To everyone who has constructively offered great suggestions, HUGE thanks. Apologies to those who were confused. I was very stressed as i’m sure you can understand, hence the lack of clarity.
To explain, it was not my keys. It was their keys. They decided they wanted to house sit permanently and so gave up their flat. They decided this after confirming my sit. They had to hand the keys to their flat back and wanted me to come home early from holiday to do so.
They weren’t prepared to change the key handover date, or one of them
hop on a train. essentially they weren’t offering any flex, but expecting me to. I was potentially about to lose money on a holiday and didn’t think of a dog walker or such like. I don’t have neighbours to call on.
There were numerous red flags with cancelled calls etc and this was the last straw.
Thanks again for everyone’s help, i’ve got some super useful tips should i be in need again.
Thankfully I now have a sitter, having proactively contacted lots of people on the site.