How do you know if your hotel room is safe?

Hotels are an integral part of any trip. Travelers consider them as a safe haven. Nowadays, the standards of hygiene and safety in hotels are increasing to provide the utmost comfort to travelers.

But are hotels really as safe and clean as you think? Industry experts and frequent travelers say that even the most luxurious hotels can still have incidents like peeping toms and bedbugs.

"Check the peephole on the door. If the hole shows signs of being damaged or tampered with, ask to change rooms," said Michael Forrest Jones, CEO of Beechmont Hotels in Winston-Salem, US.

According to Jones, the peephole should be clear so that people can see outside clearly. However, if when you look through it, the view outside is blurry or opaque, this means your room is "unsafe".

Meanwhile, if the peephole shows signs of being tampered with, it's likely that someone has placed the lens in the opposite direction, allowing people outside to see what's going on inside the room.

To be safe, Beechmont’s CEO suggests that when renting a room, guests block the peephole with a piece of paper and only remove it when necessary. If someone knocks on the door and you don’t see anyone, don’t open it. Instead, call the front desk.

Many travelers like to start their day with a cup of coffee. However, you should skip the in-room coffee and head to a nearby coffee shop.

"I'm very concerned about the coffee maker in the hotel room. It looks clean on the outside, but who knows what previous guests have done. They could have vomited in it or stuck cigarette butts or crayons in it," said Ken Lim, a former hotel manager in Chicago.

The same can happen with other items like electric kettles. Glasses next to bathroom sinks are equally suspicious, says travel enthusiast Cooper Woods.

"The glasses are not as clean as you think. At most, the housekeeping staff only cleans them by wiping them with a cloth or rinsing them with cold water," he said.

This man advises tourists to wash their cups with soap and water to ensure hygiene before use.

Bugs are also one of the things that guests don’t expect when staying at a hotel. The risk of bedbugs makes wooden shelves or lockers less than ideal places to put your luggage.

The best place to do this is the bathroom, Jones says. "Once you've checked and the bathroom floor looks clean, open your bag. It's safer there because bed bugs love wood," he says.

However, if the cabinets or shelves are made of metal, visitors can rest assured that these places are also quite safe.

According toBBCOne of the dirtiest things in a hotel room, even a luxury hotel, is the TV remote.

"The remote control has passed through countless hands, but the hotel staff never cleans it," emphasized Quora user William Payne.

Adding evidence to this view, a study conducted by the University of Houston (USA) in 2012 said that TV remotes are as dirty as toilet seats.

In addition, the bedside light switch is also very dirty. Before touching it, you should clean it with antibacterial wet wipes or disinfectant spray./.