Antonio and Maria’s Happy Home Invasion
Long before “the sharing economy” took the Internet by storm, an ailing German adventurer and a benevolent Spanish couple sparked a forty-year experiment in ad-hoc hospitality.
![](https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/w_5760,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fc0cc6b14-b6ff-447e-b6b4-9376750517c9_1280x720.jpeg)
Illustration by Marnie Galloway
In the midst of last year’s oppressive Spanish summer, as heat shimmered across sidewalks baked bare of pedestrians, I found myself standing at the nondescript door of a house in suburban Madrid. I rang the buzzer and was ushered into a book-lined home where I could stay for free — for a week, for a month, even for a whole year if I chose.
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