Hotel cleaner caught cleaning mugs with toilet brush in hidden camera footage

Cleaners at the three luxury hotels in Harbin, China were also filmed using toilet water to clean bath mats and drying cups with bath towels

Cleaners at luxury hotels in China have been caught on camera cleaning guests' tea cups with toilet brushes which they then used to scrub the toilet and bathtub.

Undercover journalists also filmed them washing a bath mat in the bathtub and dipping bath towels into toilet water.

The seven minutes of footage was taken at the Kempinski Hotel, the Shangri-La Hotel and the Sheraton Harbin Xiangfang Hotel in Harbin, in north-western China and released by Chinese website Pear Video.

A staff member was capture using a toilet brush to wash tea cups in the ensuite bathroom. They then used the same brush to scrub the inside of the toilet before putting it back on its plastic stand and used bath towels to dry them.

Another worker is then heard telling the reporter, who was undercover posing as a trainee cleaner at the hotel, to not worry about sterilising the cups.

When the reporter asked the cleaner whether all the other staff did this he said they did but added: “We just never talk about it”.

Guests can pay between £319 and £370 for a single night at the establishment.

Meanwhile at the Shangri-La hotel in Harbin, where rooms cost between £148 and £284 per night, a cleaner was seen cleaning tea cups, the waste paper bin and the toilet using the same cloth.

She then washed the floor mat in the bathtub with since then cleaned with the same cloth as before.

She allegedly admitted the hotel did ban what she was doing but said she was “too lazy” to follow the rules. She told the reporter she just needed to make sure her boss did not see.

The final hotel featured in the report was the Sheraton Harbin Xiangfang Hotel which is a popular business hotel with prices from £90-£125 per night.

The Sheraton cleaner was allegedly heard saying that towels which appeared to be unopened did not need to be changed. She was then, again, seen using the same brush to clean the toilet and the sink.

She was also seen folding the duvet on the floor.

In a statement on Weibo, the Chinese equivalent of Facebook, Sheraton Hotels said it “deeply regretted” what happened and was going to provide additional training to stress the importance of hotel policy.

Meanwhile, Kempinski Hotels said in a statement that it had also taken additional steps to make sure their employees adhere to the “strictest standards of hygiene”.

Shangri-La Hotels also told the Mail Online that it had begun an investigation immediately after seeing the video and would be increasing training and tightening supervision.

“What the video shows is unacceptable and if accurate is a severe violation of our strict hygiene standards”, it said.

The Independent has contacted Kempinski and Shangri-La for comment but none was available at the time of publication.