Housekeepers Say This Is the One Spot in a Hotel Room Couples Should Never Touch
We all know the feeling of walking into a hotel suite at the start of a long-awaited romantic getaway. The lighting is soft, the view is breathtaking, and the bed is pressed to perfection. It’s the ultimate invitation to relax and leave the world behind. However, before we kick off our shoes and dive into those high-thread-count sheets, there is one specific spot in the room that hotel housekeepers warn we should never touch, and it’s sitting right on top of the bed.
If we want to keep the ick factor from ruining our weekend, we need to talk about the decorative bed scarf.
That long, stylish strip of fabric draped across the foot of the bed might add a pop of color to the room’s aesthetic, but behind its polished appearance lies a dirty secret. While we can rest assured that the sheets, pillowcases, and towels are laundered at high temperatures after every single guest, the same rarely applies to the top of bed decor. According to industry insiders, bed scarves and decorative accent pillows are often treated more like furniture than linens. They are the forgotten items that can go weeks, or even months, without seeing a washing machine.
The reason this spot is so problematic comes down to how we and every guest before us use the bed. When we first arrive, we often toss our germ-laden suitcases onto the foot of the bed to unpack. We might sit there in our outside clothes after a long day of traveling through airports and train stations. Some of us even rest our shoes on it while lounging. Because these scarves are usually made of heavy, delicate, or textured fabrics, they aren’t easily cycled through industrial laundry.
For those of us on a romantic retreat, the goal is intimacy and comfort. Nothing kills the romantic vibe faster than the realization that the luxury decor we’re leaning against has collected the dust and skin cells of hundreds of previous travelers. It’s a hidden hygiene oversight that can lead to unexpected skin irritation or simply a lingering sense of unease that stays with us for the rest of the trip.
To ensure our weekend remains focused on connection rather than germs, we recommend a new check-in ritual: as soon as we enter the room, we should carefully remove the bed scarf and decorative pillows and place them in the closet or a corner chair. By clearing this danger zone immediately, we can enjoy the clean sheets underneath and keep the romantic atmosphere exactly as it should be pristine.
