Intimidating host making unreasonable demands. What are my options? [Italy]
Booked an Airbnb a while ago that starts tomorrow and the host started messaging me yesterday on WhatsApp demanding that I cancel the booking. Some messages were even written 2 am that were deleted before I saw them. I refused because it's on hosts to cancel and I didn’t want to lose money or protection.
I contacted Airbnb support and sent them screenshots of the messages. After that, the host deleted all the WhatsApp messages, and now Airbnb support is telling me they contacted the host and the host says they do not want to actually cancel, so the booking will remain active.
The problem is that I now feel really uncomfortable and honestly intimidated about staying there after all this. If the host was trying to pressure me into cancelling before, I’m worried about what happens when I actually arrive since I bluntly refused their requests.
What are my options here? Has anyone dealt with something similar? I’m worried that if I cancel myself now, I’ll lose a lot of money but Airbnb is refusing to cancel it themselves.
Any advice appreciated.
PS! Sorry for the vague title, automod unfairly removed my post with a more detailed title.