Property great but the host was the worst!

I decided to escape from the headache of the everyday world and hide away, with my children, in the sanctity of a waterfall-laden, mountain paradise. Unfortunately, the host had plenty of headaches waiting for us. I am still bewildered that the host would be staying on the property at all, lest supervising my stay and commenting on my parenting. Check in was at 4pm. We asked if we could check in early, but were denied because the cleaning crew would not be ready before 4pm. Our travels put us at the property at 2:17pm. I decided to wait out the maids by my truck while my kids played down by the creek.

Thirty minutes later I get a call from my wife (back home) over a scathing email about how we were in the house when we were not supposed to be, and that I was reckless with my children’s safety.
The host actually went as far as to point out that this was a “scolding”, as if I were a child.
I would like to point out that saying that we went into the house was actually the second lie.
The first lie was that there were maids who we were waiting on. The truth was that there was no reason not to let us check in at 2:17pm, other than he/she/it was pissed off. (Never met or spoke)
I never set foot in the house, nor did I get the chance to let VRBO know that my wife was going to join us the next day, or that it required bringing our dog (which was listed OK on the site). All of this happened before 3:45! I knocked on the door of the house (where my kids saw the person) but there was no answer.

Evidently it was much easier to secretly watch us and email my wife. We went home because it pissed me off and creeped out my kids. I would have never booked if I knew the property would be occupied. (No matter how nice they could have been) Now the host is keeping our money because of all of the "rules we broke" by my children going to the creek while I waited at my truck for 4:00 to arrive. There was a very wordy and condescending email telling me how I should learn a lesson from this.

Aug. 21, 2021