Clean bedding is the right of every hotel guest

AN INSPECTION by a nongovernment appraisal agency found that many a time five-star hotels in Beijing, including Hilton and Intercontinental, fail to change the bedding and toiletries of used rooms. Yanzhao Metropolis Daily commented on Wednesday:

The online post exposing the unclean hotel rooms in Beijing came shortly before the capital's health and family planning authorities announced punishments for a slew of budget hotels. Forty-six budget inns have been handed down administrative penalties and 35 are likely to be fined 69,000 yuan ($10,760) each because of poor hygiene conditions in their rooms.

Unchanged bed sheets, bed covers and pillow cases are no doubt a bummer to hotel guests. But even if they are ostensibly cleaned, there is still a risk that caustic soda - mostly used as a strong chemical base in the manufacture of pulp and paper, textiles, drinking water, soaps and detergents, and as a drain cleaner - has been used by some budget hotels as a cheaper "detergent" to clean the used bedding.