While some of the largest hotel chains in the United States—along with scores of other chains that are not so large—have gone totally smoke-free, the fact remains that many travelers do smoke and want to stay in a hotel that allows them to smoke. In fact, there is even a website, Smoketels, that helps travelers find smoking guestrooms throughout the country and parts of Canada.
For those hotels that do allow guests to smoke in guestrooms, it would serve them well to know a little about what is called “thirdhand smoke.” Most of us are aware of what “secondhand smoke” is—passive smoke that is inhaled when someone nearby is smoking a cigarette or cigar.
Thirdhand smoke is different. This is smoke that has been absorbed through the skin from surfaces, such as carpets, draperies, and furniture. And when it comes to hotels that allow smoking, the big concern is children in the guestrooms being exposed to this thirdhand smoke. Even if no one has smoked in the room for quite some time, children playing on the guestroom carpet or touching the upholstered furniture may be absorbing, through their skin, smoke particulates proven harmful, such as nicotine.
Let’s look further at how thirdhand smoke occurs and why it is of special concern for children. According to a study by Norris Cotton Cancer Center, part of Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center in Lebanon, New Hampshire, if someone smokes just one cigarette in a room the size of a hotel guestroom, with the doors and windows closed, it takes about two hours for smoke particulates such as nicotine in the air to return to levels that are no longer harmful.
But where do these smoke particulates go? True, some of the airborne smoke and nicotine will be collected and removed from the room through ventilation systems. But a great deal of it will slowly drift down to the floor, coating carpet and furnishings.
And according to the Cancer Center, children are more negatively affected by thirdhand smoke than are adults because children have a smaller body mass. In addition to absorbing harmful particulates through their skin, children are also at greater risk of inhaling thirdhand smoke. Children stand closer to the carpet, and they also breathe faster than adults, so there is a greater risk of them inhaling nicotine held in the reservoirs of the carpet.
What Hotel Managers Can Do
If your hotel has decided to allow smoking in guestrooms, there are steps you can take to help minimize the problem of thirdhand smoke. The first step begins with vacuuming. More thorough vacuuming is required in guestrooms where smoking is permitted. Upholstered furniture should also be vacuumed more frequently. In addition, comforters, bedspreads, and pillows should be cleaned regularly.
Beyond vacuuming, carpets in guestrooms should be cleaned on a regular basis. When choosing a cleaning method, you should know that a “dry” carpet cleaning method is not effective at removing nicotine from carpet reservoirs. Some hotels prefer this method because the carpet remains dry, ready for the room’s next guest, but this method will do little to remove nicotine.
The most effective way to clean carpets and upholstered furniture in guestrooms where smoking is allowed is to extract the carpet or upholstery using a professional carpet extractor. This should be done frequently. While there is some drying time involved with this method, this can be expedited through the use of air-movers, placed throughout the guestroom.
Another option to clean carpets and help protect the health of guests is a relatively new cleaning technology called aqueous ozone. For those not familiar with aqueous ozone, “it is a process where ozone is mechanically infused into water, producing a powerful oxidizer and cleaning liquid, which is then dispensed to clean surfaces—in this case, carpet and upholstery,” according to Matt Montag with CleanCore Technologies.
Adds Montag, aqueous ozone can be dispensed directly from a “caddy” system that looks like an upright carpet extractor. Or a traditional carpet extractor can be filled with aqueous ozone and then used normally. Aqueous ozone contains only oxygen and water, and returns to plain water and oxygen within a few hours of being dispensed. No chemicals are added to aqueous ozone.
A Healthy Environment
Whatever side of the fence you are on when it comes to smoking in hotels, one thing most all hotel managers agree on is that they want to provide a clean and healthy environment for their hotel guests. If your property does allow smoking, it is important to be aware of thirdhand smoke along with ways to eradicate it.
About the Author
Robert Kravitz is a frequent writer for the professional cleaning and building industries.
