OK so the customer is always right, it’s true, and gets to decide how many towels they like in a week. However I do believe in nudge theory - putting extra clean towels in a cupboard, rather than tantalisingly and confusingly on display in the open prevents towels being taken or rewashed when they’re not really wanted or needed.
I stayed in a Hilton in Birmingham for a weekend once. They put out 6 towels just for me. I took 2 and put the rest in the wardrobe to keep them clean. They kept on bringing more towels each day and the wardrobe was loaded by Monday! There was inadequate space to air towels, and mine ended up on the back of the chair. My goodness how I wished they’d spent a bit more money on the quality of the breakfast coffee rather than the stupid towels.
Oh, I just want to mention that quite often, guests have used only two bath towels out of the three provided. That’s fairly usual. It’s quite common for two guests staying for, let’s say, four days to use only two bath towels and one hand towel.
Whoa! I didn’t say that. In fact the customer is often wrong, paranoid, or bat$h!t crazy. But they always get to leave a review. My guests get one towel each with another single towel sitting on a shelf in the open. Then I tell them let me know if they need more, or I leave the closet unlocked and tell them to get more there. But there are only another 4-5 bath towels in that closet. Another half dozen hand towels and wash/face cloths. Over 400 guests and not a single one has asked for more or used an excessive amount.
I’ve been more than one place with no towel bar or hook. However there is always a shower rod or a closet rod to hang them on.
I place bath towels, wash cloths and hand towels in the bathroom plus there is an abundance in the linen closet. Guests are free to help themselves.
If they manage to plow through 18 bath towels there is a nice large load washer plus dryer and detergent. They can do their own laundry. My unit is cheap and I am not their mother 
There are 7 dish towels in the kitchen. Usually 2 or 3 are used. There is always an outlier—one three day guest used them all and wanted more.
Sometimes the outlier is toward the good end of the spectrum. The two guys who stay 14 days and only use two towels, the guest who you would know had been there if not for the security cam footage…
Yep your towel bale would be virtually untouched with me but I would be asking for more tea towels, especially if separate hand towels and cloths are not provided. The kitchen stuff is a real germ magnet.
What do you do with them?
If they are for drying clean dishes they need to be clean. If someone has wiped their hands on them, picked up a hot dish and got food on them or wiped down with them they need to be washed.
I use separate cleaning cloths, towels, tea towels and silicone oven gloves. Most of these get washed most days. I cook from scratch.
try me! put whatever you think out there. i do understand media finance in decent detail, so I would be interested in any information you have on this topic.
Isn’t it fair to say that a guest who wanted for ex. 10 towels a day would not be in any sense determining an “appropriate” number of towels?
Guests especially in a home-share determine their preferences, that’s where it ends. Not what is appropriate. Only what they’d like to have.
If the host’s pricing model does not include an allowance for above-average wear and tear on the towels, excess detergent, amortized laundry machine wear and tear, and labor prices, then one would be hard-pressed to say “the guest” determines an appropriate number of towels. It seems more a function of the price point of the accommodation.
Guests are large and in charge at the Four Seasons, not so much a $40 a night (or less) room in a private home.
I see a massive consciousness and awareness and financial savvy among my guests – above 99% – that they do NOT want extra towels because they know the host will have to raise prices and there goes their sweet deal. Direct quote from a guest (an incredibly talented actor and musician, of limited means): “Never fiddle around with what you offer here because then I won’t be able to afford to stay with you. Don’t provide parking, don’t upgrade the bathrooms, don’t get fluffier towels. Just please keep it like it is I beg you.”
I provide an enormous supply of towels. I have no idea what people will use, however, I have yet to wash enough to utilize a second load of laundry. 1) allows me to have extra towels if I can’t do a wash 2) guests have enough towels for their needs 3) i avoid an annoying request for more towels while I’m enjoying a whiskey on the rocks out on the deck.
Let me rephrase, I’m not interested in trying to sway you. I do believe that it’s incontrovertible that the media exists to make money. Period. Whether they always do or not is irrelevant. Maybe Rupert Murdoch and Jeff Bezos are interested in public service or promoting their viewpoints and have no interest in making money.
If you have a different view, that’s fine.
Yes. My comment is in the context of the OP saying
Guests demand things that are unreasonable all the time and then slam the host for it. I was simply trying to say if the guest is not making unreasonable demands then it makes sense to try to provide what they want. For every guest who uses a towel a day there’s another who didn’t even seem to use a towel at all.
What if a guest left one star for cleanliness and said in the review “this host thinks I should use the same towel every day.” That review wouldn’t be removed.
I’m still trying to wrap my head around the need for a big supply or tea towels because kitchens are so much dirtier than bathrooms.
I have a 3 night minimum stay and I leave one large high quality bath towel per person and some spares in a airing cupboard and several hand towels. I leave lots of fresh kitchen towels as I (as others have said) believe this is where strict hygiene is necessary. So far I have had no complaints. As this cottage is our holiday home I have often had friends (all nationalities) and relatives staying and I have noticed some of my American relatives wanting to use , what I consider to be ridiculous amount of towels, and I have told them so and explained the environmental impact.
You rental. Your budget. Your style of guest accommodation. Your review when the guest asks for an extra towel and you tell them no because you don’t think they need it and your budget doesn’t accomodate their comfort.
Just as it is my budget & laundry time/expenses if a guest decides to use all 18 bath towels in 2 days. Most guests are reasonable. The occasional guest who has a linen “field day” won’t ruin me (however I may end up venting about it on this forum but I will still be making a few dollars).
It’s all about personal style and to what extent we are willing to accomodate the guest. Remember I’m the one who won’t do laundry during the guest stay because I’m not their mother. They can use the washer/dryer if they exhaust my bounty of towels.
Airhost forum jinx.
I went into the ABB bathroom today to discover the bath towel hanging up but the bathmat from the closet, the spare towel from the shelf and the bathmat that was hanging in the bathroom soaking wet on the floor. I was puzzled and annoyed. I pull out my phone to read the message the guest sent: “Thank you so much for the comfortable room. I had a good sleep and a great shower this morning. The toilet overflowed. I was going to text you about it but it fixed itself as I was using towels to clean up the water on the floor.” Ugh, okay. I take the heaping mess and dump it in the washing machine. I go back to the bathroom, lift the toilet lid and see fecal residue around the rim of the toilet, underside of toilet seat and on the toilet brush and think Oh no! I run back to the washing machine and fish out the contents to take out to the back yard to hose down. Luckily they weren’t too bad. So extra soaking for those items. Although the toilet flushed fine for me a plumber is here now.
I guess when a toilet overflows people just don’t think clearly.
I didn’t understand anyone on this topic saying that they would flatly refused guest’s request for more towels. Only that they wouldn’t outright supply a generous amount of towels. So far that has been my policy and most of the time I find that people don’t even use the towels I leave for them, let alone ask for more. It happened to me maybe twice in the last 5 years that someone asked for extra towels, and of course, they were immediately provided with them.
Hi @Inna. The following combined with other info in her posts seems to say she doesn’t give additional towels.
We find the same thing. The exception is sometimes women with long hair like an extra towel just for their hair. Usually after 3 days I’ll ask if they want fresh towels and almost everyone doesn’t.
Although I personally find the number of towels that TotalAirHead leaves for his guests way too low, I guess even he wouldn’t refuse to give a fresh towel to someone who is asking for it. Or at least I hope so. 
UGH K9. Simply UGH. I had a guest tape the lid of the toilet together and when I untaped it, found a poop filled plugged toilet. Just tell me. These things happen!
Holy $h!t. That’s terrible. But I also understand people get embarrased and don’t quite know what to do.