Sandy, you’re making a lot of assumptions about our travel plans and my interaction with the host that just aren’t the case. I was not a demanding guest. I never asked him to change his times, I was never rude or inconsiderate.
There was no check-in or out time in the listing. My fault completely for not checking with them first. I own that completely. I will never ever book again without verifying this in advance.
We are not arriving with 6-8 hours to check in, but rather 2 hours. The arrival time of 3pm, we could work with. Yes, we arrive a few hours prior to check in, but I told the host it was no problem that we would just take our time leaving the airport, have lunch nearby in the neighborhood, no issue at all.
The problem arose with check-out, which is at 9 am, quite early I think. Our flight is not until 5pm. I asked the host for suggestions on this issue and he told me the time was not flexible and he couldn’t recommend anything to me. I wasn’t demanding in any way. I didn’t ask for him to change the time, or to hold our bags for the day, but just to give his advice to us on what to do with our bags. He refused to assist. This started sending up red flags to me because in his listing he said he was happy to offer advice on the area, on transportation, any questions we had, he would help. Had he mentioned the possibility of keeping the place for longer and paying for extra time, as you mentioned, I would have happily done it. But he refused to even discuss any options or advice at all.
The more we looked into the problem of what to do with our luggage, the more I realized that another option would be better for us. I checked the cancellation policy and it was set for moderate, allowing cancellations for up to 5 days out. Well, I would never wait that long. That would be putting a host in a really tight spot, I know that so I cancelled immediately with 23 days left. It wasn’t done lightly or on a whim. I’m sorry for inconveniencing him and told him so. But I didn’t feel comfortable with the arrangement. And by the way, I had booked at 25 days out, so he only lost 2 days of listing time.
He became irate and frankly irrational. At first he threatened to post the private information if I didn’t reconfirm my reservation. I explained that this wasn’t going to work out. Then he said that he had posted the information in various host sites to make sure that no one would work with such a despicable person ever again. He sent me close to 20 crazy messages today, calling me all sorts of names and threatening me.
I have never encountered anything like this before. We have lived in Europe for several years and have stayed in rentals, homes, hotels, b&b’s and have never come across anyone like this. That’s why I posted here. I wanted to see if anyone else had had a similar issue or advice on how to handle it. I don’t need someone to bend over backwards for me, that’s ridiculous. I never implied that to the host or in my original post here either. But I do expect for hosts not to go ballistic when a guest cancels a reservation over 3 weeks prior to the arrival, which much longer than their minimum, and not to plaster their personal information online either.