Need Safety Door Locks for Italy trip?

Well, 90% of what you say advertised on Facebook you do not need - that’s just one of the r idea of life.

I have never bothered to use these. I do have a friend who is a flight attendant and she does use these everywhere she goes - It just depends on your comfort level.

I don’t know about Airbnbs since my first stay in one was so disappointing that it was also my last. Having said that, some apartment owners or managers list their rentals there as well as on VRBO, with Booking.com and on other similar listing sources as well. You might be able to see the insides of the doors in their pictures to have an idea of their security features.

I'm now a solo traveler well over 70 and I've rented apartments in Rome near the Vatican, Venice facing Cemetery Island and Florence across the street from Santa Croce. (The last was actually with my husband.) In all cases the apartments were in very old yet very secure buildings. The security methods were similar but not exactly the same.

The Rome apartment had an outside key/lock door on the ground floor. My apartment was on the 2nd floor. It had a multiple key/lock setup.

The Venice one had an outside key/lock door on the ground floor and a key/lock metal gate a few steps inside. My apartment was on the 1st floor with a typical heavy keyed deadbolt lock. The owners lived on the 2nd floor.

The Florence one had an outside key/lock door on the ground floor, but it was usually left open by the other residents in the building. Our apartment was on the 1st floor. It had a key/lock metal gate on a landing a few steps below the one where the door to our apartment was. The apartment itself also had a typical heavy keyed deadbolt lock.

In spite of all the security, I usually put a chair in front of the door of any apartment (or hotel room) I stay in. It seems silly and it needs to be done in a way that I can easily move it to get out in case of an emergency, but it makes me feel a wee bit more comfortable.

I don’t know what gizmo you're talking about, but there's no guarantee that it would work on your apartment doors either for security or easy egress in an emergency. Amazon has so many different kinds, I'd have no clue which portable door lock to choose. 🤔

I’ve stayed in many vac rentals in Italy, and am always amazed by the heavy duty locks on the doors!
Generally you have to turn the mortise lock key two or three times to lock and unlock the actual doors into the apartment, and there will be a Yale keyed lock as well.
Sometimes, yes, the locking door at street level is left open by other residents, but if some burglar wants to climb up three or four floors on sometimes narrow uneven marble stairs to steal my stuff, I would be amazed!
I wouldn’t buy a special locking device.
I also put a chair in front of the door at night, and always close and lock every window overnight and when I’m out
I carry a shrieking personal alarm too.
I’ve heard some people hang a cup or mug on the door handle so the noise of it dropping if someone tried to get in would scare them off.
In my world it would drop off by itself and frighten me first for no good reason.

My parents’ condo in Florence, and all their neighbors had doors with metal inside with locking systems that in the US only bank vaults have. I bet your host will have something similar because most Italians have heavy duty doors like that. Whatever you find in Facebook will probably be laughable compared to the locking system that your AirBnB apartment is likely to have already.

My question is how effecient will you be at getting that unlatched (it's quite fiddly) and then managed the multiple locks on the door if you have to evacuate in a hurry? A simple rubber doorstop could be just as effective, but you could be kicking that out of your way at the same time as managing the multiple turns and locks.

My twenty-something daughter got one after her trip to Portugal and cleaning person (a large man) walked into her air bnb w/o notice. She takes it everywhere, in the US too.