Following an amazing first AirBnB experience in Hawaii earlier this year, I was so impressed that I thought I would book a room in London for Friday and Saturday night for my husband’s birthday. I planned many surprises, including kayaking up the Thames from Richmond. I decided to book with Heather and following confirmation, several texts and AirBnB messages were exchanged. I explained that we would be late as we would be setting off on Friday after work, around 7pm, from Norfolk and it would be a 4-hour drive. To be conservative, I suggested that we would arrive around 11:30/12 midnight. She said that was no problem and she suspected that she would be awake. I asked if we could store our kayaks somewhere more secure (garage or back garden) so they weren’t on our vehicle overnight. Heather said it would be fine to put them in her back garden which put my mind at ease. On the day of check-in I texted Heather to tell her we had set off to arrive by 11:30pm. She replied saying she was working the next day and wouldn’t be awake and that she lived in a terrace of houses. I panicked a bit because she hadn’t said she wouldn’t be around for our arrival or to show us our room. I knew it would be dark and would be potentially difficult to find her place because her whole neighbourhood was made up of terrace houses. After walking along her street in the dark I found her address and I let myself in. When I walked in the ground floor was completely dark. Lights were on upstairs and I heard footsteps so I said ‘hello?’. Heather came down the stairs and shouted at me that she had an early morning and had to get to bed. Flustered, I said I was sorry for disturbing her but I had heard footsteps. She came down the steps, obviously greatly annoyed with me, and handed me the key for the back gate so we could put the kayaks away. I went back out to our vehicle and broke into tears, apologising to my husband for choosing such an uncomfortable arrangement for his birthday weekend. Sunday morning we planned to sleep in until 10am when Heather said we could have breakfast but at 9am she decided it to turn on extremely loud music downstairs (which she admitted was to get us to leave!). This behaviour took us by surprise as the email confirmation it explicitly stated that check-out was flexible. Upon check-out I felt it would be better to discuss the issues face-to-face even though I felt uncomfortable. When I tried to explain the situation Heather said she didn’t have time to speak. She stated that check-out was at 10am and that it was up to guests to research where the property was and make their own arrangements. Unfortunately, after trying to discuss the issues and meeting a defensive response I felt it important to write a...