Linen loss — what it costs and how to control it

In rough order: damage and staining that makes an item unusable and it is discarded on the floor rather than logged; guest removal, which is real but smaller than people assume and concentrated in towels and bathrobes; misplacement between housekeeping, the linen room and storage, where items sit in the wrong stack for months; and genuine loss in transit or processing, which is the smallest category and the one everyone starts with. A property that has never counted usually finds most of its shortfall in the first and third categories.

You cannot, until you have counted for a few months. That is the honest answer and it is why we ask new business clients to count at handover — not to protect ourselves, but because a number nobody agreed at the start becomes an argument nobody can win later. Count every item out and every item back for the first eight weeks. After that you have a rate, and any change against it means something.

Count at the point of handover, both directions, with both parties present or with a signed sheet. Count by item type rather than as a single total, because a shortfall in pillowcases and a shortfall in duvet covers are different problems with different causes. Log damaged items as damaged at the moment they are pulled from service, rather than letting them vanish from the count silently. And do it at the same point in the day every time — a count taken before the afternoon turnaround and one taken after are not comparable.

Every order is checked at three points: intake, after washing, and at packing. If an item does not reconcile we tell you before you notice it, with photographs where there is damage to show. We would rather absorb the cost of an item than have you discover the gap during a room check. What we will not do is settle a shortfall that predates the count, which is the other reason the baseline matters.

It changes where losses become visible rather than how many there are. An in-house laundry absorbs damage and misplacement invisibly — items are discarded, restacked or written off without anyone reconciling a number. Outsourcing introduces a count, and the count surfaces losses that were always happening. Properties frequently read that as the laundry losing linen, when what actually changed is that somebody started counting.