Chiara572
I am happy to refund people that cancelled in advance or a few hours after the reservation, but when the guest stay in the apartment this is a direct cost for us.
I had a similar situation with one of my returning guest who slept one night at my apartment, she replied the next morning that everything was going great during the stay....but 6 days later (2 days before her original check out, it was a 8 nights booking) she wrote me telling me that she didn't sleep in the apartment, ?? (weird, because she replied the next day saying that everything was great...!! ) and because her work was cancelled so she needed a full refund... Airbnb asked me to refund her and I declined because of the late notice. They respected my decision at the beginning, but a few days after I received a second message informing that they refunded her fully the stay, making me responsible for the costs of cleaning and the empty nights.
Especially these days it was very frustrating and I complained twice about this. They rejected my complaints, but after more than 7 messages of dealing with customer service, they accepted to refund me first the cleaning and finally until the 6th day, as she didn't give me an opportunity to offer the place to other guests, letting me know so late about her cancellation....
It's hard and extremely unfair, but I would like to recommend you to continue reclaiming this, at least to cover the expenses that you had from this booking. As is just illogical to make you fully responsible for this, it must have a balance.
All the best
Beatrix