To expect a full refund minus one night from this Air BnB host? Air BnB experts help please!!!

Moral of the story is don’t use air B &B.

As above, new England & Wales legislation means you have to have keyless exit in short-term lets (it's not an AirBnB thing). Also must have fire resistant doors, however these aren't necessarily the soft-close heavy fire doors you see in offices, these just have to hold a fire back for 30 minutes, so typically a normal 40mm timber door that many houses/flats have as standard.

new rules brought in last year mean, yes, you do need to have fire doors that isolate rooms from others where a fire is likely to break out.
So bedrooms, and kitchen, but not bathrooms, in any holiday let

How exactly did the lock not work? Was it with a key or code?

I don’t think you have to have fire doors etc by law on air b and b? And I don’t think there’s any rules about how a door locks. I assume key or card or code is fine as long as it actually locks safely.
Unless that’s a British law on short stays in general

I think she only wanted what she was offered & then paid for!
I don't think OP is expecting anything she hasn't bought!

I think AirBNB scan for key words in complaints, with safety being a major red flag for them. I private messaged a host to let him know that the lack of mat backing on a slippy hall mat was 'a bit dangerous' and immediately got an incomprehensible urgent contact from AirBNB to help resolve my personal safety issues. Other than the mat, the stay was fantastic and it took a bizarre amount of arguing from me to reassure the 'specialist customer support team' that actually it was a perfectly safe flat...

Have you got photos of the lock not working? Did you check that it was compliant with fire regulations (main fire escape door should be keyless, fire doors on bedrooms, linked smoke detectors in bedrooms, etc). I would stress how unsafe you and your DD felt.

Some of those issues are out if the owners control - noisy neighbours, roundabout etc.and the area. However, the unsafe lock and smell are not acceptable. The only thing I’d say is that you didn’t give the hosts a chance to rectify the situation before leaving.

The key is the non working lock op
that is your hook

I hope you didn’t mention the noisy roundabout op
because that will be immediately ignored in an case

Wouldn't matter if it was £5 a night in Knightsbridge, the door still needs to lock properly.

Lack of a working lock and the door issue is material. For that you should get a refund I think.

Even though I think you should not have used Air BnB in the first place, and helping to price people out of a home in London.

A flat can be 'lovely' and 'cosy' yet still be on a busy roundabout in an undesirable area, so I wouldn't focus on that in your complaint - the broken door lock, yes; the smell, yes; and if it differed materially from the photos (which I don't think you've said it does?).

Did the flat meet fire safety rules? Namely keyless exit (thumbturn lock), interlinked smoke alarms in every room except bathroom (i.e. one goes off, they all do), fire risk assessment on property? If it didn't, that would seriously help your case for a refund.

That rotten, 'not quite damp but sort of but really rank' smell sounds very like broken drains/raw sewage thats sat a while!

Where you may struggle is you should give the host chance to fix things like a nasty stench or broken lock.. and you haven't. However they do favour the customer so fingers x!

I'm a host,on quite a few host forums. Air BnB mostly side with the guest no matter what, so if you get refused a refund keep trying.

The safety aspect of the door not closing is the key thing here. Stress 'safety' a lot. Did it have a key free main door? By law it should( as well as smoke alarms in every room) If it didn't again that's a safety issue.

Less than £100 a night is incredibly cheap anywhere, but especially London. It means the host is charging £85 a night as the rest is fees that go straight to Air BnB. But you should still expect a safe environment.

Don't threaten them with a bad review if you don't get a refund. This is the one and only sure fire way your review won't be published. Don't review now, it won't show up for 2 weeks anyway unless the host reviews you.

@Iamthemoom word of caution, do not threaten the host with a bad review if they don't refund as this won't go down well with Air BnB and could compromise the refund process.

You only get 14 days to review, don't let that period lapse.

You won’t be able to if a case is ongoing

Yes but according to what I've seen on the forums it looks like they tend to side with the guest on that one. Sounds like you've done everything you need to. Was it a damp smell?

It's London.

I don't think you can really complain that the flat was on a busy roundabout, there was noise outside, or the neighbours were noisy.

That's just life, and it always amazes me when people think they are entitled to a refund for things like this.

Also, £2k for 22 nights in London. £90 per night. It also amazes me when people pay for something cheap yet expect perfection and complain about it.

Yes the issue here was that you chose to stay although as a host I would have offered a partial refund if the guest chose to stay. You can't expect a full refund if you're still there unfortunately.