Tourists and people traveling the world for business purposes often do not even think about what awaits them in comfortable hotel rooms. Hotel rooms, however, are sometimes teeming with bacteria, the presence of which on certain objects has been confirmed by recent research by scientists from the United States.
A group of microbiologists from the American University of Houston conducted an experiment, during which they found out a lot of new things about the sanitary condition of hotel rooms. Scientists under the guidance of Professor Jay Neal traveled to three American states - Indiana, Texas and South Carolina. The purpose of their trip was to inspect hotel rooms for bacteria, and most importantly, to study their number on a particular piece of furniture.
The experiment was carried out after the standard cleaning procedure performed daily by the hotel maids. Scientists armed themselves with the necessary tools and carefully examined nineteen items in each issue, taking samples from them for the presence of harmful microorganisms. As a result, they managed to find out a lot of interesting facts.
Rugs in rooms, toilets, and sinks in bathrooms were predictable places for bacteria to accumulate. It is they who often force guests to carefully examine them in the first minutes of checking into a room and demand a different room in case of obvious signs of dirt.
But harmful microorganisms were also found on unexpected objects, which never aroused suspicion of impurity. They turned out to be the buttons of the telephone set, the remote control for the TV and DVD-player, light switches. The largest accumulation of bacteria was recorded on the switches of bedside lamps and floor lamps, as well as on television consoles.
After inspecting the hotel rooms, scientists at the University of Houston decided to conduct an additional experiment. They took samples from the items that the maids use during the cleaning. The number of harmful microorganisms on them went off scale - it turned out that the bucket, mop and cleaning gloves carry a huge amount of bacteria, forcing them to "travel" throughout the hotel.
The work was summed up at a conference in San Francisco, where scientists presented serious figures: the number of bacteria in hotel rooms exceeds hospital standards by two to ten times. They emphasized that this fact does not at all mean the obligatory infection of the guests, but the risk, nevertheless, exists.
