After a long day’s travel, there are few things more welcome than crashing out in a freshly cleaned hotel bed for a peaceful night’s sleep. And in the morning, while still in your pajamas, you can just roll out of bed and make yourself a hot cup of coffee without a care in the world. Except (according to some research, at least) that might not quite be the case. 

It’s been well documented that no matter how good or how thorough the housekeeping may be, hotel rooms often aren’t quite as clean as they might appear. The sheer number of people who stay in them and use their facilities (as well as the relatively short time some hotels afford their staff to turn the room over before the next guests arrive) makes them a microbiologist’s nightmare—with certain high-traffic areas like the remote control, bathroom faucets and the toilet seat singled out as being particularly dirty.

And unfortunately, the typical hotel coffee maker often falls into that category as well. 

Bacteria, Mold, Mildew, and… Underwear?

While housekeeping might have time to give the outside of the coffee machine a quick wipe down—and to check that there’s not used coffee pods or grounds left inside the machine itself—there often simply isn’t the time to give the machine a thorough deep clean. And the longer the machine goes without being thoroughly cleaned, both inside and out, the more potential pathogens that its workings, drip tray, and water reservoir can ultimately start to harbor. 

As well as being dark and hot, the inside of coffee machines often stays wet for a long time after use, making the likes of bacteria, mold, and mildew a common issue. A 2011 study by the National Sanitation Foundation, for instance, found that 50% of coffee maker water reservoirs contained traces of yeast and mold.

A 2015 study published in Nature magazine, meanwhile, found traces of no less than 67 different types of bacteria across the water reservoirs of 10 different Nespresso machines; not one of the machines in the study was bacteria-free. In fact, as extreme as it may sound, your hotel room’s toilet seat might even be cleaner from a bacterial point of view than the coffee maker you drink from first thing in the morning. 

Last but not least, there’s been a longstanding rumor that people use hotel coffee makers to clean their underwear—yes, seriously—and while it hasn’t been confirmed that this is an ongoing practice, the rumor alone is disturbing. Bon Appétit shared quotes from flight attendants who weighed in on the belief, with one calling it an “urban legend.” Another claimed to have heard “horror stories” about the coffee pots “being used to rinse pantyhose, among other things.”

In February of this year, influencer Tara Woodcox faced backlash after recording herself washing underwear in her hotel coffee maker, deeming it “one of the coolest tricks ever.”

At home, of course, you can avoid these kinds of issues by thoroughly deep cleaning your coffee machine every month or so. Whether you’re confident enough that the hotel you’re staying in have had the time to do precisely that, though, is up to you to decide.

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