Review advice for blood everywhere

I tried it once and I can assure you that once you get a whiff of it you won’t want to consume anything at all for a while, lol.

2 Likes

It may do for you - in my country it’s a common term for stained linens .

1 Like

Of course, that makes sense. It’s used in the same way in the US. I’m not entirely sure about “stained” but it’s definitely used to describe “dirty”. Personally, I would only use “stained” if it couldn’t be removed and would be forever present but I’m not sure about others.

It is used by healthcare workers like myself (here and in the UK too!) specifically to describe bowel incontinence. Soiled/soiling is a medical term that refers to bowel incontinence. It’s the word used to describe feces on someone/something as well as someone getting feces on themselves. It’s used, legally, in our documentation which is why we don’t have to write out “bowel incontinence” or remember how to spell "encopresis”.

I understand it’s a specialized sector but there are a lot of us. Then there are dry cleaners and professional laundries and they define “soiled” very specifically as food or bodily fluids. That really opens it up a lot. It could be pizza, semen, steak sauce, snot, who knows, etc. (Not sure where fake tanner and makeup fit in though).

One of my grandmothers used soiled to describe anything that required an extensive amount of scrubbing but the other one used it to describe anything that wasn’t already pristine (lol). And those are just the varied uses of “soiled” that I’m personally aware of. I’m sure there are tons more out there.

That is my point. “Soiled linens” is vague at best (unless you’re in healthcare where it means :poop:, lol) and completely useless at worst. There’s no reason to be coy and leave out the details. If a host feels too hesitant to name what is on the soiled linens then it’s probably worth considering whether it should be mentioned at all. A review is for other hosts so it has to be clear, detailed and truthful to be useful.

There may be a couple of hosts out there who fervently believe that their linens are never ever going to be marred by a guest so “soiled linens” works for them because it’s a deal breaker no matter what. But most of us are thinking it through, weighing our options and then taking conscious gambles based on what we each know about our own specific tolerances, intolerances and comfort levels.

We can’t do that with “soiled linens” because we don’t know what it means. It might mean “a few muddy paw prints” but it might mean “buckets of vomit”.

Soiled linens is right up there with “better off at a hotel” in terms of usefulness.

3 Likes

I would definitely want to know what exactly had ‘soiled’ or ‘stained’ the linens.

As an English person living in the US, my familiarity with certain words and phrases gets very mixed up. (After a short time living here I forgot so many Englishisms so I used to call my mum in the UK “what do we call off-ramps in England?” I’d get very mixed up - still do sometimes).

Now though ‘soiled’ would indicate :poop: and that would be the first thing I’d think.

Blood washes out of linens easily enough (so, therefore, isn’t a ‘stain’ to me) but I don’t want to deal with :poop: so yes, please specify in reviews.

It’s like reading ‘broke house rules’ without being told which house rules.

2 Likes

"Stained’ to me means marks that don’t wash out. I.e. stains are permanent.

1 Like

Yes, same with me. That’s why I chuckle when I see hosts say that guests left bloodstains. Unless the guests had tried to wash them in hot water, the marks wouldn’t be set in and become stains.

Maybe it’s just male hosts who aren’t as accustomed as we are.

:crazy_face:

1 Like

Speaking of the difference between the way males react to things vs. females, here’s a phenomenon I noticed years ago, don’t know if other women have had the same experience. If your husband or boyfriend asks if you have a lighter, or the keys because he can’t find his, or something that may be in your handbag, and you say, “Yeah they’re in my bag”, assuming he’ll just look for them there, instead they always hand you your bag, as if there might be something embarrassingly “female” in there that they are afraid of touching or seeing. :stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye:

1 Like

This has happened several times. We have a two bedroom house we airbnb and a couple who stayed two nights, ruined the mattress cover (A GOOD reason for mattress covers), sheets and duvet with blood and other stains. I assume the had intercourse and the woman was menstruating. The second night they used the bed in the second bedroom and did the same thing. I was able to salvage the bedding from night 2 but the first night blood did not come out of the bedding. We have thought of leaving a note with a chuck bed pad. We can’t come up with a polite way to phrase the note. Perhaps we should be blunt and say, “Please use the chuck bed pad if you are having intercourse while you are menstruating.” Somehow that sounds too personal…

“If you think you might stain the linens for some reason, please be kind and make the bed with the bed pad that’s kept in the lower drawer. Our cleaner thanks you!”

Lots of reasons people might stain linens other than intercourse while menstruating. Women that bleed heavily, children or other people with incontinence, someone who’s nauseous, etc.

A more hospitable idea is a mattress pad that’s waterproof to protect the mattress. Everything else is easily washed.

5 Likes

Thanks for the recommendation. I like the wording. We use a waterproof mattress pad but if the sheets are left stained for more than a day we have had no luck getting out the blood and other stains - even using peroxide and cold water and soaking and soaking. So we have to retire the sheets and use them as painting cloths, etc. Cotton sheets are very expensive.

1 Like