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I am neither American nor European by nationality and I am absolutely disgusted by the idea that if I ever visited the USA the duvet has been on the bed for perhaps a few weeks before I got there. It’s beyond revolting. I’m quite sure the reason the European (and other guests like us) sleep on top of the top sheet is they don’t know the second sheet is there!!! They think it’s a normal bed like the rest of the world, which just has bottom sheet and duvet on top. How absolutely foul would I feel to sleep in exactly the same way and then find out that another five guests did it before me because the host doesn’t know how the rest of the world does beds…
And yes it is weird to me to put a duvet with a cover on it and then have a sheet under it. That is the whole point of having a duvet cover, it’s washable.
Changing a duvet cover is not that hard. I know the double ones take a bit of aerobic exercise, but watch a video or three showing you the tricks to changing them, including starting with the cover inside out etc. If you really can’t cope with it, get a lightweight coverless duvet. They come in lots of pretty colours, aren’t heavy, and fit in a normal washing machine.
And for all the whiners crying about criticising the USA… headsup, Princesses, you’re grossing the foreigners out in this forum, which is a pretty good indicator that your practice will also gross out your foreign guests. But I suppose you think it’s more important to get butthurt than to care how foreigners will feel about a disgusting bed or actually provide a hygienic experience!
I would hate triple sheeting because I’m so used to sleeping under a duvet that I don’t like anything tucked in - if I stay in a hotel I have to untuck all the top layers before I can sleep … and then I feel sorry for the miads who have to retuck it, only for me to have to destroy their handiwork the next night!
I wash my blankets between each and every guest. That’s one of the reasons I don’t have duvets. At first we did but it took too much time to stuff them in the duvet covers.
I’m sure that there are things I do that gross out foreigners. There are things that foreigners do that gross me out. I thought the point of travel was to experience a different culture even if it makes you uncomfortable, not to instruct people in other countries how to replicate your culture in their country.
This is what I don’t understand. (Still!) It takes only a minute to put a duvet cover on, another minute to put the bottom sheet on the bed, a further one to add pillowcases — bed made. Just two ‘sheet’ items to wash.
It takes me over 10 minutes to stuff a duvet into it’s cover and it’s still in there lopsided. The tell that a lot of people find it difficult is all the tutorials on the internet. I don’t see any tutorials on how to put a top sheet on a bed.
@jaquo nailed it. It takes about a minute. Perhaps two for a king-sized one. Ten minutes is ridiculous unless the cover is made of, I don’t know, carpet. Or is, as has been discussed, is not a duvet but some kind of heavy bedspread thing with a cover. And if there are people taking ten minutes to put on a sheet, I think I’ll make a video and monetise it, I’ll be rich in no time.
A realistic time frame for an entire bed is ten minutes imo. Takes me about that long to do bottom sheet, two duvets and two pillows, and I am no superstar athletic duvet-wrestler. No chambermaid in the world would still have a job after the first week if he or she took ten minutes for each item on the bed. A typical hotel turnaround is 40 minutes all told.
In answer to someone else’s question whining about how hotels never change their bed covers, I can only imagine they haven’t stayed in a modern hotel, because all over the world many of them now routinely use duvets. The last two I stayed in did (in two continents) and they are major chains. Thin cotton covers over duvet, with no top sheet. Clearly and obviously being laundered for each guest, with one even making a written statement to that effect.
The discussion about guests doing their business all over he house: That’s why I got a small black light/UV flashlight (under $10) to light up invisible protein stains that we could wipe up on hard surfaces. (Or if they’re on throw pillows or couches lets us know to give them extra attention) I thought I was being paranoid but maybe I’m not.
Actually I’ve put duvets in their covers since I was a child but the few times I had to put a top sheet or a flat bottom sheet on a bed (mostly in vacation rentals where they don’t make the beds) it ended up looking very messy . That was before YouTube though.
I think we should rename this forum “Linens & Kettles”
Here is what I think.
I think there is a gap in vocabulary, and knowledge ( maybe / I hope anyway ).
To me - the duvet is the buttoned or zipped cover, and it is washed between each guest.
( Additionally, I happen to put a sheet under and over the duvet cover, but that is just extra, because some Americans dont understand Duvets so I triple sheet the duvet).
Then the insert within the duvet cover is the comforter - this can be down, feather or synthetic.
I believe that many of the Americans on this site are calling the comforter the duvet…and this is causing confusion to the Europeans, who understand what a duvet is.
The comforter, the insert, is not washed between each guest, but the duvet, the cover must be.
Please let me know what you think of this explanation.
I hope I am correct, because I was be appalled otherwise at the cleanliness of host bedding.
It’s interesting to look on YouTube for time lapse videos of people sleeping. Even though they are just sleeping and not getting up to any other bedtime activities, you can see that arms are often outside the covers meaning that the bedding (duvet, comforter, bedspread whatever) is bundled into a sweaty armpit. Feet are often hooked out of the bed and onto the whatever-you-want-to-call-the-top-layer. Then faces go onto the top layer so there are things to consider like snot and dribble…
And the argument that hotels don’t wash everything every time that some people have mentioned just doesn’t wash with me. We have white pillowcases, white bottom sheet and white duvet covers - guests can be 100% sure that everything is truly clean after the last guest.
BTW, I’m not defending the practice just pointing out it is what it is. People have no way of determining if their linens are clean or not. They may appear clean but unless you watch the bed being made with linens fresh from the laundry you are taking your chances.
How we Italian /and German and in Austria & East Europe use it? the complete duvet + his bag is traditionally used instead of upper sheet (I’m sorry I don’t know the perfect word to indicate it) and blanket. So in this use your body is between the bed sheet under you and the complete duvet with bag, without other sheet or blanket, over you.
How some Italian hosts are beginnig to use it? We began to use the complete set (duvet & bag) as a blanket, so your body will stay between the bed sheet under you and another bed sheet. As a blanket you’ll haver the complete set (duvet & bag) over the upper bed sheet.
Because duvet covers are easy to wash at hight temperatures and so the conforter/duvet inside them. We can wash at 60° C all, and covers much more than duvets, in some case.
I’m in California… That’s in the US… (just for clarification, ha, ha). More specifically, I am in the San Francisco Bay Area. We don’t get that many warm days here - ones where you would sleep with just a sheet (less than 30 days per year). My beds have a bottom sheet, top sheet, light blanket and a duvet (aka comforter) with cover. I have short term (3-4 nights) and long term guests (several weeks to 2 months) and most are singles. I don’t always wash the cover between short term guests - it depends whether it smells or has stains. I always wash the blanket and duvet cover before or after long term guests. Even if guests aren’t sleeping in contact with the cover, they are probably sitting, resting, putting their luggage on it etc. My first inclination that there was another way to sleep with a duvet was when I had a guest from France who asked if I washed the cover when I changed his sheets. I was a little surprised by his question, so I got on the internet and was surprised again when I discover that Europe has a whole different way of dressing a bed. (Sadly, I haven’t been there yet )
I would also add that I have protective covers on the mattress and box spring, which I don’t remove, a mattress pad which I wash less often than the duvet cover, and protective pillow covers (between the pillow and the pillowcase) that I wash between ever guest along with the sheets - plus, sheets are changed every week for long term guests.
Personally I like to wash the duvet cover between each guest because I don’t want to take a chance that they might smell something that I didn’t or that there is hair on the duvet cover that I didn’t notice and then boom I now have a low clean rating.
And the thing is that I never know what that guedt might be doing in the bed or what possible communicable whatever that person may have with them or something. So I figure why take a chance and just basically have an extra duvet set.
So for this reason I have two duvet covers and they are both from Ikea and super cute. One thing I do that helps me to more easily get the blanket into the duvet and to keep it there is to place large safety pins at each corner. It makes it a whole lot easier to get the duvet set up and keep the blanket in place.
Yes, we wash duvet covers between every guest. We have a mattress protector, bottom sheet, top sheet, duvet and pillow cases. All are washed between guests.
I am American, lived in the UK for many years and now live in Australia. For those who claim there is a difference in relation to “duvet” between the US and elsewhere, I don’t think this is true. My first encounter with a duvet is at Bed Bath and Beyond in the USA as a teenager, and it is what I experienced in the UK and Australia (although Australians call them doonas).
I would be pretty grossed out if I knew that the duvet covers weren’t being washed between guests.
. That was before YouTube though.
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