For sheet’s sake, stop skimping on Airbnb beds and give me a doona cover

I confess I’m a bit of a bed linen snob. I adore a place to rest my head that has Egyptian cotton sheets in a eucalyptus hue, plush pillows, feather doona, and a European-style mattress topper so floofy it’s akin to sleeping on a fluffy cloud.

Sheet snobs are made, not born. My love of linen stems from two sources. My first proper job working in the manchester department at Target, where I learnt how to style a miniature bed into a showroom-worthy display. And my late mother, who thought nothing of dropping $150 on a pillow at Adairs, where she was a card-carrying Linen Lover.

Triple sheeting is common in luxury European hotels and the trend has hit our shores.

Over the past two years, I’ve stayed in a slew of hotels and Airbnbs in WA, over east and in Europe. And what I’ve noticed is a growing – infuriating – trend of short-stay accommodation providers to ditch the doona cover in favour of triple-sheeting the beds.

Triple-sheeting is a professional bed-making method that uses a flat or fitted sheet over the mattress, then a flat sheet on top of that, plus an additional top sheet that covers the blanket or doona.

This technique has gained popularity post-pandemic on the idea that it gives guests a more hygienic sleeping experience. The top sheet can be easily replaced between stays while keeping the blanket or doona protected and fresh.

While it’s arguably an easier system for housekeeping and laundry to manage, for this wriggly, sleepwalking insomniac with restless leg and arm syndrome, it’s an entanglement risk. It renders the hygienic argument null and void because I always end up making contact with the uncovered doona as the sheets are strewn around.

A particularly perturbing problem when you’re trying to avoid the bed bug infestation in Paris.

My first experience of this sheet abomination was at an Airbnb in the Sydney suburb of Newtown. I was so perplexed by this sheety set up I messaged the hosts to ask where’s my doona cover? They were as confused as I.

But the maid service they used had adopted this practice, common in high-end European hotels. It happened again closer to home at the haunted Mahogany Inn when I stayed for the night and ended up face to face with a bare doona that, in all likelihood, might get laundered once a month. If that.

While some AirBnB hosts claim triple-sheeting is an easy way to make your short-term rental feel like a luxe five-star hotel, and circumnavigate the tricky job of changing a doona cover, for staff on bed stripping duty, I’d argue it takes less than a minute to change a doona cover – and it’s far more sanitary.

Hotels also argue triple-sheeting saves time and money purchasing and laundering expensive doonas.

This is a trend I hope doesn’t continue into 2025, because I really need a good night’s sleep.

Start the day with a summary of the day’s most important and interesting stories, analysis and insights. Sign up for our Morning Edition newsletter.