Three Attendants Down, a VIP at 11:00 and Bites in Room 512
Coral Bay Resort has 260 rooms. Today's housekeeping worksheet shows 168 departures, 96 stayovers and 6 rooms blocked for maintenance. Eighteen room attendants are scheduled on a 14-credit shift, where a departure is 1.0 credit and a stayover is 0.5. At 07:10 three attendants call in sick and no agency cover is available. A VIP with a guaranteed 11:00 check-in is due. At 08:30 the guest in room 512 comes to the desk with red bites on both forearms. The attendant who had already cleaned 512 reports finding dark specks along the mattress seam; she stripped the linen into her cart with the other rooms' linen and then vacuumed 512 with the vacuum she uses across the whole floor. Rooms 510 and 514 on either side are occupied.
1. Do the credit arithmetic and set the day's priorities. What has to move, and what would you deliberately not do?
Read the worked answer
Arithmetic
- Departures: 168 x 1.0 = 168 credits.
- Stayovers: 96 x 0.5 = 48 credits.
- Required: 216 credits. Available: 15 attendants x 14 = 210 credits.
- Shortfall: 6 credits, plus the unplanned cost of taking 512 out of order and inspecting the two neighbouring rooms (allow about 3 credits).
Priorities
- 512 comes out of inventory now and is not reassigned, whatever the occupancy pressure.
- The VIP room is cleaned first by a team leader so it is inspected and released by 10:30 - a guaranteed 11:00 arrival is a hard commitment and cheap to protect.
- Departures on the lower floors first, because they feed today's arrivals and unblock the check-in queue.
- Close the 6-credit gap with the supervisor, the housekeeping coordinator and two volunteers on one hour of overtime, and by converting a few early stayovers to a quick-service standard.
What I would not do I would not cut corners on the inspection of 510/514, and I would not push attendants past a safe pace to absorb the whole shortfall - rushed bed-making and bathroom cleaning is where the complaints and the injuries come from. I would also not silently absorb the shortfall: the front office must be told which arrivals will be late, so they can manage expectations at check-in rather than at the door.
2. Set out the containment steps for room 512, given that the linen has already been mixed and the vacuum has been used elsewhere.
Read the worked answer
Treat as suspected bed bug until pest control confirms otherwise.
- Room 512: stop cleaning, do not strip further, place it out of order in the PMS, keep the door closed and post a notice. Do not reassign it and do not move another guest in.
- Linen: the whole cart is contaminated, not just 512's sheets. Bag it in sealed, labelled bags at the point of collection, do not sort it on the floor or in the chute room, and send it for a hot wash (60°C or above) with a hot dry cycle. Report the mixed cart to the laundry so that load is not processed as normal linen.
- Vacuum: stop using it on other rooms. Bag and remove the filter and dust canister in a sealed bag, clean the unit, and treat the contents as contaminated waste.
- Adjoining rooms: inspect 510, 514 and the rooms directly above and below with a torch - seams, headboard, skirting, bedside drawers. Record findings with photographs and times.
- Escalation: notify the housekeeping manager and GM, call the contracted pest-control provider today, and log everything. If evidence is confirmed, the inspection radius widens to the neighbouring column of rooms.
Why the linen and vacuum matter more than the room A single infested room is containable. A cart of mixed linen and a shared vacuum spread the problem across the floor, which turns a three-day room closure into a building-wide treatment and a reputational incident.
3. What do you say to the guest in 512, and what do you not say?
Read the worked answer
Do
- Move her to a different room tonight, and inspect the new room in her presence or just before, so she can see it is clean.
- Acknowledge the bites and the discomfort without diagnosing: 'We are treating this as a pest issue and have taken the room out of service and called our pest-control contractor today.'
- Offer to have her clothing and luggage laundered or hot-dried at the hotel's expense, and offer a medical referral if the bites are weeping or she feels unwell.
- Give her a named contact, a time she will hear back, and a proportionate gesture (room move with upgrade, laundry, a meal).
Do not
- Do not say 'we have bed bugs' before pest control confirms it, and do not say 'it is definitely nothing' either - both statements will be quoted back to you.
- Do not discuss other rooms, other guests or the attendant by name.
- Do not attribute the bites to mosquitoes or to the guest's own home.
Record A complaint log with times, what she was told, what was offered and what she accepted, plus photographs of the bites if she offers them. This record is what protects the hotel if the complaint later becomes a claim, and it is also the evidence the pest-control technician needs.