Washing duvet covers between every guest?

Well, it’s not expected that someones sleeps naked on a rug, but indeed there are absolutely no rugs in my listing because they can’t be washed on a regular basis.

Hotel chains switched from carpet to hard floors in their rooms because customers think carpet is unsanitary.

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That is true. I think I had this conversation once with Billy Bob. He would deep clean his place in between every guest, and even wash the shower liner each time.

But really guests can be doing the nasty right on your upholstered couch, directly on the carpet, etc. Or they could be using the living room throw blankets as covers while they take a nap in their underwear on the couch. Or what about the bare feet with athlete’s foot that are coming in contact with the area rugs…there is just no ending to what can be cleaned.

Carpet is unsanitary. And while it’s not expected that someone sleeps naked on a rug, it is expected people will walk on it, with or without shoes. They will drip and drop things on it like used condoms. And all furniture (including leather) is unsanitary. And if you don’t think anyone has sat upon your leather chair with their naked bum or had sex on your sofa you are mistaken. So everyone who expects a washed duvet each time is envisioning something icky touching it. I’m just pointing out that everything in the room has probably had something icky on it.

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Absolutely definitely. We don’t have rugs (the apartment is tiled throughout) but the covers for the throw pillows on the sofa are always washed after every guest. Another essential after every guest is washing the shower curtain and liner.

I don’t know what ‘decorative pillow shams’ are but if they’re on the bed, they should be newly washed for each guest too.

We just never know what guests are going to do (we probably don’t want to know!)

I don’t think I’ve seen blankets on a bed since I was a small child and I’m a lot older than you :slight_smile:

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@ cabinhost Ha! I was just typing the same thing. Great minds. Well, it’s like when I brought up the black light usage. Some people just don’t want to know.

I think you, Jacquo, and I were all typing at the same time…lol.

I am going to get one of those black lights. I am sure I will be disgusted even though last guest said the place was immaculate.

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I have in the bedrooms duvet comforters on the bed and locally spun wool blankets in the closet . The guests can choose what they prefer depending on the weather. My Dutch guests that are here now, chose to swap the comforter for one blanket.

As for washing expensive pure wool blankets in the washing machine on the wool cycle…tried it once…never again. Unless of course you want to transform a queen size blanket into a baby size one.

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Yeah, what’s up with people not sleeping under the top sheet!? That’s so crazy! And if I may say, every European hotel I’ve ever stayed in from low down hostels to medium and then to fancy hotels - have always had top sheets. So come on - it’s not like Europeans don’t know what they’re for.

In the summertime who wants a heavy, hot duvet or blanket laying on top of their bodies?

Anyway, I guess that explains why all our foreign guests have been using the blankets this summer. They must have been sweating up a storm under them because it’s been really hot this year.

Jon - Are you saying that everywhere you have stayed in Europe…they use a top sheet underneath the duvet cover?

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Oh I know that Mr. July did (my guest who couldn’t keep his clothes on). All my sitting surfaces got an extra wipe down after he left :blush:.

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My duvet covers are not nearly as high quality as my sheets and I would not want a duvet cover against my skin. Even when it’s clean.

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The duvet covers I’ve slept under in N. Europe were just like sheets. But my duvet covers, not so much.

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The whole point of a duvet, apart from it making the bed a lot easier, is that they keep you warm in the winter and cool in the summer.

I live in South Florida with no AC and have always used a duvet year round.

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I digress but I now take antiseptic wipes and clean a hotel room when I get there (as best as I can) and recently when we took a 24 hour flight to Australia I wiped everything down that I could. I read that an air hostess said that she worked as a air hostess for 10 years for a few different air lines. In that time, she saw the trays being wiped down five times at most. Eek

Oh goody, the Duvet Wars again … I do love a bit of an inter-colonial dust-up.

Duvets began to be used in the UK in the Seventies, about the same time as Ikea became known. By the nineties, even my very conservative 80-year old in-laws used duvets. Since we all graduated from the (now typically American) top sheet, blanket, eiderdown (comforter), bedspread scenario, I don’t quite know how we went to a no top sheet nation… perhaps everyone went skiing and saw how duvets were used in Austria/Switzerland!

The reason I personally don’t like top sheets is that I hate to feel my feet are trapped by the tucked in bedclothes - I must be the bane of hotel maids as I always untuck the sheet from the bottom of the bed. I like the feel of a bit of weight from the duvet (we even use a very light one on the hottest nights here in Spain).

However, I’ve noticed that occasionally some guests will remove the duvet from its cover and just use the cover like a top sheet, so I’m going to follow @George_Carol’s idea (thanks!) and leave a top sheet available as well. Complex problem - simple solution … I like that!

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Ever stayed at a hotel? Ever known anyone who has worked at a hotel?

Bedspreads are never washed - even when they are made to resemble duvets. And I don’t mean seldom, I mean never.

If another human’s arm touches something that does not mean it is contaminated. If you are honestly such a delicate flower that you cannot bear the thought of your skin coming into contact with anything that has touched another human being’s skin then forget about public transport, restaurants, airplanes, movie theaters, friend’s houses - these standards people are beginning to try to establish as the norm and the horrified princess act that goes along with every one asserting that only their way is acceptable - out of control, vulgar, ignorant and rude.

If you think your skin is somehow too good to touch anything anyone else has touched well - don’t come to my house, I promise you, you will always have spotlessly clean sheets, towels and linens but other people have sat on our couches and chairs, they have touched the books, they have opened the cabinets, they have opened or closed the blinds, they have used throw pillows, I don’t sterilize the place after every guest. What you need is a hospital, not a hotel.

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Well, that’s a bit of an unnecessary rant. Firstly, I am not talking about my skin and secondly, when people are paying for accommodation they deserve clean bedding.

Furthermore, we are talking about duvets here, not bedspreads. Duvets, when used in the way in which they are intended, replace the top sheet, blanket and bedspread, and are in direct contact with the skin. If you’re OK with sleeping under something that has been in direct contact with sweat, semen and whatever else, that’s your prerogative but I prefer to supply clean bedding for my guests.

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At the moment I’m renting a seaside house, and it’s very hot, so I wash fitted sheets, top sheets and pillow cases. I have bed covers and I don’t wash them between every guest. When I’m in a hotel (or airbnb’s home) I just take off the bed cover, fold it and put it on a chair or something, since I guess they don’t get washed often (sometimes they never get).
If it’s cold, we have blankets (but we don’t wash them between every guest).

I only wash them maybe once a month, or if they look dirty (once, I guess a guest fell asleep on top of everything, with her make up on, so the bedcovers were stained, and I washed them again).

In the hotels/ rooms where they have duvets (I found them especially in the area between Austria and Germany), they usually don’t have top sheets and they change duvet covers (I do hope!).

(At winter, in my personal home, I have a duvet, with duvet cover, and a fitted sheet, no upper sheets, and I change and wash duvet cover as often as I change and wash under sheet and pillow case).

Only once I got a not very nice experience with an airbnb host: he had fitted sheet, no top sheet, and something between a duvet (withour a cover) and a blanket, and I guess he didn’t was it between guests. The room was smelling a lot :frowning:

What I don’t understand are guests making their beds when they’re leaving (I’m going to wash sheets, so I have to take them off :smiley: )

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I figured out recently why they do that. We stayed at a place for a few days while maintenance was being done to our home. We are early risers, the host kindly told us we could check out at 2 pm so that meant for eight hours or so, I’d be in a smallish space with an unmade bed. So the neat freak that’s hiding within me made me make the bed :wink:

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We wash the bedsheet and pillow cases here every time, but I must admit we don’t wash the duvet (if that’s what we’re calling it) cover every time. Though this thread is shaming me into thinking we should do so. I think that is what they call Peer Pressure.

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