Guest Sleeping Habits

[Louise18]

I have noticed that some guests do not sleep between the sheets. Instead they sleep between the top sheet and the bedspread. Can anyone shed some light on this. I have replaced my original bedspreads (dry clean only) with the washing maching variety. Thanks

[Helen56]

I've also had guests not sleep between the two sheets, and I also find it extremely peculiar.

I now fold the  top sheet so that the fold ends halfway over the pillow, so they have to open it out to get at the pillow.

I have sheets, duvet in cover on top, quilt on top of that.  I have even had a guest sleep on top of the quilt without even ever opening the bed covers at all - at least that is how it looked!

[Elizabeth429]

I have another one for you. It has happened to me WITH two different european guests at two diferrent bookings. My only guess was that because they were having a fun night out enjoying the night life in the city, when they came back to the floor they were probably too drunk and tired to be bothered to remove anything and just lie on top of everything to sleep it off. :)) 

[Kevin1322]

sounds perfectly normal 🙂

[Brian-and-Kristine0]

Yes  There seems to be some cultural differences. I'm about ready to use safety pins to pin the top sheet over the quilt. I just had guest "check out" and found the top sheet folded up and placed on top of the quilt. 

Suppose another alternative would be to do as many hotels do now, and just put a blanket between 2 top sheets. Quilts just don't seem to work! We've have a beautiful maroon quilt, but it's been soiled with makeup hand lotion multiple times.

It's a bit time consuming from my perspective to stuff duvets after every guest;  we have 7 beds and it takes a long time to just stuff all the pillows in cases. 

Be nice if Airbnb had some standards and recommendations! 

[Marie1106]

Hey I'm having this same issue too. If you ever get a response from Airb&b I would really appreciate a text. 

 Thinking of trying the pins!!

[Marie1106]

In regards to the lotion and makeup marks I never put any lotions at all in bathroom for that reason but you can never stop them using their own. Also have multiple dark face cloths rolled up on vanity along with a packet of disposable face wipes together  in clear view. I find it solves those issues. I hope it helps. 

[Kevin1322]

"Five stars, some maniac had pinned a sheet to my duvet, due to cultural differences and local drugs laws I destroyed my host's duvet cover over the following couple of hours, the police were quite understanding, all things considered.... we enjoyed the cultural enrichment. One day we will look back on this this and how we will laugh....."   😉

[Pamela454]

We just had some Chinese visitors, and they also slept on top of the sheets covering with the blankets.  I prefer to avoid washing the blankets each time, so am grateful for some of the ideas here 🙂

[Victoria567]

Hi @Lou58ise

This is a particularly British habit.

We use feather or hypoallergenic hollow fibre duvets with a cotton cover encasing them and a base cotton sheet covering the mattress and cotton pillow cases.

We sleep on the bedsheet covered mattress and the encased feather quilt directly on top of us.

We us only your dry cleanable thin quilt/bedspread as a cover, over the duvet in extreme cold or for decorative purposes....my thin quilt/ bedspreads are all cotton and therefore washed in my washing machine, if the guest has used them.

In fact us Brits tend to use mostly cotton or poly cotton items of bedlinen which we can pop into our washing machine and electric tumble drier rather than use a dry clean ending service which is expensive here in the U.K. 

The base cotton sheet and the cotton duvet cover are washed and dried after each guest stay

[Katherine347]

I am glad I am not alone in this dilemma concerning the sheets. I got fancy with my place and have lots of throw pillows, and shams, and  fancy bedspreads. But I can't be washing ALL of that every time! My last guests, with thick east Indian accents obviously slept on top with the extra blankets I provide on top of them. So, maybe the solution is to either go European with the duvet cover, or get rid of throw pillows and turn down the beds. Keep it really simple.

[Betsy107]

All the folks who don't sleep between the sheets in our experience are U.S. "American" culture teenagers or in their early 20s.   Worse case situations result in what looks to us like a squirrel's nest of the bedding, and they sleep in the middle of it. 

I like the idea of turning down one corner which I will now try. 

My sister-in-law makes a bed to include two sheets, blankets and a top bedspread, and then turns the top sheet down halfway down the bed, leaving the top half of the bottom sheet showing.  She then fills in the gap from the headboard to the turn-down with regular and decorative pillows of various sizes.   I may experiment with this.

[Wende2]

I'm guessing by now you've had a ton of answers, are the guests from another country.?  I remember seeing on Martha Stewart's show yrs ago, that in Europe they don't use a top sheet, they only have a duvet cover they sleep under.

[Brent112]

I've experienced almost everything described here. Probably most bizarre was when some German guests actually reversed the top sheet and the comforter/quilt (moved the sheet on top of the comforter and presumably slept under the latter). Maybe I should use a bedspread like my mother used to, but I will try some of your suggestions in the meantime. Thanks!

[Trina-And-Paul0]

Thank goodness we aren't the only one's experiencing this strange occurance! Our experience has not been with differences in culture, per se. But simply random guests. In fact, we get many guests from China and I don't recall any of them sleeping like this. I don't understand why a guest would prefer to take a chance getting Cooties by sleeping between the spread and blanket and not crawl between the fresh clean sheets. In these instances, they also use the decorative pillows with shams instead of the 4 multi-firmness pillows (with extras in the closet) with cases on them (and zippered pillow covers under that!). The first time this happened I felt insulted that they might think that the sheets were not scrupulously clean like the rest of the room/bath (we've never had less than 5*). And then I thought: Gosh people, why would you think the bed spread is cleaner than the sheets?? Don't you think that other people have sat on these spreads Last night?? Don't get me wrong, the spreads and blankets are washed periodically...but not Every guest. 
What I Have noticed about these guests is that they try not to use Anything. Our guest last night didn't even use the bathmat and instead just stepped out onto the floor after showering, leaving a puddle. I don't even think he used the hand towel (but did use one bath towel). But he did leave the spread pulled back where he had climbed between the blanket and spread to sleep and used the decorative pillows as well. Of course, everything was washed when he left, but in the winter time it's not easy to wash and dry the bedspreads; I prefer to dry these items outside as they are too big for our large capacity washer/dryer. 
My conclusion is that each of these guests are trying not to be an imposition, and are hoping to not make more work for me by not dirtying up the sheets so that I don't have to wash them. But...HELLO! Not only am I washing the unused sheets, but everything else too which creates More work. I've never mentioned anything as these guests are Always very conscientious. Shake my head...I just don't get it. While I have the top sheet folded over the blanket underneath the quilted spread, I think I will start folding it further down over the spread as well. Hopefully this will eliminate the issue. 
Sorry for the rant everyone. I'm also open to other suggestions. I suppose I could mention it upon check-in, or make a note in the check-in instructions.... Seems like a no brainer to me!

[Susan151]

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@Trina-And-Paul0 wrote:

Gosh people, why would you think the bed spread is cleaner than the sheets?? Don't you think that other people have sat on these spreads Last night?? 

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No, they think the bed spread is AS clean as the sheets.

Sorry, I am in the camp that believes that everything on the bed must be washed between guests. I don't  use bedspreads or have anything called a decorative pillow.