Chinese Hotels’ Staff Caught Cleaning Cups With Used, Dirty Toilet Brush

Three famous Chinese hotels were caught violating basic hygiene standards after their staff were filmed by a hidden camera cleaning cups with the same brush used to clean bathroom sinks and the toilet.

Three Beijing hotels — Sheraton, Shangri-La and Kempinski — were found in violation of health code after the municipal watchdog for hygiene, tourism, food and drug safety in Harbin, Heilongjiang in China, investigated the authenticity of a footage released by Pear Video on Tuesday, allegedly providing evidence of the unhygienic act, Business Insider reported.

The video, which was recorded by a Pear Video reporter who was working at the hotels as an intern, was found to be genuine and appropriate warnings were doled out for all the three establishments by the health planning commission.

The footage that emerged online, showed cleaners at the Shangri-La and Kempinski cleaning the cups in a guest’s room with a toilet brush. The staff then proceeded to wash towels with toilet water before laying them out on the hotel floor for drying.

The cleaning staff of the Sheraton hotel, on the other hand, proceeded to clean the water basin and the toilet with the same toilet brush that they used to wash and wipe the crockery of the room.

"If what was shown in the video was proved to be true, it would be a serious violation of our hygiene standards and it would not be acceptable,” Shangri-La said in a statement. “At the same time, we will also cooperate with local government to properly implement all hygiene measures.”

The hotel also added it will step up the monitoring system of its staff and subject them to stricter training programs so that such misdemeanor is not repeated in the future.

Both Kempinski and Sheraton apologized for the behavior of their staff and said they were conducting comprehensive investigations into the respective incidents. They also added the staff in question will be retrained in order to make them aware of proper cleaning procedures.

One of the reports claimed that the hotels responsible were fined, but no other information were provided regarding the same. It was also reported that the staff working in the three hotels had complained of being overworked.

A separate investigation conducted in September by a Chinese consumer rights group, whose name in English reads “Better Choice, Better Life,” found that the staff of many five-star hotels — including Shangri-La hotel in Beijing — failed to change the bed sheet and bedding of room between the stays of two guests, the South China Morning Post reported.

The first group of researchers booked a room in each of the hotels and marked the bed linen, wash basins, baths and other items with fluorescent stamps that are visible only under UV light — marks which would disappear if wiped or washed — hence, letting them know how efficient the staff were at their work.

When a second group of researchers checked into the same room that was vacated by the first group, they found the marks still there on the bedding, while the same had disappeared from the rest of the room. Shangri-La scored the highest when it came to cleanliness as only one “dirty” pillowcase was found upon investigating.

Shangri-La charges a minimum of 2,000 Yuan ($306) per night from its guests.