How often to wash occasionally used sheets?

April 22, 2024 3:33 PM

A friend crashes at my house approximately once a week. Nobody else uses the bed. How often would you wash the sheets?

Bonus question: my college student kid comes by for a weekend every two months or so. Would you wash those sheets each visit?

If relevant, I wash my own sheets every week or two. (To be honest I'd probably do it less if I always slept alone.) Laundry is not super inconvenient for me but I like to minimize housework because it's less fun than other things.

posted by metasarah to Home & Garden (12 answers total)

I'd just wash them at the same time as my other sheets TBH, or maybe every other time. The hassle of washing two sets of bedsheets & remaking two beds is not that much more than washing one set of sheets & remaking one bed.

For the college student bed, I would wash the sheets after each visit but I wouldn't bother remaking the bed until shortly before they arrived for the next visit.

That said, I have a strong compulsion to give my houseguests a nice experience, which includes among other things the comfort of sleeping in a bed with clean sheets. I suspect that my houseguests might not care about this sort of thing as much as I do.
posted by Johnny Assay at 3:42 PM on April 22 [3 favorites]

For reference, I change my sheets on a schedule. Every Tuesday. I like a clean sheet.

For the friend, I'd probably wash them about every other time I washed my own sheets. My washer could handle two sets of sheets at once.

For the kid, I'd probably wash them after every visit.
posted by cmoj at 3:43 PM on April 22

For your friend: maybe once a month?

For your college kid: how about if you ask your kid to strip the bed and start the sheets in the laundry after each visit? That's a good practice to train them in when visiting folks, if they don't already do that (well, the stripping the bed part). This reduces some of your work and then you don't have to remember if you did it or not.
posted by bluedaisy at 3:44 PM on April 22 [17 favorites]

Lol i wash my own sheets every 2 weeks so I'd wash my friends' sheets every 14 weeks. Like, really I wouldn't even think about it for 3 months. I wouldn't need my own washed more than that if I were crashing at a friends' and no one else was using my once a week slept in bed. Maybe don't pull the bedspread up right away when they leave so it airs a bit.
For the college student -- I'd check once a month and just wash em when they just look like they need it.
posted by rainy day girl at 4:14 PM on April 22 [4 favorites]

I stay at a friend's house about once a week (long-haul commuter) and do my own laundry there, I wash the sheets every other week or so. They're not super dirty but I find unused sheets get a bit musty after awhile.
posted by third word on a random page at 5:09 PM on April 22 [1 favorite]

We have a house that we only use on weekends in the winter and I wash those sheets less than once a month. Probably once every six weeks. They're slept in for two days a week at most so they get washed every 12 sleeps. At most. My children shower before bed so they're pretty clean. I feel like spreading the sleeps out keeps the sheets fresher. Or I'm lying to myself because I hate making beds.
posted by defreckled at 6:18 PM on April 22

I would wash them on more or less the same schedule I wash sheets that are regularly slept in. That is, the same number of sleeps. Maybe slightly more often rather than less, so for sheets slept in once a week, I'd probably wash them every six weeks or so.

if I'm really honest, I'd probably actually wash them a lot less often, but that's what I would aim for.
posted by dg at 7:23 PM on April 22

Sheets get dusty even when they’re not being slept in, so I would wash them with yours.
posted by ellieBOA at 7:49 PM on April 22 [1 favorite]

We have a similar sort of situation.

If it's a couple of weeks between visits, we don't wash. Usually we end up washing sheets just before the guests arrive. The sheets keep the mattress clean from dust.
posted by freethefeet at 11:41 PM on April 22

I suppose the answer hinges on what your friend gets up to in the interim between their weekly visits. Are they crashing because they have been out bar-hopping all night? Wash after each visit. Or, are they crashing because their office job requires them to travel and you’re a handy stopover? Maybe wash every other week?

Personally, I wouldn’t let the washings go longer than every other week. And, I’d definitely wash the sheets before a change in visitor (i.e. friend v. kid)
posted by Thorzdad at 4:37 AM on April 23 [1 favorite]

My dryer has a refresh program for this exact purpose.
posted by zenon at 8:25 AM on April 23

I suppose it depends on the sensitivity of the guests to dirt. If it was the same person, one night, separated by a week, maybe once a quarter?
posted by wnissen at 11:22 AM on April 23