not changing bedding for guests. How utterly grim. Change every time, even if only one sleep's been had. You can always smell other people on sheets.

I leave the sheets on, then strip and make up for the next guest. If it is the same person, they might get their same sheets again depending on the cat hair situation

Main guest room which is used quite frequently is permanently made up although when a guest goes I wash the bedding so it is ready for next guest.

The spare guest room is not made up as that is used less frequently, just a throw in the bed.

No, not my guests. My guests are people who wash and bring clean pants with them. They get clean bedding.

My DH's guests, on the other hand, are usually travelling minstrels of one sort or another who mainly sleep on sofas, floors, never wash and often smell.

They do not always get clean sheets if one of my nice clean friends has only used them for a single night first. They do get a clean towel (hardly ever touched) and the bed is aired and plumped up for them though.

Grumpia do u really not change the sheets for your guests?

It's better to strip the bed when the guests leave than to leave 'used' sheets on it, whether you then leave it unmade or re-made. Greeblies love used sheets

We keep the whole thing made up (for precisely the same reasons as you!) but cover the whole over with a large patchwork quilt. Like that, the toddler bouncing can be beaten out of the pillows and the whole bed smoothed over just before guests arrive. It is true that in our house the bedding would get a little damp (can't wait for the bloody insulation to arrive tendaysandcounting) but it's also like the M25 here for guests so they don't get to hang around for long on the bed anyway.

See my post of the 10th for further clarification on my sheet / guest habits. Like I have said (twice) the answer depends on the guest!

I know for a fact that one of the men people who regular stays in my spare room once went five months without changing his bed linen at home. So no, since my delightfully fragrant mother had slept in those sheets for six hours two days previously I don't think he would have been boaking at the thought of it particularly after the amount of booze he had consumed .

I can assure you, however, that I washed those sheets very thoroughly after he had slept in them

mine is made up becusae i use it as 'my' room and go in to get away from dh snoring, farting and teeth gnashing.

Ours doesn't get used that often but when it does I whip the sheets and everything off the minute they have gone, even if it's only been used for 1 night -and make it up freshly the next day- OR sometimes just put the folded linen in the room ready to make up when the next guest arrives.

can't bear the idea of leaving it with grubby linen on for weeks on end.

If it's cold I'll sometimes add a hot water bottle for them- or we used to have an electric blanket on the bed ( thrown out now as too old),

We have the den thing going on - our guest bed is a futon so its not kept made up at all, so all is lovely and fresh for everyone!

Before that it was a bed that I kept made up for DH snoring but kept covered so even if mussed up it was always ok underneath.

Like Petrean leave the sheets on until the next person is arriving and then put the fresh ones on then. My DH's family always take it upon themselves to strip the bed down before they leave and leave the bedding in a big heap on the floor(which really p's me off and I think is v. rude) and then I have to fecking make it anyway!

Eh? No I leave it stripped so the sheets are fresh on when people arrive. No do pit a throw over the whole bed though so it doesn't look unmade.

You keep explaining Grumpla... But... I'm afraid irrespective of what you're saying and your reasonings, I still find it revolting.

At our shared cottage, I always leave the bed made up for my SIL and BIL, everything nicely arranged, cushions attractively dressing the bed and so on.

She then proceeds to sleep on it, and then strip the bed, fold the sheets up and then stuff them between the duvet and the mattress for me to find and wash next time I visit.

Blacklashes It is actually correct etiquette to strip your bed when staying as a guest. But guests should also ask the hostess ( host) what they prefer.

I think it saves a lot of embarrassment of finding stray pubic hairs and God forbid stains.

Always made up so, and then put fresh sheets on before guests come (and after, of course!). If we have no guests for a few weeks I change the sheets anyway so they don't become musty. DH thinks this is perfectly mad.

Depends who sleeps in it. Usually needs to be slept in for the best part of a week to merit a chanve unless i think someone has had relations in there! Mostly my family stay, i know they couldnt give a fig!

Oh hard hat out.... i know i know...the mumsnet clean police. I only change our sheets and towels fortnightly to 3 weekly and same with teatowels...

The same with teatowels

You do know that the country is seeing a huge increase in bed bug infestation? And why- because people are too lazy to wash them weekly.
Even if you don't have bed bugs you will have loads of dust mites in there.

Yuck.

wash the sheets- not the bugs. :)