[yardie]

I apologise. When I've retold the story other peoples' responses are simply "contact AirBnB" as if that wasn't the first thing we did. We eventually found a place for the night, resolved the issue with AirBnB (though weeks later), and promised to do a little more forethought into our next rental.

[mikeash]

That's OK, and I'm glad you got your housing trouble figured out. AirBnB definitely should be prepared to handle problems like this right away, but I can't say I'm too surprised that they don't.