I used to be a custodian. It's not a pretty job, but someone has to do it. I cleaned hotel rooms, and as such, have an interesting perspective on staying in hotels. To make the life of my former coworkers easier, and possibly even your own, I'd like to pass on some of this knowledge to any who desire to stay in a hotel.
That little sign on your doorknob is not for decoration. If you don't want to be disturbed, please use the sign to indicate so! Also; if you don't use it, and we wake you up at 2PM Sunday afternoon from your post-open-bar-business-convention-hangover because we don't know you're still sleeping, please refrain from yelling at us.
After checking all the rooms in our assigned wing and finding them all occupied, it's much easier to see which rooms are empty by use of the sign, than disturbing people by knocking all over again.
A side note, in my building at least, our master key will open your lock even if you have dead bolted it. Don't expect total privacy from locking both locks. The sign is your best hope.
Please don't leave your crap lying around. There's nothing we hate more. We need to get all the way around your bed to make it. We don't want to step on your precious things. Don't forget, we need to vacuum around your dirty clothes. And if there's too much stuff on your bed, we won't make it at all.
This also applies to bathrooms. We need to wipe down every surface of the bathtub/shower, toilet, and sink, and we are not allowed to touch your stuff. If you cram a salon's worth of gels, makeup, hairspray, perfume, cologne, toothpaste, magazines, etc, around your sink, (or bathtub, for that matter), along with a hairdryer, curling iron, and shaving kit, things will either get knocked over, or we'll only clean half the sink, which looks bad. You might be surprised; men are just as bad with this as women.
And for your own sake, make sure any hand mirrors or toothbrushes are nowhere near the sink. We spray glass cleaner and disinfectant right around there, and guaranteed, some of it gets on your stuff. We're not going to clean hand mirrors, and we sure aren’t going to rinse out your toothbrushes.
Don't leave open drinks or cups on your nightstand if there's any liquid in them. When making the bed we have to shake the blankets to position them properly. And no matter how careful we are, things can get knocked over. Also, papers left sitting around the nightstand WILL get scattered all over the place. Don't get paranoid when your stuff has been upset from its carefully positioned location. And before you leave, check behind the nightstand.
If a toilet gets clogged, please inform the staff. We would like to take care of it quickly to prevent that god-awful smell from permeating the room.
I don't know about all hotels, but the recycling bins we provide are for things we can get money for. Cans, bottles, tetra packs, etc. Any paper or cardboard gets thrown out. Treehuggers please accept my condolences.
For your own good, sleep between the sheets! Those blankets and comforters are NEVER washed, (unless there is a pressing need, like a huge brown stain, or an outbreak of the Ebola virus).
Unless you do a really good job on your bed, we're going to remake it anyway. And if you're checking out, don't make your bed at all, we have to clean the sheets anyway. But more on that...
A final word on checking out; stripping the room. We certainly don't expect this, ever. But if you do this for us, we will love you. You will be remembered fondly, your praises will be sung in the break room before all the other employees. What you can do is remove the comforter and blanket, and put them on a chair out of the way, then remove all the pillow slips, sheets, towels, washcloths and the bathmat (but not the mattress protector and pillow protectors, those we re-use) and stuff them into one or two pillow slips. Leave these in the middle of the room along with the garbage cans, this takes a bit of our work out of the room, and we appreciate it enormously.
Well, hopefully at least some of this will be remembered the next time you stay in a hotel. If everybody followed these suggestions, my job would have been just wonderful. Well, except for the projectile vomit and bloody tampons.
And remember; don't mess with the janitors in this world. We have keys to just about everywhere.
By the way, This guy is my hero.