ROME – Every evening without fail, 74-year-old Simonetta Marcellini places three buckets of water by her window before going to bed.

They aren’t for her plants or to drink. They are to use on the Brits or Americans who shout loudly below her apartment in Trastevere, a popular district of Rome.

“At first I’m polite, and I point out to them that it is the early hours of the morning and that people will be sleeping,” Marcellini tells The i Paper. “I point out everything that might be going on inside the buildings, and all the difficulties that families living on these streets might face. Some get up early in the morning to go to work, some have a sick relative at home, some have babies, all of which must be respected.”

She adds: “The moment they start arguing back and insulting me, I pour water on them.”

Marcellini is one of a number of residents in the neighbourhood who have taken to emptying containers of water onto people they describe as “extremely drunk”. Born and raised in the area, the former medical radiographer is tired of seeing how much her home has changed as a result of mismanagement and badly behaved tourists.

She claims the quality of her once-favourite restaurants have dropped, blacksmiths and greengrocers have been replaced with bars and sandwich shops, and venues with outdoor tables and seats have multiplied. Almost half the area’s residents have moved out over the past decade.

It was seeing tourists urinating against her building — the place she was born and where her parents lived — that prompted Marcellini to take further action. In 2019, she created , a group now consisting of around a thousand local residents. Members meet regularly, usually to discuss how to make their area more liveable.

In 2025, driven in part by the Vatican’s jubilee celebrations, Rome welcomed 22.9 million visitors, more than seven times the city’s population. Local reports suggest that number will be even higher in 2026. The same pressure is being felt across Italy, where 256 million overnight stays were recorded this summer, the highest figure since records began.

“Life has gotten much worse for us in terms of tourism since Covid-19,” says Marcellini of her area. “Regulations are fewer and our complaints from years ago were underestimated. So a phenomenon that could have been controlled was practically left unchecked and we’ve arrived today with all the reckless partying.”

What is happening in Italy is part of a wider European pushback against the impact of overtourism. In Spain, residents have soaked tourists with water pistols and marched through the streets, protesting against rising costs pushing out locals.

In Barcelona, residents have demonstrated against the planned expansion of the city’s airport, which could see passenger numbers rise from 55 million a year to 70 million by 2038. And, on Saturday, demonstrators marched in the Canary Islands, demanding action from authorities to relieve the strain on roads, airports and other infrastructure caused by overtourism.

Popular European tourist spots are struggling to balance the economic gains with the strain it places on locals. Bad tourist behaviour only increases the tensions.

While incidents involving British tourists on holiday in Italy are relatively rare, they do happen. Last September, a 35-year-old British man and his Romanian girlfriend were caught jumping into Venice’s Grand Canal. They were fined €450 (£385) each and banned from the city’s historic centre for 48 hours.

In August 2025, a 60-year-old British hiker was charged the equivalent of £12,187 after being rescued in the Dolomites, after ignoring rockslide warnings and entering a closed and dangerous area. And in 2023, Englishman Ivan Dimitrov was accused of using a key to carve his name and his girlfriend’s name into the walls of the Colosseum. He later apologised to Rome’s mayor.

Around an hour’s flight from Rome, in the north-western Sardinian city of Alghero, Giovanni Pau is on the fence about the benefits of tourism. He says that while he appreciates people coming to explore his home, an incident in July made him think twice.

“I was sitting in a bar getting my coffee,” he tells The i Paper. “Outside the bar across from me there was a group of around four to five people, Britons, who were drinking spritz and beers and speaking very loudly. It was only 11am.”

Pau says they weren’t acting aggressively, and it was the only instance he has seen of Britons acting untoward, but he couldn’t help feeling alarmed and wondering if it was the start of a new normal.

Alghero is one of Sardinia’s main hotspots for British holidaymakers, with budget airlines such as easyJet and Ryanair operating frequent flights.

Sardinia is also the region of Italy with the highest growth in tourist inflows, according to the National Institute of Statistics. That growth has prompted a visible response from some locals.

Anti-tourist flyers featuring the slogan “Tourists Get Out” have appeared in the city’s centre, prompting a response from Marco Di Gangi, the local tourism manager for the Brothers of Italy party.

“In recent years, an increasingly hostile attitude towards tourism, hospitality and those who invest in the accommodation sector has gradually spread,” Di Gangi told journalists in June. “This is a sector that should be managed intelligently, not demonised for ideological convenience.”

He said Sardinia needs rules, planning and quality of provision, “not campaigns of hate”.

In Venice, the frustration is less about unruly behaviour from Britons and more about residents feeling their lives have become part of the tourist experience.

Jane da Mosto, who has lived in the city for three decades and is the co-founder of We Are Here Venice, says tour guides are increasingly taking visitors into residential areas in search of “real Venetian life”.

She adds: “Venice shouldn’t become a human zoo.”

Da Mosto also finds the attention invasive, particularly while running ordinary errands.

“It’s upsetting when I come out of my house in the morning and there are guided tours looking at me as I step out of my house taking out the rubbish,” she says. “When I am at the market buying vegetables and people are looking at me.”

Venice now has more beds available for visitors than beds occupied by residents, reflecting the city’s changing demographic. For Da Mosto, the changes are very noticeable. The bank next to her home has become a bar where people drink from morning until late at night.

“The thinking needs to start from the residents,” she says. “The Venetians should be making Venice.”

Back in Trastevere, Marcellini still keeps her buckets by the window.

In many ways, the water is less about the tourists themselves, but more what their behaviour represents – a feeling that the neighbourhood she has called home all her life is increasingly difficult to live in.

For now, Marcellini says, until the authorities do something, the buckets are staying put.