Dirty hotel rooms: Hidden camera shows what really gets cleaned (CBC Marketplace)

This is Carolan Dennis. She is a Marketplace viewer. This is your pen

camera

. Today we are going to equip it with

hidden

camera

s. I think we're going to have a good day. Now she's a Marketplace detective. With her help, we are going to do incognito tests. How clean the

hotel

s

really

are when I saw your show last year I was horrified because last year we all saw things we would rather forget. A scene that was especially when the woman was looking at the bathroom. Remember this housekeeper we caught on camera swung the toilet brush in the toilet, then the sink and faucet.

I could not believe

what

was happening. She got Carolan and many of you asked if the

hotel

s were in shape. The

rooms

are clean. We clean the

rooms

as much as we can. You're about to do it. Find out we're back because this week on Marketplace. I wonder

what

we'll find this time. We registered again. The hotels have

cleaned

up their act. Wow, that doesn't look good. Do you see that we show them the problems that they could? This is the same stain as last year. They may have found solutions for absolutely cross-contamination. City, isn't it?

Find out how to protect yourself with our Hotel Survival Guide. Works. We are in Toronto with nurse Carolan Dennis. Hotels should offer a clean environment for a traveler who loves to travel and knows how getting a bug can ruin a trip. It's so important that I stay in a clean room so I don't get sick, so she's heading to six Toronto hotels with a Marketplace producer to watch. how clean the hotels claim to be, so the rooms are actually very clean, like it's a cleanliness disaster, top priority hotel cashier, we have to make sure everything is met with your approval and your expectations now That Assurance, the vacation brand has certain rules, regulations and inspectors coming, she is convinced so far.

I think if she booked a room here she would get a clean room, but if she believes what she was told last year, Marketplace tested six hotel chains around the world. country and discovered some

dirty

data, hotels can be pretty

dirty

and could even make you sick after our story aired, hotel chains told us they were addressing test results, training staff on proper cleaning procedures and conducting increased inspections, so those promises have made any difference while Carolan's detectives in the upstairs reception, I'm trying to disguise myself, along with my Grime partner Keith Warner, remember, he's one of Canada's top microbiologists and a professor from GTH University.

This suitcase contains all the tools to measure germs. Our attire might be excessive. but we're trying to keep our cover because the hospitality industry watched our show on Super 8, they hear what Carolanne hears, so what

shows

are you watching? Market, yes, yes, yes, so don't worry about that, we do cleaning. every day, right for everyone, the problem was solved, says the Sheridan who took care of everything that was necessary, in addition to that, and at eono lodge he passes the responsibility, which

shows

that it was not a big part of us, Actually the problem was the cleaning service. the same cloth that he used and the ones in the bathroom, okay, that was our side, but the other things that you see that weren't us, you're actually about to find out that they were in Toronto.

We are returning to the three rooms of Every Chain. By hotel our first stop Econo Lodge last year the chain ranked lowest on our cleanliness scale so the only way to go is up oh there's that smell again yeah it smells familiar doesn't it familiar?, familiar smell, familiar room, it's one of the same rooms. We originally tried, let's just close the curtains. A black light appears, revealing what normally cannot be seen inside. The coffee filter looks pretty clean, so it looks better than last year, but it doesn't take long to notice something Eono Lodge did. So what we also noticed last time was that the walls were noticeably, should we say stained?

Remember that urine stain, the stain we pointed out to a conal shelter last year, see those streaks that are probably urine going down the wall, does it look like that? Meet a guest's expectations of a clean room. It would not appear to be meeting my expectations of the standards we set as a body organisation. So what about those standards that once considered it bad enough but it's still exactly the same? It is not like this? Like another waterfall, oh, dripping to the end, it's like nothing has changed. Have we highlighted this and I think it was unacceptable?

So it's not good for us to share our findings with Carolan. That is unacceptable. Something needs to be done about it and something needs to be done about the beds too. If the hotels learned anything from our test - Keith says they should have focused on cleaner beds after all - when we checked into the Best Western last year, our findings were pretty disgusting. Sorry, sorry, sorry, it's a nail, a nail, nail clippings. 1 2 3 4 five all over the bed, how did they get lost? So we go back to the Best Western grime scene from last year, it said it would continue to train and educate the cleaning crews with inspection black lights, so, upon launching, then, well, the first thing to note is a large amount of dust, as you barely need a black light to detect the dust.

It's all gone last time we found nail clippings here, so we don't see them this time. No, no, I'm not just sure. A slight improvement, but I don't know. I think I prefer the trim to all this dust, to be honest it seems like the Best Westerns are off to a good start, oh you look dirty pillowcases, yuck, drool, maybe um H, yeah I think in the best case scenario you could say Dro, suddenly, we just discovered a bed bug we have company no, I think it's just a fly, ok, it's not a bed bug, but I know this shouldn't be in a duvet, no dear, How about under the duvet?

Wow, that doesn't look good, does it? Oh, um. look at that, it's definitely some kind of liquid of some kind, it's not tissue, why do we keep seeing this kind of timid cleaning? Well, I think with this company it's obvious, he said he could have listened to the program, he could have listened to the evidence, but there is no real difference, if anything, I think the company has gone backwards instead of moving forward in the Cleanliness and not just at the Best Western, we found dirty bedding at every hotel we tried. The end result is money in many places, oh come on. the sponge you just put the sponge on with that wet bath brush wait until we reveal this big factor Factor how good a job a cleaner can do if this is what they give it and what they do best this time find out how the cleaners are classified hotels From worst to best I'm undercover in Toronto with microbiologist Keith Warrer a year after we first arrived.

We checked back into six of Canada's major hotel chains. Our mission is to find out if hotels are delivering on promises of clean rooms like last year. Keith takes out his germ meter, measuring how clean or germy a surface is. Anything less than 300 is a step between 300 and 1000. A caution. Any value greater than one thousand. A glitch at all six Toronto hotels, as on this vacation, we found some low readings on the toilet seats. They seem to have improved a lot more, but we are still finding a lot of cautions. Oh, this score for the forest is 657 and the failed phone is 5,656, that's very high and as we inspect, up, down, Carolan sells guarantees when you watch a show on TV and then they mention and show the prices and then you say, No, you don't have to worry about that.

Be careful, have they been addressing another obvious hot spot for testing remotes? What will this Sheridan remote look like on 3258? That's even worse than the previous one. The time we tested the remotes well, it's 100 times what you'd expect from a clean surface and the highest count of the six hotels we tested at the Best Western, even this remote designed for easy cleaning fails,

gets

more than 2600. Incredible capacity, isn't it? it's ridiculously high, the frustrating thing I think when people see this is that they invested a lot of money in these nice designer remotes but people don't clean them, they sure don't last year we saw this housekeeper clean the room but ignore the remote control. so we try it, if they are not going to clean the remote, be proactive, we clean it and rub it again, let's see how a 10 second cleaning will affect it.

The result this time five 530 achieved it in more than 2000. reduction, you are welcome, future customer. In short, for these devices we found dirty remotes in every hotel we tested except the Super Eight, and hey, we don't expect the rooms to be sterilized, we just want them to be

really

clean, especially when we're talking. bathrooms, another area Keith said hotels should focus on because last year we found some really high counts like at the Fairmont Hotel Vancouver. Look at that same 6,524 deal this year. You can see things growing at the Fairmont Royal York, the highest count. On any high-touch surface we tested it well, you know, that's amazing, isn't it? 3,604 bad design, how can it be

cleaned

?

It's impossible, but the germ meter can only tell you so much. Keith applies what are called contact plates, they collect bacteria and help them grow, so we can discover what's hiding last time, we found super bugs, antibiotic resistant bacteria in every hotel we tried at the Fairmont Royal York from Toronto, the lady says it was growing in the faucet, you found a super bug, a bug that can kill people in a high-end hotel room. exactly and as I said, it's not that unexpected because MRSA is widespread, but finding it in a forest that should have been cleared was very alarming in response to our findings, Royal York tweeted us saying that they were taking a report seriously and that many Se They have implemented measures, so how is that going?

Do you think we could run into that again? I wouldn't be surprised if we find Mr. RSA again, but time will tell, we will definitely find something, let's put it that way and we don't. the faucet but in other places like this comforter there are also many in other hotels some hot spots at the Holiday Inn it is on a lamp this eono Lodge MRSA bed cover is also on a phone Best Western it will be interesting to see this one and a Countertop from the Sheridan Center , if you're healthy, you're probably fine, but if not, that Super Bug could be a big problem.

Note that the one hotel we didn't mention doesn't have super bugs at Super Eight. It's all about money in many places where these rooms need to be cleaned, they are understaffed and they do what is necessary at the customer's expense. Which comes at the client's expense as part of our testing. Everything is going well. John M, we are preparing.

hidden

cameras again. I was wondering if someone could come clean my room so we can see what happens when we're not there because last year there were some surprises like this glass was washed with dirty gloves and put back in the room it was in. the Sheridan what's happening this year more washing in the sink this time at the Royal yor York another high end hotel I'm heading to the U of G we're back to show Keith our new hidden camera pictures starting with the Royal York which just makes Even I cringe as a microbiologist in Sheridan, I watch this housekeeper clean the toilet from the inside out and on the toilet seat we find that AC failed, a super dangerous mistake.

Everything you see here is a possible explanation for the fact that SE of the seal was there just to illustrate. she wasn't disinfected and was just cleaning herself, so she just carries it from place to place, cross-contaminating, not decontaminating a large expanse. There's exactly the same poor housekeeping at the Holiday Inn and the Super Eight, but Keith has a theory about what else it is. causing high pollution count hotel containers, supply housekeepers, what do you think about all supplies being in one container? Well, that's a little worrying because Sly, if they're in the same container, there will be cross contamination and after cleaning them. this toilet bowl, the brush is put back in the caddy on the counter, imagine that each drop of water can have about a billion bacteria, you're just transferring them and, uh, the results indicate that that was happening along large and in the Super Eight, a completely different container. she has a milk jug with a toilet brush and a sponge in the same container, absolutely cross contamination City, isn't it?

This is notorious as a kind of attractant for pollution, spreading pollution, you should neveruse a sponge, oh, there goes the sponge. you just put the sponge with that wet toilet brush and spray disinfectant here and there, it's not enough to be effective, how can you clean something if you're not going to use disinfectant? Do you think the cleaners are being given the proper equipment to prevent cross contamination, they don't get the equipment, they don't get the training without those two, all they can give you is their kind of spirit and hard work. Coming soon we reveal our hotel rankings, the Best Western has since moved to the worst Western and my survival guide to help protect you, okay, this is what I do.

We've been visiting big hotel chains to find out if they kept their promises to clean up their act. There you have 6,152 6,000 more than 6,000 in a night lamp, not what I expected huh, wow, look it's like a constellation of stars, isn't it? It is completely dusted. Marketplace was here. I guess no one else was. We analyze our test results and rank Toronto hotels from least improved to last. So we've done all our testing. What is the big picture? Well, Best Western appears to have moved to the worst spot in the West, so the microbiological counts look good, although overall they have taken a big step back, so Best Western

gets

the worst spot.

I'll be fair to say which one is next. The hotel that still has urine on the walls. Eono Lodge. They made some improvements with new bathroom mats. It's very pristine. It doesn't have mold at all, but the beds still weren't clean and there were high beds. bacteria counts everywhere so Eon Lodge is not doing well but who almost tied the Holiday Inn so Keith what do you think this is another hotel that has gone backwards in terms of cleanliness standards. In the middle of the pack, the Sheridan Center had the most super bugs, but when we found E coli on an ice.

Last year, Sheridan stepped up their level of cleaning, so they are now clean as a whistle. What does Marketplace viewer Carolanne think? When you present problem areas to them and they do something about it, it makes people want to come and stay with them. Slightly better in our ratings, the Royal York, they washed a glass in the sink and had some really high bacteria counts, but we saw improvements, absolutely no dust, amazing, spotless. So which hotel is the cleanest and best of all the hotels we tested? drum roll please Super Eight yes one of the No Frills chains what they do better this time well the decor could be improved and issues with cleanliness baffer but overall it was one of the best hotels visited from a health point of view, but in general, the hotel industry has a long way to go to improve its situation, we asked all the chains for interviews, we also asked the Canadian hotel association, they all say no, I guess They have reservations, so when I travel I take things into my own hands, okay, this is what I do.

The first thing I do is alcohol wipes for the light switches, door handles, phone and clock radio, faucets, and toilet seat. I leave a towel for my toiletries and my own mug means I don't have to. I hope the hotel glasses are clean when I arrive. the famous remote control I put in a little bag, it works, lastly I keep a pair of slippers just for hotels, everything seems like a lot, but it takes 2 minutes and it's worth it once you know the dirt of hotels, so how Was your room clean? Visit the cbc.ca

marketplace

now and fill out our hotel guest review card.