One morning they peed on a landing, another they left the remains of a broken vodka bottle in the elevator, one time they attacked the plants in the doorway, and another time, with the motorcycles parked in front of the building…
Neighbors of a block on Bruc Street, in Barcelona’s Dreta del Eixample, report that they are fed up with the excesses of many guests of the two licensed tourist apartments in operation there. “Some behave well and some don’t. And you don’t know when you’ll be able to sleep, and that uncertainty makes you nervous, it has you in tension.” “And the early morning check-ins, the continuous rush of suitcases and strangers up the stairs.” “Do you know that homes in estates with tourist apartments are devalued by about 20%? I considered selling my apartment, but…”
“You call the police and notify the manager… And sometimes an employee comes and tells them that if they don’t behave they won’t get their deposit back. And many don’t care, they come to party.” “And housing blocks are for living. These accommodations have no place here, much less those that break coexistence.” “We joined the neighborhood association and started handing out pamphlets through the mailboxes, to unite.” “And the other day a neighbor went to the Mossos to complain, and the agent told him that he had to make a lot of noise, and he gave him our pamphlet!”
Jaume Artigues, from the Dreta de l’Eixample residents’ association, estimates that 30% of the buildings in the neighborhood have apartments dedicated to vacation rentals. “In the seventies the neighborhood had about 73,000 residents, and today, about 43,000 residents and about 29,000 tourist beds. This substitution process is transforming the neighborhood. The market stalls close and cannot find relief, and brunches and other businesses aimed at tourism open in the streets.” The truth is that we are in the neighborhood with the most legal tourist apartments in Barcelona: more than 1,700 of the approximately 10,700 in the city. “The City Council, when applying the Generalitat decree to regulate this sector, must reduce its number substantially, focusing on housing blocks and especially those where there are coexistence problems. In the association we continue to collect complaints and send them to the City Council.”
The deputy mayor of Tourism and also the councilor responsible for Eixample, the socialist Jordi Valls, has already met with residents of the Bruc block, to explain to them, among other things, that the Urban Guard has already issued three fines of 460 euros each in the tourist apartments. there in operation. And the deputy mayor also met with representatives of other annoying stairs: a couple of buildings on Consell Cent street and two others on Aragó and Bailèn streets.
“Tourist apartments alter the housing market,” adds the deputy mayor. The construction rate in Barcelona is between 1,500 and 2,000 apartments per year, so the 10,700 tourist apartments licensed in the city represent the natural growth of the last five years. The decree of the Generalitat empowers us to reduce them to reduce the price of housing. But we have to find a way to include disruptions to coexistence among the reasons for revoking a license, because the function of residential buildings is for people to have a place to live in peace.”
The City Council tries to outline the factors to consider. “Neighborhood complaints may be one, but not the definitive one. We have to work with proven facts. The platforms remove the ads for the illegal offer when we ask them to, and now we want to ask them to also remove those for the apartments that disrupt coexistence, even if they are legal. It is a question of will, of your will. Perhaps it is time for platforms to change the message they transmit about the experience of traveling to Barcelona.”
A few days ago, the Catalan Federation of Tourist Apartments organized a debate to combat a few myths that it considered unfair. There they maintained that complaints about the inconvenience that these accommodations cause are few, and that the impact of these businesses on the price of housing has nothing to do with what so many people claim. The sector alleges that many tend to filter their guests, that they opt for a family clientele and that they also install sound level meters in their apartments to be aware of any disorder. Furthermore, the number of legal tourist apartments usually active is around 7,500, a ridiculous figure compared to the number of very sporadic and empty homes, which is close to 75,000. The sector also questions the legal viability of the Generalitat decree and predicts that the revocation of licenses will trigger an avalanche of administrative disputes. “What administrations have to do is increase the public housing stock.”
Meanwhile, complaints continue. Like that of some tenants of a property in Bailèn who, they say, live surrounded by legal tourist apartments and their chaos. But they do not want to give more details because they have old rental contracts, and when they complain, the owner of the property tells them that if they are not happy to leave, that then he will activate the dormant licenses he has to convert their homes into more tourist flats.
And the illegal offer is also disturbing. The presidents of the communities of two neighboring properties in Roger de Llúria denounce that highly organized people are renting apartments in the area to divide them with plasterboard, fill them with mattresses and set up clandestine boarding houses. “They deceive the property by pretending to be a very nice family, and then….” “The problem here is not the parties. Couples usually come.” “But the movement of strangers with suitcases generates noise, inconvenience and unrest.” “The elevators are old and can’t keep up.” “The lack of control is total.” The City Council has already opened a file on one of these pensions, and has also started actions in other nearby addresses.
“We are from Vila Olímpica,” says a neighbor of Doctor Trueta. We have a legal apartment with 12 beds. The clients are young people who come to spend a few days of partying. The chaos is total. Once I met a guy on my terrace. And the owner ignores it, he doesn’t even live in the city. He has a telephone to report incidents, but calling there is of no use. He doesn’t listen to us, we estimate that he earns more than 400 euros a day! We tried to raise the community fees and he sued us. I continually call the Urban Police, I have audio recordings of what is heard in my house, we have reported it up to 26 times in the last seven years, but they always tell us that the apartment has a license.”
