MONROE COUNTY, Pa. — The rooms at Skytop Lodge Resort near Canadensis have been hosting visitors for nearly 100 years, and it takes a lot of work to keep those rooms looking brand new.
Housekeepers have the important task of working behind the scenes to ensure each room is cleaned daily.
"A lot of people don't understand what they do on a day-to-day basis. 'Oh, it's easy peasy.' Sometimes it is, and then there are days it is not because you never know when you open that door what you're going to find behind that door," said Conniel Tate-Severino, the room director at Skytop Lodge Resort.
Nicole Feyh has been opening those doors for the past four years as a room attendant, also known as a housekeeper.
"I just know what I'm doing, so I have my routine, so I know what I'm doing as soon as I come in here. I just follow that with every room," Feyh said.
Feyh showed how much work goes into getting a room at Skytop ready for guests. And fair warning: There is a lot.
First on the list is grabbing used towels out of the bathroom and stripping the bed of dirty linens.
Luckily, Feyh doesn't have to strip the beds every day. A house person will come to the room as soon as someone checks out and do this for the housekeeper. They work together to make cleaning rooms as seamless as possible for guests.
"I like seeing guests in the morning. If they're happy, I'm happy," Feyh said.
It was then time to get to cleaning. Feyh says cleaning is something you have to like because that's the entire job.
Everything in the room that the guest could have used or touched gets wiped down.
"The remote, the clock, dust the lamps, the pens."
Feyh says the work she does every day is the same work you would do to clean your house, just more thorough.
Once everything was cleaned, we moved on to the bathroom.
"This is where you get sweaty," Feyh said as she scrubbed the shower.
The sink, toilet, and mirror also were wiped down before moving on to make the beds.
After laying all the bedding properly, Feyh showed us the hospitality corner—the tuck at the bottom of the bed to seal up the linens nicely.
"You'll take all three layers, hold the bed, and then you'll just smack it under," Feyh said.
It's not an easy task.
Finally, the finishing touches were put on the bed, but that didn't mean we were done.
New robes get hung and placed in the closet. New towels are folded and placed in the bathroom. Coffee pods, extra cups, bottles of water, and soaps in each room get replenished.
Garbage gets dumped and wiped down, and finally, the vacuum comes out.
Housekeepers clean and make up rooms every day here at Skytop. And not just once but up to 15 times a day, depending on how many guests are checking out.
Feyh says this isn't a job for the fainthearted, but it is rewarding.
"Sometimes I'll overhear a guest walk into the room and be like, 'Wow, this is nice.' And that makes me like, 'Wow, I did my job,'" Feyh said.
Housekeepers' work doesn't end in the rooms; it continues with laundry and prepping their service cart for the next day.
With 192 hotel rooms, the resort is looking to hire laundry attendants, house people, house supervisors, and several housekeepers.
"It's that personal feeling in the sense of it's not just a hotel; this is their home away from home," Tate-Severino said.
So, the next time you enjoy a stay at one of the many resorts in the Poconos, remember how much preparation and work goes into getting a room ready for you.
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