what is fair when blood stains sheet and bed

[gringoindavid]

Hi all

had a guest here and when guest left there was copious amounts of blood on the sheets and mattress, the sheets had to be thrown away and the mattress was scrubbed almost clean and the floors were cleaned as well much to the annoyance of our cleaners who are not nurses and not paid to clean this kind of human bodily fluids..

we are considering charging client who since left $100 for the sheets and cleaning as we have the credit card number on file, btw this was not the result of 'that time of the month'...

what do you think? is this fair what would other hostel owners do..

[TheEnterprise]

Originally Posted by gringoindavid

Hi all

had a guest here and when guest left there was copious amounts of blood on the sheets and mattress, the sheets had to be thrown away and the mattress was scrubbed almost clean and the floors were cleaned as well much to the annoyance of our cleaners who are not nurses and not paid to clean this kind of human bodily fluids..

we are considering charging client who since left $100 for the sheets and cleaning as we have the credit card number on file, btw this was not the result of 'that time of the month'...

what do you think? is this fair what would other hostel owners do..

I think that, if your cost to buy new sheets and your expenses for cleaning are a little under $100, then $100 would be a fair amount, as long as it cover your expenses.

If as the result of this incident you lost income because of the room being unavailable during its cleaning, you might also consider that lost income as part of your expenses when considering what a fair amount is. But I think you should also take into consideration if the incident was not done on purpose (I guess. Who would purposedly want to bleed himself/herself on purpose?) or if it was the result of your guest being obviously careless in preventing staining everything with blood.

If it was an accident, I would just charge for my expenses. If it was due to some unappropiate behavior I would charge for my expenses and maybe some more as a fine or penalty.

I am curious, what happened?

[gringoindavid]

Thanks, I appreciate your input...the person had some kind of a medical problem, details of which were not disclosed, the woman who does the check in noticed blood on the clients trousers when checking in..

obviously they knew about it and tried to cover up the blood by making up the bed before they departed (i am using a generic 'they' as i want to protect privacy as much as possible here and not disclose if this is a man or woman)..so obviously client knew what was going on but chose not to guard against the staining but rather try to cover it up, we did charge 100 dollars and took photos of the damages so we are protected vis a vis the credit card companies if they choose to protest the charges...

Originally Posted by TheEnterprise

I think that, if your cost to buy new sheets and your expenses for cleaning are a little under $100, then $100 would be a fair amount, as long as it cover your expenses.

If as the result of this incident you lost income because of the room being unavailable during its cleaning, you might also consider that lost income as part of your expenses when considering what a fair amount is. But I think you should also take into consideration if the incident was not done on purpose (I guess. Who would purposedly want to bleed himself/herself on purpose?) or if it was the result of your guest being obviously careless in preventing staining everything with blood.

If it was an accident, I would just charge for my expenses. If it was due to some unappropiate behavior I would charge for my expenses and maybe some more as a fine or penalty.

I am curious, what happened?

[clewison]

I'm not sure what country you're in, but do you have some type of legal wording about this type of event?

[gringoindavid]

Originally Posted by clewison

I'm not sure what country you're in, but do you have some type of legal wording about this type of event?

In Panama, and no we dont have legal wording for this but we did take photographs in the event there is a dispute with the credit card company

[Ria]

I agree with others that you have a right to charge a fair amount for the problem.

What we usually do is add up the cost to replace an item, the time it took to fix the problem (ie: hourly wage of housekeeping), if bed could not be used - then that cost ...and then we add 10-20% depending on the 'ick!" factor..

the more disgusting the thing, the more the mark up. If the damage is due to 'bodily fluids' we usually give the housekeeper stuck with cleaning it up some of that mark up but at least $10 as the guest loses their key deposit also...

[santa klaus]

We have put this sign into the elevator during Oktoberfest:

Puke…or not to puke?

…you should greatly consider this.

Because:

If you decently throw up into the toilet without making a mess:
Aaaaall is well, no worries. Everybody’s happy (except your belly maybe).

BUT:

If you DON’T decently throw up into the toilet without making a mess – meaning: making a mess by puking not into the toilet but everywhere else:

YOU’VE GOT TO PAY!!!!

Here are the BTP-rates (Beyond-Toilet-Puke):

Trying to puke into the toilet but not quite hitting it: € 10,--
puking on the floor or the wall or the ceiling (anywhere) € 20,--
puking on the floor and the wall/ceiling € 30,--
puking on the floor and the wall and the ceiling € 40,--
puking all over the place (e.g. down the staircase) € 50,--
MEGA-PUKE-PANDEMONIUM (multiple areas): your soul

These rates also count for any other…discharges. (Yuck!)

It was meant to be a joke, but one guy came to the reception to pay for "puking on the floor or the wall or the ceiling (anywhere)".

[Ria]

I totally love that! I wish i could steal it and post it in all our lounges so maybe some fools wouldn't drink too much. (we allow guests to bring in their own alcohol).

Gotta appreciate a guest who is honest enough to want to pay for his bad behaviour.

I do think however, you should charge more for certain bodily fluids ... our worst ever was the guest who did wall artwork...all the way down the hallway... let's just say he was fingerpainting and the only color he had to work with was brown...

[santa klaus]

Originally Posted by Ria

I do think however, you should charge more for certain bodily fluids ... our worst ever was the guest who did wall artwork...all the way down the hallway... let's just say he was fingerpainting and the only color he had to work with was brown...

Déja vu! I think we had the very same artist staying with us in Vienna last summer!

[gringoindavid]

Originally Posted by santa klaus

We have put this sign into the elevator during Oktoberfest:



It was meant to be a joke, but one guy came to the reception to pay for "puking on the floor or the wall or the ceiling (anywhere)".

group:

thanks for sagacious input, the guy emailed to say that he was protesting the charge with his CC company, as we have foto evidence we have a fair chance at winning, i wrote back and explained the charge and also asked him why he didnt talk to us before he left and obviously tried to cover up the blood, not a nice character at all, he also has a very insulting blog that dissed david panama, lost and found hostel near by fortuna, and belittled panamanians and all the hostels he stayed in in general, the man is entitled to his bigoted opinions but he is not entitled to bleed and leave without a word