Guests at the Expressway Suites hotel in Fargo, North Dakota, witnessed a hotel employee washing bed sheets in the property’s hot tub. Using a broom handle, the staffer was stirring the sheets around, soaking them in the water.
A guest who filmed the incident and posted it to Facebook, “Tell me why we let the kids go swimming…” It was picked up by local news and prompted a health department investigation.
Hotel staff admitted to the practice under questioning. An employee, speaking in a recorded phone conversation, explained that the sheets had already been laundered, but occasionally stubborn, small stains remained so they’d soaked them in the hot tub since the hot chlorinated water was effective at removing them. The hot tub was reportedly drained and “heavily cleaned.”
The sheets are put into the hot tub, and it gets out tiny little stains, then the hot tub is drained. It is really heavily cleaned by a huge deep cleaner.
Hotel management acknowledged the explanation, saying this is typically done after pool hours, out of sight of guests, and that the employee had been spoken to about doing it in view of visitors and that this is done with sheets that are going to be discarded. Does that even make any sense? Online comments are brutal.
“‘Expressway Suites’ — why is anyone surprised?”
“I stayed there for a hockey tournament last year. Now I know why all the kids were coughing from the chlorine.”
“‘It’s typically done after pool hours’ might be the worst part of the explanation.”
A former employee of the hotel came forward sharing that using hot tubs to soak heavily stained linens was an informal practice dating back as far as 2010. It turns out this is not illegal. No rule was ever made against this, because it’s the first time it’s come up. No regulator had ever thought to ban the practice, not conceiving anyone would do it in the first place. And as one employee put it,
“Everybody thought it was weird and gross, but everybody just wanted a job so we just did what we were told”
The health department investigated. No fines were issued, but “they just have to stop or cease soaking the linens in the jacuzzi.” New regulations will likely be forthcoming.
Hope the hotel doesn’t have a Diaper Service!!
“There’s more to life than a little money, you know.” Classic Fargo.
With the explanation that they were already laundered sheets maybe the sheets were cleaner than the guests using the hot tub.
On appearance it’s nasty, however the nasty ass people that use those hot tubs are introducing the same substances. Public hot tubs are nasty.
Probably germs in that hot tub the size of a nickel.
This is why you never touch the stewpot whirlpool. Ick.
The recommended concentration for Chlorine in a jacuzzi is around 3 ppm (parts per million) while the concentration for stain removal is 250-300 ppm. So either the property was dosing the jacuzzi correctly in which case they weren’t getting much stain removal or had the Chlorine dialed up by about a factor of 100x.
Assuming the former, because people would have noticed the latter, I doubt this was putting guests at any risk unless perhaps the employee also happened to be softly singing…
Double, double toil and trouble;
Fire burn and caldron bubble…
The recommended concentration for Chlorine in a jacuzzi is around 3 ppm (parts per million) while the concentration for stain removal is 250-300 ppm. So either the property was dosing the jacuzzi correctly in which case they weren’t getting much stain removal or had the Chlorine dialed up by about a factor of 100x.
Assuming the former, because people would have noticed the latter, I doubt this was putting guests at any risk unless perhaps the employee also was softly singing…
Double, double toil and trouble;
Fire burn and caldron bubble…
Wonder if there are any rules prohibiting using the toilet to rinse dirty towels? If there aren’t any stated rules then I’d imagine this practice would be acceptable as well.