Bleached spot on sheets

[Richard3544]

Hi all, a guest has washed and dried the bed sheets (which are off white cream color sheets). They now have a few streaks and spots resemblant to adding bleach to the load.  Brand new sheets now ruined from a one night booking!  Question: they were great guests in every other way,  do I ask them to pay for new sheets? 

I have just learned from reading other posts here that I can send rules prior to check in, which I will now do asking to leave sheets on the bed! 

Also, are these sheets usable since they are bleached spots and not actual stained spots or get rid of them, thanks.

[Shelley159]

Hi @Richard3544 

Personally I wouldn't charge the guest. I would donate the sheets to charity and replace them with white sheets. That then fixes the issue for the future and there's no need to make a rule.

[Richard3544]

@Shelley159 Excellent advice this is actually what I was thinking, thanks so much!!

[Joelle43]

Hello @Richard3544 

I have had this type of problem with towels (sage green) that had big yellow stains on them.  Very similar to bleach but as I don't leave any bleach on the premises I reached out to the guest to ask them if they knew what they could be so that I could treat them with the appropriate product to try and remove them.

They came back to me and said that it was probably from the acne cream that their son uses and that she had many bleached towels at home!!  I had sent them photos and it was impossible to get them back to normal and I explained that I wouldn't be able to use them again. ( I ended up donating them to my vet).  4 towels were affected and they kindly offered to pay for them.  Great result - 5* review despite this.

Same thing happened again this summer for the same reason, great guests apart from this.  Used the same tactic but the guest never offered to pay😡 I'll admit I let it go as didn't want to risk a bad review which I figured could cost me a lot more in revenue but disappointed in this guest.

Since then, I have put it in my house rules that permanent staining of towels or linen due to skin or hair treatments will need to be reimbursed.  I use high quality linens (white) and towels and whilst I accept that replacement of these items is part of doing business, I do feel that guests know full well the consequences of using such substances on fabrics.

Yes, always ask guest to leave the sheets on the beds and if the guest washed them, it was because they were trying to cover up something that they used.  Did you ask them to wash the sheets before they left?  

[Shelley159]

Yes @Joelle43, towels are much more difficult to manage than sheets! With sheets you can just buy white, then they can't bleach and they're usually not stained. 

Towels regularly bleach from skin products if they're not white, but if they're not dark they stain from every make-up product! I choose white towels and rather fight the stains (because at least I stand a chance), but there are a great many days when I regret it.

I've added disposable face cloths in the hope that they would save the towels. They don't ...

[Richard3544]

@Shelley159 Disposable face cloths, great idea will be getting some of those immediately, ty!

And from previous post, I don't want to have a lot of rules but would like to minimize the sheet casualties..lol. that's why I was just thinking maybe the friendly notice card.  

[Richard3544]

Thank you @Joelle43  for all your great feedback and tips! Yeah towels I started with white and one of my very first guests used them for wiping up some thing I have no idea but they weren't coming out white again even with bleach. So, went to light colored towels and has been ok but not perfect...so challenging, I want to supply expensive towels but there not respected!

And I agree that they may have washed the sheets to cover up something embarrassing. I can understand that, so maybe have like just a small note card on the dresser, stating e.g.

'okay to leave sheets on bed but if put into wash please use only my supplied detergent'. 

will see have to give this better thought.