... so I don't tip (and neither do my American colleagues). I particularly don't tip at the Residence Inn where I ordinarily stay as the maid is always using the room radio to listen to some Spanish station as she cleans the room and then she switches it to Alarm On (not Radio Off) as she leaves, three days out of four. You can walk down the hotel corridor on that floor any morning and know absolutely which rooms are unoccupied - their alarms are going off! I am always complaining about this, and the housekeeper keeps saying that the maid has been told. I suspect however she hasn't been shown, which is something else altogether. So, tipping? For what? Doing her job? I don't tip the woman who prepares the breakfast nor the check-in/-out staff. Why single out the maids? Because she's "in my space"?