TR SNIPPET - HOUSEKEEPING

Going solo I don’t need housekeeping service.  I have plenty of time to pick up after myself. I don’t mind making my bed.

My stays are a couple days to four at the most.   I don’t like scheduling my day, my naps, my coffee around the maid visits or having her wake me with that tap, tap, tap. 

I like to be free to rearrange the room, to put out my piles of coupons or books or clothes or bags or magazines or whatever I want, to hand wash clothes and not have them disturbed as they dry, to find my toilet articles right where I left them, to have the little traveling coffee pot I bring undisturbed.

I don’t like the possible break in security that having the open door allows.  One time this trip a fellow calls the maid from the hallway door:

“Say, I’m over in the room across the way and I like it, but I wanted to see what the view was like on these rooms on this side.  Could I just come in and take a look.”

“Okay, Sir.”

Now this fellow just has to have a quick hand and he can walk out with whatever he sees. 

What really convinced me was this happening to me a few years ago:

??link to 4 Queens??

When she does not clean the room, I feel no obligation to tip.  So I just tip when I leave. 

I still come home with those unwrapped soaps and freebies.   But then I wrap my slightly used soap bars up in a bit of plastic bag and use them at the next room rather than unwrap and waste a new bar every couple days.

A few soap bars last my entire trip. If they are huge, just two will do the trick.

The unwrapped ones we use in our guest bathrooms at home or in Florida or give bags of them to women’s shelters.  I have a friend who works with youth in a recovery program.  They love having the skin creams.  I don’t use those at all.

In most places I call Housekeeping and cancel service each day as well as put out the Do-Not-Disturb sign.  Then I can go for an early swim and know I can get back in my room to change out of my wet things.  Once in a while I ask for more wash clothes or more coffee or shampoo.

Usually, the maids are pleased to have one less place to clean.  Always, reusing towels saves energy and water and I don’t have to bother with where I leave them. The one I put over the chair at my computer just stays there until I leave.

One in particular thanked me this trip at the Four Queens. It was a hugely busy weekend and she told me that the way she was scheduled, she had just my room on this floor, so my declining service saved her an entire trip to the floor.  I could see she was relieved.