Sometimes, maid service just doesn't cut it

So we've all seen the TV news spots where someone takes a black light and finds all sorts of nasty stuff in hotel rooms, right? But you've said to yourself, "That doesn't happen in nice hotels." Well, think again: ABC News investigated 20 fancy hotels in NYC, LA, Houston and Miami, and they found some pretty foul things — including a lot of urine.

Inside a $300-a-night room at one of New York's finest hotels, there was dried semen on the bedspread and urine stains on the bedroom walls.

At a Miami hotel, part of a well-recognized chain, the black light revealed an unusual pattern in the carpeting in the bedroom. That pattern turned out to be trails of urine.

"Either somebody was doing something they shouldn't have," said Dr. Mark Callahan, a physician at New York Presbyterian Hospital, "or alternatively, they may have had an animal in there."

At one four-star resort, the black-light test showed "traces of urine on the walls, the bedspread, chairs, a bathroom vanity stool and on the carpet right where people step into bed." So yeah, either it was an animal or a rock star. Or old people who forgot to pack their Depends. But Houstonist was surprised at the scope of the nastiness — every hotel room the team tested turned up traces of urine or semen.

Even with all the bodily fluids in hotel rooms, experts say the risk of getting sick from germs in a hotel is relatively low. And ABC has offered some tips for keeping (sort of) clean when you're away from home: Remove the bedspread, which is probably the dirtiest thing in the room; clean surfaces with sanitizing wipes; don't stick your hands in your mouth after you've run them over the carpet, walls and bedding; and look for rust-colored stains on sheets and bedspreads, which can be a sign of bedbugs — or that someone was recently murdered in your bed. Either way, you might want to move to another room.