Monthly Archives: June 2012

A lighthearted look at news, events, culture and everyday life in New York._____________________

By Nina Pajak

As a mild lunatic, Im always gratified when someone from a fairly legitimate news outlet reports on the things which at once torment and endlessly interest me. In this case, I am referring to an extraordinarily important article posted on Yahoo! yesterday entitled: The Dirtiest Things in a Hotel Room Revealed.

How can you not look?

There arent a ton of surprises here. At least, not for those of us who think about these things. The TV remote and light switches rank among the filthiest items travelers can touch, second only to the actual cleaning carts used by hotel maids to wipe bacteria around and transfer it from room to room. Sharesies!

More: NYCs 5 Most Notorious Hotels

Ive long suspected that virtually everything in a hotel room functions as a petrie dish teeming with every invisible germ, sneeze, globule, pathogen, virus, flake and oogie from thousands of anonymous strangers. Being one who scours for bed bugs or evidence thereof does not help dispel this theory. I see more hairs, stains and smears than anyone ought. Then again, Im not dead yet.

More: NYC Hotels: Where Not To Stay In The Big Apple

I once worked with a woman who once had been a higher up at a major hotel chain. She confided some pretty horrific secrets, most of which I forget now due to my self-preservationinstinct to block out the information. But I do remember one fact which Ive never been able to set aside.

She told us that when she stays at a hotel, she never uses the drinking glasses provided in her room. Why? Because of what she knew about the cleanliness of the hotel at which she worked. When turning rooms over, the maids would look to see if the glasses were obviously dirty. If they were not, theyd wipe off the rims and put them down on a new paper cap, good as new. Its sort of like when an exterminator, while helping my brother with his bed bug problem, told him hed never go to the movies anymore for fear of the pests. One must do as the experts do.

Read the rest here:
Nina In New York: The Dirtiest Things In A Hotel Room Are All The Things