I've always wondered about the security bars you frequently see on the windows of homes in Spain. The obvious purpose is security, but they are so ubiquitous, including on the windows of houses in the smallest villages where surely there isn't an ongoing problem of people breaking into homes via the windows.
I'm inclined to think they've simply become an architectural style, and they are put there more for stylistic reasons than the need for safety, but what do I know.
I haven't had an opportunity to discuss it with a Spaniard yet. Other Europeans didn't seem to know, but agreed they don't
do the same thing in their countries.
Anyone else notice the omnipresent barred windows and wondered why they are everywhere?
as has already been mentioned by many, in at least most of the southern European countries and elsewhere (I would venture quais “in all Latin countries”) people use security devices on doors and windows. In Italy few people live without a security door in big cities, though the countryside is different.
The reasons may be many. The Okkupa (squatters) problem in Spain is really felt, often exaggerated if you look at the statistics: e.g. a few cases in Galicia and rural areas. Here were I live is yet unknown de facto.
In Italy, petty crime (muggings, house or car thefts) is more prevalent than in other countries, although violent attacks on random persons are extremely rarer than elsewhere (I am talking about statistics and studies. A legal friend who worked at the university as a researcher dealt with this very topic all his life).
Then there is a cultural fact. In a city where everyone has a security door few people would dare to sleep in a house where all they need to do is smash a pane of glass or kick the door in, because obviously that would become the weak link in the chain.
Either way, if you notice often in rural areas like in Galicia you see isolated houses with their shutters half up. I was told that it is customary to give the impression that the house is inhabited, even if no one is there much of the year. And you often see light bulbs randomly turned on or left on night and day.
It is another example of customs to which everyone conforms even if they are questionable. But Spain, except for big cities like Barcelona is a very safe country in general.
For me at first, when I first moved to the U.S., it was literally shocking to think that in such dangerous country it was normal to live in a house without a security door. My wife was terrified. Then we got used to it, and nothing ever happened to me there or in cities like Sydney or the UK where I lived, usually in semi-detached cottages or terraces.
I have only had two things stolen in my life: two car radios in the car parked in front of the house. In both cases in Cardiff many years ago (in one they found the thief because the daughter of the neighbor across the street had a stalker and put a camera to record everything... quite an unlucky, and stupid thief: the guy went to the police interview with the very same jumper he used that night
). Never a single problem in a city like Rome where I spent more or less 35 years. Or in Santiago de Chile, considered very dangerous (7 years).
