Although AirBnB customer service was bad here it seems you also were at fault. They asked for two documents. You didn't want to send one of them over email (understandable). At that point you should have cancelled the rental. Hoping they would get back to you and waive a requirement wasn't a good idea.

Not sure HackerNews is the right place for this. Emailing AirBnb's customer service/complaints department would be better.