Why You Should NEVER Use the Coffee Machine in Your Hotel Room

We all love an appliance that can multitask (hello, air fryer!), but there are some things that should just be single-use gadgets. In a recent edition of the Bon Appétit series The Receipt, a flight attendant revealed that they’ve heard horror stories from coworkers about hotel coffee makers being used to wash pantyhose and underwear.

“I ponder the eternal question: to brew or not to brew the hotel room coffee,” the flight attendant wrote. “This is something most flight attendants have strong feelings about, and many senior mamas like to tell horror stories about in-room coffee pots being used to rinse pantyhose, among other things.”

Yes, you read that right. While the flight attendant wrote that it’s probably an urban legend, there’s been mixed reactions amongst flight attendants on the internet. In response to someone posing the question on Quora, one user wrote that in their 10 years as a flight attendant, they’ve never heard of this. “It’s much easier to either pack some clean underwear or, in the case that you run out, just wash them in the bathroom sink and let them dry over the heater or by a window,” they wrote.

“So, you think flight attendants only bring one pair of underwear on their trips and wash them every night,” wrote another user and former flight attendant. “If for any reason they do want to wash an article of clothing, they would lather it in the sink, not the coffeemaker.”

As Bon Appétit explained in a separate story on the topic, “there have long been whispers on the internet that coffee pots are used as ‘miniature underwear washing machines,’ as one anonymous commenter on Reddit puts it. And generally, flight attendants and former hotel employees advise guests to get their morning cup of joe with breakfast, order room service, or bring their own.”

Yikes.

The writer of The Receipt story said that they still use the coffee maker as long as it looks clean.

And as we’ve reported in the past, regardless of whether you use hotel coffee makers, it’s probably time to clean the one in your house.

Will you be using the hotel coffee maker during your next trip?

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