What's Behind the Door

 

Lindsey McIntosh 

What happens when you pack up your bags and leave the hotel? Well, that would be my job, to clean up after you. How you leave your room is up to you, messy, clean, or untouched. As a housekeeper there are 4 different types of rooms I clean on the daily: railroader rooms, pet rooms, rooms that have kids, and angel rooms.  You might be asking yourself why someone would ever want to be a housekeeper. Honestly, a good question, but the feeling of a room being totally clean after your hard work is rewarding. The process of cleaning a room is satisfying as well. And, of course, there's nothing better than a fresh smelling room.

The first type of room I come across, and often the most common, is a railroader’s room. I live in Thedford, which is along highway 2 that follows the railroad. Workers come and go all the time, with the only place to stay being the Roadside Inn. The thing about railroad workers is that they stay for weeks at a time, often coming from all over the country, Colorado, California, Michigan. Therefore, they buy their own food and need their rooms cleaned throughout their stay. When you clean a room that people are staying in, you aren’t allowed to touch any of their personal belongings. Since they are staying awhile, they leave piles of dirty clothes, toothbrushes, Xboxes and their controllers, laptops, all laying on the bed, floor, etc., resulting in it not getting cleaned the best during their stay. This makes the job of the housekeeper who cleans once they leave ten times more difficult. Railroad workers also tend to be messier, with crushed Doritos, rotting leftovers, exploded pizza pockets, beer, and whatever black residue that gets on everything. I have serious beef with whatever it is because it takes an eternity to get off of anything plus makes me use about 2 bottles per every block, which is a lot. They also leave lots of items around including unopened boxes of breakfast sandwiches, and cases of Lipton tea. The smell they leave behind, a mix of B.O, stale puke, rotting food, and beer, haunts my memory as well. Too many times, have I had to air out their rooms just to be able to stand in and clean them. Thankfully, they do keep our small hotel alive and are normally very kind people.

My first nightmare room came from a railroader's room. They had obviously stayed there for a while and had left bags of tortillas, air fryer foods, such as onion rings, open packets of salsa, and twisted tea cans. I know they must have had a rough night considering the amount of Ultra beer bottles in the bathroom alone, and whatever went down must have been the worst smell I have ever smelled. Katen enjoyed it with me as we had to spray Pine-Sol on a cloth and put it over our noses just to get inside to air it out. We left it all day and was the last room to clean. It stunk up the whole hotel, and we spent a good chunk of time cleaning it. We went through bottles of carpet freshener and cleaning spray and not much helped. That room had to be cleaned multiple times before we ever put anyone new in it. Safe to say, I quickly learned that people aren’t scared to leave a disaster for you.

One of the most difficult to clean rooms would have to be pet rooms. Pet rooms have special precautions, and you use Dander Remover, and a mix of Pine-Sol and water, since someone with allergies could be staying in the room in the future. I have a routine when cleaning rooms and when I have to do something different or extra, it messes up my flow and timing, such as the comforter needing to be thrown into the wash. The comforters only get cleaned once every few weeks since it's bad to wash them a lot. We only wash them for pet rooms, or if they are truly dirty. During my years I’ve been a housekeeper, I’ve learned just how much hair the average person loses. Let me tell you, it’s probably a lot more than you thought, and it sticks to everything. Hair is probably my least favorite part of cleaning, because it hides and is the hardest to get off of things. So, when adding a dog or cat to the situation, every time you turn a corner, you're going to find more hair. One room that I cleaned looked like an owner decided to give their dog a haircut in the bathtub. If you haven’t spent lots of time cleaning bathtubs, let me tell you the hair is endless and water is only going to wash down so much. I spent a few precious hours trying to get all the hair out.  The vacuum has gotten clogged before from doing a few pet rooms back-to-back.

The best part is when I go to clean their room, and they happen to be leaving, and I might get to see what their animal looks like. Occasionally, I even get to pet their animals. The coolest pet I’ve seen someone bring in was a bearded dragon. This might be the only time I’ve ever seen a bearded dragon, but I can inform you that I don’t think I’ll be owning one in the future.

If you have kids, then you know how much of a mess they can be. P.S. You should do your housekeepers a favor and at least do the bare minimum of picking up their dirty diapers. I know my job is to clean but leaving that for someone else to do feels morally wrong. Yes, rooms that have kids are interesting ones. I don’t know who's to blame the kids or the parents. How do I know you might ask? Oh, I know. Several stuffies, race cars, and dolls are still left homeless. I could make a book about all the unique places kids hide cereal. The tissue dispenser, the edge of the shower, in between the mattresses, you name it. I’ve seen stains of all the colors of the rainbow; it’s like a surprise every time I open the sheets to a bed. Parents might see a hotel as a way to get out of cleaning. I understand this to a point but making me play hide and seek for the missing towels, pillowcases, and phone, is not fun. Yes, one time I found our phone in the fridge. Going along with that, does anyone want to drain your dirty bathwater for you? No. Does anyone want to pick up 10 used diapers? No. A trashcan is provided in all the rooms and can be requested to be cleaned out. Two steps and all the dirty diapers are in the trash. Our job isn’t to be a personal maid; it is to prepare rooms for the next guest.

Last and certainly not least, the rooms I like to call angel rooms. These people are either kind, and that’s how their parents taught them to leave a hotel room, or they have anxiety that I’m going to judge their messy room. If it’s the second, I’ve seen too much already, I can guarantee you won’t surprise me, and I won’t care. If it's the first, then I think there should be a crash course of how to leave a hotel room. It’s amazing when you put all the towels together in the bathtub, the trash is in the trash can, and when the bed is made or stripped already. People who leave these rooms speed up the process. If a survey was conducted, I bet that people who leave their rooms nicer are more likely to leave a tip as well, anywhere from spare change up to 10 dollars.  Personally, in my family, we would always seem to clean before the housekeeper came in, and I didn’t understand why. Now, I can certainly say I totally understand and should be a common courtesy.

After a hard day full of extremely dirty rooms, I had one of my first angel rooms. It was about my second week in, and when I would rather be spending time with my friends, I had to clean. I was thinking that I was going to have to figure something out because cleaning was not for me. I opened the door and for the first time, all the trash was picked up, the bed was pre-stripped, and the towels were all in the bathtub. The room even smelled like a clean man. They left a tip of 5 dollars with a note about how nice the staff was, and it made my whole day. It was the pick me up I needed to realize that it would be okay.

 My time as a housekeeper, I’ve learned probably way too much about some people's lives, and how their homes most likely look. I can also say I’ve learned many life skills that I can carry with me, along with job experience. If you have a stain, I’m sure I can recommend a product or method to get it out; I’ve seen it all. When reading this essay, maybe you find that you fit under one of these categories, or you don’t. Either way you should strive for angel room status; your housekeepers will adore you!