Housekeeping Horrors

Ahmedabad, Gujarat, India
February 2010

Further to my comments on service in hotels, let me just take a moment to expound upon the wonders of Indian housekeeping. Standards are, to put it bluntly, not quite what they were in good old Big Sky, Montana.
To give an example, In the delightful town of Ahmedabad we arrived very early from the overnight bus and set out to find accommodations in the ‘historic’ (by which the guided book must have meant ‘crappy’) section of the old town. With limited options and an understandable desire to find a room and sleep, we grudgingly settled on a rather overpriced room which they said would be cleaned while we waited. However, as we ended up passing the time in the corridor outside, we witnessed first hand what their definition of ‘cleaning’ really was.
The only housekeeping implement in evidence was a small broom. The boy who had carried our bags upstairs flourished this around, sweeping the floor certainly, but mostly just consigning all the dirt to the corners as opposed to the centre of the room. Then he set to work on the linens. I saw him remove the sheets, then in the blink of an eye the beds were made up again without any recourse to a laundry cupboard. We were slightly bemused about where these new sheets had come from until he made a flipping motion with his hand and we realised he had simply turned the previous occupants sheet over. He seemed a little aggravated when I said that I really wasn’t happy with this and sent him to find more!
Bathrooms are further evidence of how Indian housekeeping wouldn’t quite cut it in Big Sky. Don’t expect piles of fluffy towels and neatly folded toilet paper; here towels are maybe available upon request and you often have to pay more should you want to use loo roll. Far from scrubbing the bathroom with various sterilising products which leave that reassuring “I’ve been cleaned” smell, the boy filled a bucket and kind of sprinkled water around the room. Ironically, this would have actually worked in the USA, where the water is chlorinated so has at least some form of disinfectant effect. However, the questionable tap water of a sprawling inland city – renowned as one of the dustiest places in India – doesn’t quite produce the same standard of hygiene. In fact, it didn’t even remove the black hair from the wall, the scum from around the sink or the questionable marks on the toilet seat. A little grossed out, I pointed out these defects to the boy and made motions of scrubbing while repeating ‘soap, disinfectant?’. He merely went back into the bathroom, closing the door this time, and from the sound of things just splashed water around a little more vigorously.
Once we had resigned ourselves to the fact that this boy wasn’t going to clean anything quite the way we wanted, I took the different approach of taking the dirty pillowcases down to the front desk to request new ones. There I was met with the same response – just turn it over. When I said that no, I really didn’t want to do that, I was told a boy would be sent up. Everyone acted like I was being the most demanding guest, but are clean sheets really too much to ask when you are paying for a room in a hotel?! The boy duly arrived at our door with…soap! Did they wish me to wash the laundry myself? I motioned that no, it was not myself that I wished to be clean, but the pillowcases. A little while later, with no knock or prior warning, the door sprang open and the desired items were literally thrown into the room. I’m not sure if he was trying to surprise me in a state of undress, or just avoid any more questions. Can you imagine the reaction of a guest in America if requests were met with objects being propelled into their presence by an indifferent employee without so much as an acknowledgement that they are in the room?
By this point we had been listing the number of ways in which he would have been fired had he been a member of Paul’s staff. The next time a guest in Big Sky complains about housekeeping because they haven’t received their complimentary shower gel or some such small detail, I wish they could see what people in other parts of the world regard as adequate standards.