18 Comments

  • That also regulates the length of toilet brush handles.

    I feel so much safer, now.

  • California would do well to attend to other standards: the web page containing the bill, to which the post links, is ill-formed. It uses the parochial Microsoft codepage 1252 character encoding but does not declare it. Since UTF-8 (Unicode) is the standard default, standard-conforming browsers assume UTF-8 in the absence of an encoding declaration and so display the page incorrectly.

  • Using fitted sheets and long handled mops and brushes seems like a perfectly sane way to lower the incidence of back injuries to maids. If instead, the bill read, “Supply the tools your maids need to do their job safely,” I doubt many would oppose it.

  • But what about the color of the sheets. Some dyes may weigh more than others. Besides, white sheets…… come on. They are disrespectful.

  • You show me a cleaning staff that does not stoop or kneel on occasion and I’ll show you a bathroom that is filled with bacteria. It is impossible to reach every area on a toilet or to clean effectively in a corner without an occasional stoop.

    But, why do legislators love housekeepers and hate groundskeepers? Or plumbers? Or carpet layers? Cannot legislation can be introduced to make these professions stoopless as well?

  • I doubt the elastic in fitted sheets could withstand repeated bleaching. It’s likely to be the first item in the sheets to fail. They’re also harder to fold. Imagine the labor required to fold the fitted sheets!

  • Perhaps James has never had the pleasure of getting fitted sheets on a king size mattress, it’s a bear of an ordeal. Pulling and tugging and lifting and pushing. Flat sheets, not so much, unfold and tuck ’em under.

    One day the state of California will fall into the sea by the weight of all the “State of California knows…” signs.

  • Have you ever tried folding and storing a fitted sheet? It’s radical!

    Long live the flat sheet.

  • […] Surely we can agree the State of California is over stepping its bounds here… var addthis_product = 'wpp-254'; var addthis_config = {"data_track_clickback":true};Since they have decided to make using flat sheets on hotel beds a crime. […]

  • Using only flat sheets makes sense – like socks with no left or right, there’s no need to ensure a “matched pair” of fitted and flat for each bed. Unless that’s the real goal. A union position(s) in each hotel in the laundry making matched pairs of sheets instead of each maid taking stacks of folded flat sheets without worry.

  • Insane micro-management overlawyering at its worst.

    All laws must come with a 5 to 20 year expiration date, including a phase-in for all previous statutes.

  • I can imagine a suit against a hot clamming that putting on fitted sheets cause Ms. Maid’s back pain. This law heads off such suits and has good social effect. My wife is good with fitted sheets; they are daunting to me.

  • […] that’s right, as Overlawyered put it, this is an issue “because, really, there’s no detail too small for the government to […]

  • Can’t the maids just go to DOSH–oh yeah, I totally forgot: the California hospitality industry sorta prefers to hire illegal aliens of sufficient timidity not to file complaints, and it’s just swell that we have people like Senator de Leon “creating new crimes” to remedy that.

  • I knew someone was “in-bed” with the elastic manufacturers…that’s it who is it?

  • […] of legitimate government to escape the scrutiny of the Californian nanny state. To wit (Hat-tip: Overlawyered): …[N]ext Monday … a committee will ponder a labor union-backed bill mandating the use […]

  • And THIS is why a full-time legislature is a Bad Idea[tm].

  • I’ve been making beds for over 60 years using both fitted and flat sheets…and though no “professional”, it’s been my experience that I do way more lifting, and lifting higher especially with the last corner, using fitted sheets. And I’ve no need to do any lifting when making hospital corners.