First off, the apartment is wonderful, in a perfect location, and Rosa is an excellent, responsive, and attentive host. What will follow should by no means reflect on the quality of the apartment and host. If anything, the incident below demonstrates the high quality of kindness and professionalism accompanying the best of Airbnb hosts like Rosa. Before continuing, I will also say upfront that I highly recommend this apartment!
The issue that I must mention is that on the first full day in the apartment, while my family and I were out for lunch and a stroll, someone (or persons) broke into the apartment, went through our suitcases, bags, closets, dresser drawers, shoes, and miscellaneous envelopes (some ripped in haste) and stole all of our cash (in various currencies), my laptop containing valuable research which was my raison d’être for being in Barcelona, and a child’s football camp bag (probably used to carry out the stolen goods). It was shocking and devastating. In all my years of renting apartments and hotel stays in various corners of the world (including in Spain and several times in Barcelona before), I have never experienced a break-in. Fortunately, we were not in the apartment (but this seemed quite a profesional job - in their thoroughness and selective theft - so our absence was probably a necessary component of the crime).
The above noted, this could happen anywhere and in any city (or rural space) in the world. Barcelona is a city with high tourism and, undoubtedly, even as one takes the usual precautions (e.g. avoiding pick pockets, not falling into transport scams, not leaving items unattended on the beach, etc.), it is inevitable that tourists staying in tourist accommodation can be potentially targeted for theft.
Upon calling her about the break-in, Rosa was very supportive, immediately summoning the police and quickly coming over to the apartment to check on us and wait (what turned out to be about two hours) for the police to come. She also drove my husband and me to the police station to file the report and stayed with us as long as her schedule permitted (putting meetings off as long as she could) as we sat in the waiting room. We eventually made it into meet with an officer after about three hours. I speak Spanish so there was no concern about managing the interview when we ended up going in alone but it was good to have the local support with us as long as possible.
To be brief, Rosa offered the option of cancelling our reservation and finding another accommodation if it would make us feel more secure (which we chose not to do). She also provided us with a discount on the total Airbnb accommodation cost and also insurance coverage of the cash loss. In summary, Rosa did everything possible to remedy what was a very unfortunate beginning to a two week stay in the apartment. We are grateful for her hospitality.
I am hoping that a more fortified lock will be placed on the apartment door and that a safe will be placed in the apartment. We were a multigenerational family (ranging from 12-78 years old) with quite a lot of traveling experience amongst us and the resilience to not let the incident ruin our stay in the apartment. I continued with my research (and hope to recover as much as possible) and my family continued to engage with the lovely city of Barcelona. I would just be remiss if I did not mention what happened.
I think that with a few new security measures this apartment will continue to be an excellent choice for a family and/or work stay in Barcelona.