Whenever I occupy a hotel room for a few days I always put out the “Do Not Disturb” sign.
I’m not a neat freak and I don’t need my sheets changed or the shower scrubbed every day. I like to get comfortable and I don’t need my items rearranged.
And yet it never fails. Always, always, always, the housekeeper tries to march right in, two nanoseconds after knocking, almost ripping the chain lock from the door frame, yelling through the crack, “You want housekeeping??”
“No, thanks.”
Incredulously, “You sure??”
“Yes, thank you.” (Read: Holy Hell, lady, is this so amazing to you? Yes I am sure you stupid cow, what the FK do you think that plastic thing on the door is for?? I thought the system was well established. Now get the FK out of here.)
Kidding aside, it’s probably because people tend to put up the DND signs and then check out of the room. They should have a list of rooms that have been checked out of, but that’s probably not one of their main priorities.
Where are you staying? I can only think of one hotel I’ve stayed at in my life (and it was a lousy hotel in almost every other respect, although not cheap) where the housekeepers didn’t respect the sign.
I have stayed in hotels where, precisely because the sign was up for so long, houesekeeping called to ask whether I was going to want the room done up that day, but that isn’t what you’re describing.
When I was a housekeeper, I treated the Do Not Disturb sign like it was a biohazard symbol or something. I’d avoid the door all morning, and if the room was on my list of people that were supposed to check out that day, I’d go get my boss and make her open it up before I went in for cleaning. I was only 15 at the time, though, and going into rooms with other people’s stuff (and sometimes other people) just lying around made me really nervous for some reason.
The one German hotel I spent the night had the maid coming in at eight AM. Like the OP describes, she came in two seconds after knocking. I yelled "no!"but that didn’t register with her untill she was in the room. The bed was in a niche, otherwise she would have caught me and my boyfriend in the act.
In college, I was a front desk clerk at a motel. So I can tell you that this is often motivated by how housekeeping works. The women show up and get their lists of rooms to clean. As soon as the rooms are done, they get to go home. Now, some maids want to drag it out and get paid more by the hour. But a lot of these women have small children, other jobs, etc. They want to get done FAST. Do Not Disturb rooms slow them down. They have to initially skip them, back track, and sometimes wait around for the people to leave the room. In order to be allowed to skip the rooms entirely, they had to get confirmation from the people in the room that they did not want housekeeping service that day, and get the person to sign their sheet acknowledging that. But most DND rooms won’t answer the door for a knock. So, for a speed-oriented housekeeper, it is often just easier to barge in.
