How to disinfect bed sheets at hotel?

People travel for various purposes, including business trips, holidays, or visiting someone. Traveling can be exhausting, and people always look forward to snuggling in fresh sheets after a long day.

When guests’ flux is too high, the hotel staff often show negligence by not cleaning and putting a fresh pair of sheets on the bed. This is quite alarming and can become a root cause of many diseases. Therefore one must be cautious when booking a hotel and checking into a room.

Before staying and resting, you must check your room’s cleanliness and bed sheet. Here, we have listed down ways by which you can check the cleanliness of your room, especially the bed sheet.

We have listed how to disinfect your sheets in a hotel room. This gives you peace of mind and leads you to a safe trip in a hotel stay.

How Is Disinfecting A Bedsheet Different From Sanitizing?

According to the centers for disease prevention and control, it is recommended that you clean, sanitize, and disinfect surfaces for a cleaner home. This practice should be done in every part of the house, especially if a sick person is in the house.

It is quite common for a sick person’s bed to be covered with harmful Viruses like norovirus, Shigella, and Giardia that can make others sick. Sanitizing a bed sheet lowers the number of germs or microbes to the recommended safety levels. The disinfecting process then help kills all the remaining germs or harmful viruses on the sheet.

How Do You Disinfect Bed Sheets?

We spend a lot of our time on our beds, so the sheets are left with hair, dead skin cells, food crumbs, dust, and many other grimy particles. This makes the perfect habitat for microbes to breed, multiply and make us fall sick. Therefore, washing your bedding may remove stains and make it fresh smell, but they certainly are not the best way to get rid of germs. There are several ways to disinfect your sheets to eliminate germs.

Hot Water or Steam

The easiest way to disinfect your sheet is by washing them on a hot water cycle. A temperature of 165 Fahrenheit is enough to kill and wipe out all the harmful microbes leaving your sheets clean and healthy.

You can use steam for the disinfection process. Just steam the bed sheets with a temperature setting of 212 degrees Fahrenheit, and you will get rid of 99.999 germs then and there.

White Vinegar

White vinegar is an excellent agent that cleans every surface and kills every kind of microbe. You can use it to disinfect your sheets and make them smell fresh and clean. Add a cup of distilled white vinegar to your machine, bed sheets, and washing powder. It helps remove odors, disinfect them from germs, and even softens the sheets while ensuring the colors remain bright and intact.

Hydrogen Peroxide.

This very much powerful yet eco-friendly compound is a very powerful disinfectant. The biodegradable cleaning agent, after usage, breaks down into oxygen. Add a cup of 3% hydrogen peroxide to your bed sheet in the machine, and you will have clean sheets free of any microbes or germs. It is very effective against stubborn stains.

You can directly spray the Hydrogen peroxide solution on the sheet and dab it with force. The stain will first lighten up and then completely disappear. Make sure you do not use a percentage of this solution greater than 3%, as it can have a strong bleaching effect that can ruin your sheets for future use.

UV Radiation

Proper exposure of bed sheets to UV radiations or sunlight acts as a natural disinfectant. The sun’s strong rays are enough to kill harm-causing bacteria and viruses. Just leave the bed sheet exposed to the sun for 30 minutes, flip on the other side and let that other side expose for another 30 minutes.

Just make sure not to overdo the UV rays exposure, as it can lower the brightness of the sheet’s color and even weaken the fabric of the cloth.

Natural Essential Oils

Several essential oils can help you disinfect your bed sheets and make them smell fresh and clean. You need to use the undiluted form of essential oils like tea tree, lavender, or thyme oil for a better result.

For Tea tree oil, only two and three drops, along with washing agents, are enough to disinfect the sheets. Since Lavender oil is not as powerful as tea tree oil, you might want to add about 10 drops to get the desired result.

Not only will the sheets become disinfected, but they will also smell incredibly pleasant and fresh. Essential oils are not recommended on silk or satin sheets, as they can stain your sheets with permanent marks.

How to Check If Hotel Sheets Are Clean?

You pay a good amount of money while staying at a hotel and deserve a clean room with a hygienic bed. Many hotels do not follow the standard protocol of changing sheets after guests leave.

They dust off the old sheets, plump up the pillows, and hand over the room to the next guest. There are many ways by which you can check if the hotel staff has properly cleaned the bed and put fresh, clean bed sheets for you.

Visual Check

The first thing is to check the bed sheet visually. Look at the sheet for signs of stains, dust, or hair. If you find anything gimmicky, stained, or crumpled, you need to call management and change the sheets as soon as possible.

Smell the Sheets

This easy method helps to check the cleanliness of your hotel sheets. Take a small sniff of the bedding; if they stink or have an uncomfortable feeling, you might want to change them.

Use of Black Light

People who are clean freaks and often travel a lot keep a black light in their luggage. This light is quite a useful tool for checking the cleanliness of the bed sheet. With this black light, you can turn off the main light and check the sheets for bodily fluids or stains.

How Do You Disinfect Bed Sheets Without Washing Them?

Cleanliness is an important aspect that should be practiced at all costs. Here are a few tips.

Sprinkle Baking Soda:

If you don’t have enough water to wash your sheets, you can use this very simple but effective way to disinfect your sheets.

• Before sprinkling baking soda, put the bed sheet in direct sunlight. This will help remove any odor or unpleasant smell.
• After exposing it to sunlight for some time, you need to spread it on a straight surface.
• Spread a generous amount of baking soda on the sheet, and leave it for a few hours.
• Use a vacuum cleaner to get rid of all of the excessive powder.
• Remember that this method removes odors and germs from your sheet. It does not remove stains of any kind.

The Blotting Method

You can use this method to remove stains using a very less amount of water. The blotting method uses a detergent or cleaning agent and a small amount of water. Spray a little water on the sheet, and pour a little cleaning agent on the stain. Leave it for at least 15 to 20 minutes. Use a soft, clean cloth to blot the stains by rubbing them vigorously.

This method help removes or lightens stains without wasting or using too much water. For stubborn stains, this technique might only lighten up the spots instead of making them completely vanish.

Use Disinfecting Sprays

The quickest and easiest way to disinfect your sheet is to use a disinfectant spray like Lysol. These sprays are easily available in the market and help you eliminate these germs in no time. They kill 99.9 % of the bacteria and are quite gentle on the softest fabrics. Just spray it all over the sheet, and leave it for five minutes. Your sheets will become odorless and free of germs in no time.

All of the above mentioned methods are very effective in disinfecting sheets without water. You can send your bedding for dry cleaning. The dry cleaning process helps disinfect the bed sheet and free them of germs and bad odors.

How to Disinfect Your Sheets Safely

Although disinfecting bed sheets is a process that rids you of germs, it should be done properly. The disinfecting products consist of strong chemicals that can harm your health. For this purpose, always try to invest your money in EPA-registered disinfectants. These products, although effective, are not harmful to you or your family. They come with an EPA registration number and proper instructions on how to use the specific product and how much quantity.

• Make sure you spray it on the whole sheet and leave it for about five minutes. Make sure the contact time is enough to kill all the germs and their spores.
• It is better to spray with your nose covered and leave the room for five minutes. Although the composition of this spray is quite safe, you should avoid inhaling it in large quantities.
• Ensure proper ventilation, like opening windows or turning on the fan, so all the chemicals from the products don’t cause respiratory issues.
• Make sure the products you use are color-safe bleach sprays, as too much of some sprays can help disinfect but also weakens the color of the sheets.
• If using sprays or any other cleaning agents, wash off your hands properly with soap.

Key Takeaways: Essential Tips for Disinfecting Hotel Bed Sheets

The Difference Between Disinfecting and Sanitizing

Sanitizing reduces germs to safe levels, whereas disinfecting kills a more comprehensive range of harmful microorganisms.

Methods to Disinfect Sheets

• Use hot water or steam to eliminate harmful microbes.
• Employ white vinegar for a dual action of disinfecting and softening.
• Utilize a 3% hydrogen peroxide solution for effective disinfection.
• Expose sheets to UV radiation or sunlight, but be cautious of overexposure.
• Leverage essential oils like tea tree and lavender for disinfection and a fresh scent.

Verifying Hotel Sheet Cleanliness

• Conduct a visual check for stains or debris.
• Perform a smell test to detect any mustiness.
• Use a black light to spot unseen stains.

Quick Disinfection Alternatives

• Sprinkle baking soda for odor removal.
• Use the blotting method for stain removal.
• Spray disinfectants like Lysol for quick germ elimination.

Conclusion

According to a recent survey, three out of ten hotels show negligence in changing the bedding of a hotel room. They dust off the sheets, arrange the pillows and hand them over to the next guest. Make sure you be vigilant before going to lie down and rest on the hotel bed set.

Check visually for any sign of grime, hair, or stains. If doubtful, try to get the sheets changed before you, as dirty sheets harm your health.

You can still take safety measures, like buying a disinfection spray to help get rid of these germs. You can buy handy little traveling kits with built-in sheets and pillow sets. Make sure you sleep or rest on a clean pair of sheets, as dirty sheets always risk attracting dangerous pathogens and microbes.

Resources:

https://www.cdc.gov/hygiene/cleaning/cleaning-your-home.html

https://www.epa.gov/pesticide-registration/selected-epa-registered-disinfectants

http://www.rbnainfo.com/MSDS/US/Lysol%20Disinfectant%20Spray%20-%20All%20Scents%20EN%20GHS%20US.pdf