As hotel chains across the nation look to turn their most luxurious accommodations into rooms resembling royal suites, maids and other hotel workers are finding their jobs more difficult. Several new studies have found that thousands of housekeepers are suffering arm, shoulder and lower-back injuries. The problem, housekeepers say, is not just a heavier mattress, but having to rush because they are assigned the same number of rooms as before while being required to deal with far more items per room.
See "Hotel Rooms Get Plusher, Adding to Maids' Injuries", Steven Greenhouse, The New York Times, April 20, 2006