Hi @Catherine-and-Bob0. I do hope you have recovered from your Christmas, which started a bit tense.
As @Sarah977 and @Emilia42 & @Kelly149 have iterated, you as the host have the power over your calendar, as do the rest of us.
It sounds like you could have snoozed the listing for a few days, making your listing “not visible” publically, or as I usually do, I decide when I do or don’t want guests if I’m otherwise caught up with family, then block a period of the calendar. By increasing your minimum days during this period and limiting the days open, you limit public viewings.
Guests putting in specific dates that include ones you’ve blocked, shouldn’t see the listing, so they can’t contact you.
Guests who want a short weekend stay can’t book if you were to increase your minimum stay say for example to seven days.
Guests can’t book and show up at the last minute with limited notification, if you set your booking to a two days notice requirement. This in a worse case scenario, has a technical meaning of one day. (too hard to explain).
I also have my calendar closed by default. Only opened manually, a couple of months ahead at a time - because that works best for me and my sanity. It also stops cancellations happening infinitum.
Your health and well being far outweighs your ABB response time. Airbnb’s computer bot would struggle to change response times across different global, seasonal events.
Please do take care of yourself and make the changes that suit your needs. Take a breather.....
You’re the boss of your space. Be brave enough to experiment.
Make the changes that suit YOUR personal needs, until you are ready to take on the world again, then alter as you desire. 💐
take care.. 😊🌸