Surviving a home invasion in Costa Rica. And how Airbnb is doing nothing to make it safer.
This is my account, as true as I can make it. As I have told this story, Townsend has said some of what I say didn’t happen as he saw it, and vice versa. Sometimes, my facts don’t line up perfectly with how the kids say they remember it. This is truthfully how I remember it, though, without any exaggeration or embellishment, because what would be the point in that?
It was day 3 out of 20 of our trip. The first day had been spent flying in, getting the rental car, and a quick dinner in an apartment followed by bed. The second day was spent meeting our friends that we would travel with, and then driving to our first shared Airbnb on the coast between Quepos and Jaco.
We spent that 3rd day hiking in Jaco, feeling like we were finally on vacation with our friends and grocery shopping. That evening at our Airbnb we made an Aiden-approved meal for our families. Dinner was eaten, the dishes cleaned and put away, and the 5 older kids playing hide and seek. Manny and Mirella were putting their youngest daughter to bed; Townsend and I were outside in the hammocks. I had a book in my hand, unread because we were laughing at the fact that I couldn’t get the swing right in the hammock. It was the most relaxed I had been in a very long time. One of our friends’ daughters, Olivia, was outside with us on the hammocks because it was her turn to count for the game. We were “in” for the night, so the front gate was locked and we were completely fenced in, and my guard was completely down.
The men came from behind me; I heard the yelling first. There were two of them, wearing black clothes, black masks that covered everything but their eyes, with a gun pointed at Townsend and a gun pointed at me. My brain couldn’t make sense of the pure happiness and relaxation I had just felt with this scene of terror developing in front of my eyes. Why can’t I stand up fast enough? Why do I feel like my foot is stuck in the ropes of the hammock? Later on, Olivia told me she thought Townsend and I jumped up quickly, but it certainly didn’t feel that way to me then. I was stuck moving in slow motion.
I immediately put Olivia behind me. Then, I started screaming. Manny and Mirella and the other children were inside and my only thought was that if I could get Manny’s attention, he’d see me out the window and he could get the other 5 kids to safety. So I screamed. He didn’t hear me, though; he was putting Cami to bed and because the kids had been so loud playing their game, he and Mirella had turned the noise maker up to the loudest setting.
Levi heard me screaming, though, and he looked out the window from the stairs. He saw the masked man holding a gun toward me and knew he had to hide. He turned to Emma and Ryder and told them to follow him and then he bounded up the stairs, Emma on his heels. Ryder, who had been on the couch hiding for the game, heard my screams, heard Levi say he had to run and then fear made him freeze. Accidentally, in all the confusion Levi and Emma went separate ways when they got up the stairs, and ended up hiding in different rooms.
During this time, the gunmen motioned with their guns for me and Townsend to stand together, with Olivia still behind my back. One kept his gun on us, while the other went inside, where he found Ryder frozen with fear. He pointed his gun straight at Ryder’s face and kept it there for a long time, screaming at him in a language Ryder doesn’t know. Ryder says he couldn’t hear him anyway. With his hands up in the air, looking at the gun straight on, all sound stopped- the movie playing on the TV went silent, the dogs’ (who lived there on the property) barking went silent, and so did the man’s screaming. Somehow, though, Ryder heard Townsend’s voice calmly calling to him over the masked man’s shoulder. Townsend was asking Ryder to slowly come outside and stand next to us, and he did.
I can not accurately describe what it felt like to see that look on Ryder’s face. To see a gun pointed in his face. To see a man whose eyes look unhinged hold my child’s life in his hands. Why has he kept his finger on the trigger!? He clearly has us where he wants us; why won’t he just move his finger off the trigger to avoid an accident!?
Once Ryder was to me, we all walked inside, hands in the air with my hands on both Ryder and Olivia. At this point I have no idea what the men want. They are screaming non-stop in Spanish, but duo lingo did not prepare me for this! My first fear is human trafficking and in the house with us we have 6 children, our 3 boys and their 3 girls. And I’m sick with fear that these men want them. So, in my headspace I am preparing to do whatever I have to do to keep these beautiful children safe. I have a quick thought that I hope one of us 4 adults survive so that the kids are not stranded in Costa Rica by themselves. Luckily, I trust Manny and Mirella with my kids as much as I’d trust anyone.
Aiden and Levi are still nowhere to be seen. Manny and Mirella are walking downstairs with Cami and Emma, a gun pointed at their backs. Mirella sees my face and must read my thoughts because she grabs my arm, looks me in the eye and says “They only want our money”. My heart broke at her words, that is the only way I know how to describe how I felt. Just our money.
Immediately, my mind shifted. These men are going to search the house for our stuff with guns in their hands and fingers on the triggers and Levi and Aiden are still hiding. What if they startle one of the men and he accidentally shoots!? I suddenly NEED to put my arms around Levi and Aiden like I have never needed anything before. I plead with one of the men, the larger, more “unhinged” looking man that I think might be the one in charge. I have my hands in a prayer pose, what I’m hoping is the universal sign for pleading, I look him straight in the eyes and I plead “Please, please, my kids are still hiding. Let me go find them so you don’t accidentally hurt one.”
At this time, it is pure chaos inside the house. The men are yelling, the 2 useless-against-an-armed-robber dogs are barking nonstop, the TV is loud. If Ryder had everything go silent for him, sound seemed to be amplified for me. The unhinged man looked at me while I am begging, and I saw only hatred in his eyes. He clearly didn’t understand what I was asking for, and I was really bothering him. Up until that moment in my life, I hadn’t known
real hatred. The kind you can see in someone’s eyes, burning. Luckily, Mirella translated for me, and his eyes actually soften just a bit as he comprehends what I am asking.
The men put Olivia, Emma, Cami, and Ryder in the downstairs bathroom, which is where we find Aiden; he had been hiding under the sink. The masked men have Townsend stand on the stairs and call for Levi to come down. The bigger man had already walked up the stairs and had found Levi hiding in the laundry room behind the washer. I see Levi walking down the stairs, arms up, with a gun pointed to the back of his head, with a look on his face that screams he is beyond pissed at these men….and if he was just a little bit bigger he’d fight….thank God, he didn’t fight. We get all 6 kids in the bathroom, I shut the bathroom door and lean against it and for the first time during this ordeal I actually believe the men do not want to hurt my kids. The kids were as “safe” as I could get them at that moment and my knees went weak and my heart exploded with relief.
After this, time seems to blur. I remember facts and events, but not necessarily what order they go in. I remember the smaller man pointing a gun at Mirella, while the bigger man had a gun on Townsend and Manny. The man was yelling at Mirella and she nodded and then began to lift up her shirt. All the relief I just felt getting the kids to safety was replaced with a new kind of fear and my heart plummeted. Why was Mirella being so complacent? She’s a fighter, what is she doing? And why is Manny just standing there?
“What are you doing, Mirella!?” She turns to me and says “Oh! He says he’s not going to touch us, but he needs to see that you don’t have a weapon.” What a difference one sentence can make. So I pick up my shirt as well, and spin as he yelled in Spanish and Mirella translated for me. Where did he think we’d have guns? Our PJ shorts? And if we did, wouldn’t we have used them by now?
As soon as they are sure we are unarmed, the bigger man starts demanding our passports, which were locked in a safe. He also demanded entry into the safe. Did we mention there was a safe? Or did they already know that?
The next bit is a blur: us looking for the keys for the safe, one of the men taking Manny upstairs to the safe while the other keeps a gun on us downstairs. They demand all backpacks, purses, wallets, etc. and it takes awhile to find all of these things in the house. They separate us adults; one man takes Townsend and Mirella to search the house, while the other stays with me and Manny. At one point, I remember the bigger guy yelling at the other guy and the other guy’s response was for him to recock his gun and point it at me. The bigger man “checks” on our kids often; to make sure they are not up to something, and to make sure no one snuck in a phone.
At some point, I was on the stairs (though I can’t remember why) and the bigger man and Mirella are on the stairs too. The bigger man was pointing the gun at me and one of the stray dogs who lived there was near me. The dog was not barking or growling or acting like any of this was anything more serious than a game. But the man looked at this dog and hated him, and then he kicked the dog in the middle so hard that the dog flew up in the air a bit off the ground and hit my legs with enough force to push me into the wall. Why? The dog had been there the whole time; if he was going to attack or defend us in any way he would have done so by now. It felt like he knew this dog (at some point we move this dog into the bathroom with the kids so he wouldn’t be subjected to any more abuse-plus he helped keep Ryder calm, who was panicking in the bathroom).
Everything the men yelled to us, had to be translated by Manny and Mirella. I will take a moment and thank God that we had them there with us, even as I also feel an immense guilt that their children were subjected to this because of us. Having their demands translated kept the gunmen much calmer than when we didn’t understand what they were saying.
As everything had to be translated, I am not 100% sure of anything they said with certainty. But based on what I was being told then in the moment, and later, is that these men hated Americans. There was a moment when the smaller one told Manny “they didn’t have any beef against Mexicans”. They also asked Mirella about the surf boards that were there and she answered that they belonged to the host, so they didn’t take them. In fact, they took NOTHING that belonged to the host. Why? Was it because they couldn’t carry them? Or is the host in on this too?
And here is the hardest part of the story for me to admit-the part I think about omitting because it paints me in a not-so-great light, but I said I’d be honest. At a time, Mirella and I are standing with the smaller man, the less “unhinged” one, and he suddenly starts screaming about the guard (there was guard who lived nearby who was supposed to show up at 11pm and occasionally make rounds until 4am-we were not told about this guard prior to arrival, and it was not advertised on the Airbnb post). The gunman says they are here for the guard, they are going to kill him and he deserves what he gets; they are going to tie him up and drop him off the bridge. He points a gun at me and demands to know the location of the guard. And my brain, which is searching frantically for a reason to comprehend why all of this is happening, because what kind of person would endanger the lives of 6 children for a couple hundred dollars, believes him. And I sell the guard out. “You see the building back there? Green roof? That’s his place. By all means, go, leave me and my children alone and settle your feud with this man (who may or may not be innocent)”. He points the gun at me again and says “I know he’s here! Where?” With my hands in the air I say “No! He’s not!” Did he want the guard? No. It was a tactic to see if we had anyone in the house and I fell for it. I gave him the answer he wanted, and sold out a potentially innocent man in the process. With help from my therapist since, I can now admit I would have given any information about anyone to get my kids away from the gunmen with fingers on triggers and hate in their eyes, including myself. If the gunman had demanded Townsend or I go with him and the others would stay behind, I would have done it for the kids. But between this moment and the therapist helping me move on, this scenario played over and over in my head as I had insane guilt and shame.
The whole thing lasted between 45 minutes and an hour, which is way too long. At some point, the fear starts to trickle away, the survival instinct fades, and all that’s left in its place is anger and rage. I could see it happening to Townsend; his facial expressions changing, his fists starting to ball up by his side. Luckily, that was when the gunmen decided that had searched enough and found all they were going to find.
They wanted to lock all 10 of us in the bathroom downstairs. Now is a good time to add that there is no A/C in the main parts of the house and it is HOT. Manny pleads with the men that it is too hot in there for all 10 of us; one of his kids is prone to anxiety attacks; we haven’t fought them, and we aren’t going to start now; we won’t chase after them. Miraculously, they listen. They tell me to set an alarm on my watch for 20 minutes and tell us not to move out of the bathroom. IF we call the cops, they’ll know and they give a series of other threats that Manny didn’t bother translating- we got the picture.
So the 10 of us (plus a stray dog) stay in the bathroom for 20 minutes. We decide we can’t leave that night because the rain is pouring outside and the streets are unlit and unsafe, plus we have nowhere to go. We also decide that we don’t trust anyone- not the cops, the Airbnb host, or the guard, because someone KNEW we were here. Someone KNEW about the safe, someone KNEW we had a bunch of kids and wouldn’t risk their lives by fighting back.
After the 20 minutes, all 10 of us headed upstairs. Mirella and I try to get the kids to sleep while Townsend and Manny stay up all night on guard, with a coconut machete as the only weapon.
Ryder was inconsolable; he couldn’t calm down. Luckily, his aunt Casy had worked as a victim’s advocate and was trained to help in situations like these, so I called her, quickly told her what happened, and she went to work with Ryder on the phone for an hour and somehow got him from a level 10 panic to a 4 and he was able to eventually get some sleep.
Early the next morning we set about trying to pack, trying to find a place to go, trying to get our kids to think about anything else (ice cream for breakfast, anyone??). We needed sleep and safety before we could make any big decisions- and miraculously, Manny found a place for us to go that was the exact opposite of the kind of place we were at. He found a 6 bedroom penthouse suite in a small, posh boutique resort, with employees and a guard 24/7, filled with other tourists.
The masked gunmen got away with $650 cash, some costume jewelry, a camera, and a case of beer.
Here is what makes me so angry and the reason I am writing this story: the house is back on Airbnb and we are all kept from leaving a review. I was told, with all the reason to believe them, that the house would never be on Airbnb again, that the host was done. I was asked to not say anything on Airbnb while they figure everything out and get the problem solved. And then they put the house back up and with a 4.92 rating! And since I canceled my stay there, I can not leave a review. I can not let anyone know what happened to us there, I can warn NO ONE!
What if this is not the first time this has happened? What if this is a recurring thing and just didn’t know because they couldn’t leave a review!? It is entirely possible. I am so mad at Airbnb for taking this so lightly. I am so mad at the host, who had nothing of his stolen or damaged. And there seems to be nothing I can do, except to tell you all about it. And provide you with a picture of the house and to tell you to stay away because it is not safe! But it just doesn’t seem like it is enough…..
