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Reported by: Brendan KeefePhotographed by: Sean DunsterWeb produced by: Laura Hornsby
Hotel guests bring illnesses with them from every point on the compass, then share toilets, glasses and sheets. We rely on the hotel staff to make sure those items are thoroughly sanitized. But when it comes to glassware, what the I-Team's hidden cameras uncovered you may find a bit hard to swallow.
Glassware that never leaves the room, rinsed in dirty bathroom sinks and dried with used towels, even from the bathroom floor.
"The most egregious thing I saw was the housekeeper mopping the floor with a towel, and then taking that same towel and drying out a multi-use utensil with it. That's just bad. That's real bad," said Dale Grigsby with the Cincinnati Health Department.
"My assumption when I travel is that those glasses have been properly washed, rinsed and sanitized," added Rob Perry Clermont County Health Department.
Our I-Team producers checked into four Tri-State hotels for two nights each, telling the front desk and the cleaning staff that a different person would be staying in the room from one night to the next.
"Actually, we're not checking out today, but there's another gentleman whose going to be taking this room for another night," our producer told the staff, which we expected would trigger a thorough 'check-out' cleaning between guests.
We left cameras behind to show what happens when the cleaning staff thinks no one is watching.
First up: the Hilton Garden Inn in Clermont County's Miami Township.
Watch as the housekeeper takes our used coffee pot and dirty mugs into the bathroom, not to her cart or a dishwasher.
Half-a-minute later, there she is drying the glassware with a room towel. The dirty glasses never left the room.
We took our hidden camera footage to the Clermont County Health Department.
"This would be what we would consider a critical violation," said Rob Perry with the Clermont County Health Department.
That's true for restaurants, but it's not a critical violation in hotel rooms, at least not in Ohio. But more on the health code in a moment.
First, a look inside the next hotel: the Millennium in downtown Cincinnati.
Here too, the housekeeper places the coffee pot into the dirty sink and turns on the water. She then goes to her cart to get a spray bottle and simply douses the outside of the pot.
Then, she flushes the toilet with her left hand, before using it to place the used mugs and glasses into the dirty bathroom sink.
Then, she sprays something onto the glassware. There's no way of knowing if that's actually Lysol Mildew Remover in the bottle, but the label on this bottle we bought at the store contains a warning stating "harmful if swallowed," and, "it is a violation of federal law to use this product in a manner inconsistent with its labeling."
"They're not to be taken internally, so that's kind of scary," said Dale Grigsby with the Cincinnati Department of Health. "It's very scary, actually."
On the I-Team video we showed Cincinnati's Health Department, the Millennium cleaning staff can be seen wiping the desk with a towel that is then used to dry the mugs and glasses from the sink. Then, they get that familiar paper cap suggesting they've been thoroughly cleaned.
"If these kinds of things were happening in a restaurant, it's would be grounds for immediate closure," Grigsby said.
But not hotels. It's important to point out that none of the hotels we tested is breaking the law.
If these glasses were in the hotel's restaurant, they would have to go through a three-step cleaning and sanitizing process, but what happens in the hotel room stays in the hotel room.
"Every health department in the State of Ohio uses the uniform food code," Grigsby said.
"And there's no such thing for hotels?" we asked Grigsby.
"Not that I'm aware of," he replies.
But in Kentucky, there is such a statewide hotel code which may explain why the only hotel to pass our test with flying colors was the Courtyard Marriott across the river in Covington, where the housekeeper took our used glasses and got clean replacements from the cart.
There's one more Ohio hotel we tested, and at first, the cleaning person at the Embassy Suites in Blue Ash does the same thing: taking the dirty glasses from the coffee bar and replacing them with clean.
But, she begins rinsing the coffee pot in the room sink and then turns her attention to the bathroom.
"And these are towels that the producer used to wash his hands after going to the bathroom," 9 News anchor Brendan Keefe points out. "This isn't a hypothetical. It's the real deal."
Then, she places our used glass under the faucet, where it gets a two minute rinse with no detergent of any kind.
Remember that dirty towel? She uses it to dry the glass inside and out. And the white paper cap? It's the one we took off the glass after using it that same morning.
Now, she gets a clean towel to wipe down the bathroom floor, using her foot to do the dirty work. No real problem yet, but follow the now dirty towel closely as she works her way to the door, from the bathroom floor to our coffee pot in four seconds.
"To take that towel that they used to clean up a bathroom floor, where there's even more of a chance of there being pathogens in there- to use it to wipe off glassware, things like that, it's just, it's almost like playing with a loaded gun," said Grigsby.
We gave each hotel involved in our test an opportunity to respond.
Embassy Suites in Blue Ash gave us a written statement, including this quote: "Concerning the cleanliness of in-suite glasses and coffee cups, there are proper procedures and guidelines in place and all glassware must be sanitized in a commercial dishwasher. We have reiterated these procedures and training to all our team members to ensure all protocol is being conducted properly."
We also received a written statement from the Millenium Hotel downtown. In part, it says: "We have very stringent policies and procedures in place to ensure that our staff goes beyond to provide a clean and safe environment for our guests. For example, all new employees take part in mandatory training sessions on cleaning procedures and acknowledge that following these procedures is a condition of their employment."
And, the Hilton Garden Inn issued this statement in response: "We find this situation very alarming. The proper training and procedures at our hotels were in place prior to this incident. This is certainly a wake-up call for our management team to demand that our housekeepers follow the correct procedures when cleaning guest rooms. We MUST do a much better job of training and supervising our housekeeping departments. As a result of this investigation, the responsible persons are no longer employed by our company."
The American Hotel and Lodging Association, a hotel trade group, insists these are isolated incidents. Friday night on 9 News at 5, we expand our investigation across the nation to see if hotels where you stay in other cities are taking similar shortcuts. and we'll tell you about the City of Cincinnati's new plans to protect guests here.
Meanwhile, you can judge for yourself by watching all our undercover video and read the hotels' full statements here on this story page.
You can also send us your reaction by clicking here and by voting in our polls on this page. We'll share your comments tonight on 9 News at 11 p.m.
