‘Clueless Durban girls’ spend five nights in Ponte City after non-refundable Airbnb booking - IOL

A Durban TikTok creator says she and a friend stayed five nights in Johannesburg’s Ponte City after booking an Airbnb without realising the building’s troubled history.

Tamera Sunny, 25, and her friend travelled to Johannesburg with three other friends for Comic Con.

They had booked a top-floor Airbnb apartment at Ponte Tower, without knowing little about its history or Hillbrow’s reputation.

Sunny said the group only discovered the area’s notorious reputation after the booking was made.

“We planned a girls’ trip, five girls for Comic Con. My friend booked the accommodation.  We did not know Hillbrow was notorious for crime and we did not research Ponte. This was not a publicity stunt. We actually stayed there for five days.”

According to Sunny, the Airbnb listing featured a luxury apartment with floor-to-ceiling views and hundreds of five-star reviews from international guests.

“There was no mention that it was famous worldwide for being one of Joburg's most dangerous buildings in the 80s and 90s,” she said.

She said other members of the group had searched Hillbrow online, and decided to find alternative accommodation.

However, Sunny and her friend, had a non-refundable booking.

“So we said, ‘We will survive and enjoy this experience,’” Sunny said.

The pair continued with their trip, spending their first day at Gold Reef City and two days at Comic Con before settling into the Ponte apartment.

Sunny said she knew almost nothing about Ponte Tower or Hillbrow before the trip.

But after an online search, she learned about Ponte’s history, including its origins as a luxury residential tower during apartheid and its later decline and association with crime and criminal activity.

The building also became recognisable to international audiences through film productions, including District 9 and Resident Evil: The Final Chapter.

“So I was terrified and fangirling at the same time,” Sunny said.

The fears were not limited to the building’s history.

Sunny said the pair joked about the unpredictability of life as a way of dealing with their anxiety.

“I was scared but I also had this morbid thought that we could have died in. a plane crash before we even landed in Joburg, or in a car accident at the airport. Life is uncertain. So our motto became, ‘If it is our time to die, it is our time.’ We laughed, but we meant it.”

Sunny said they took precautions throughout their five nights in Ponte.

The pair imposed a strict evening curfew, ensuring they were back inside by about 6pm or 7pm.

“Two girls driving alone in Hillbrow was a big no,” she said.

They also chose to spend one Saturday night at Masingita Towers in Sandton so they could go out after dark without having to drive back to Hillbrow.

At the apartment, Sunny said they took additional measures to make themselves feel secure.

“Every night we barricaded the door. I put a chair against it with pots and pans on top so if anyone pushed it we would hear it crash - my granny's technique,” she quipped

“Knives on the bedside table. Phone location for family and we never told anyone on the street we were staying in Ponte.”

Her family was particularly concerned after discovering where she was staying.

“My dad was so worried he wanted to take leave from work and come stay with us as security,” Sunny said.

Despite the fears surrounding the building, Sunny said her experience inside Ponte was different from what she had expected.

“I expected graffiti, darkness, scary people in the hallways. But the apartment itself was spotless, modern, beautiful,” she said.

She was also surprised by the security at the building.

“The surrounding streets were clean, security at the entrance was actually insane with  facial recognition, reception, and you cannot just walk in,” she said.

Inside, she encountered families, children and professionals going about their daily lives.

“It was not the apocalypse I was warned about,” Sunny said.

Her arrival, however, still left an impression.

The drive into Hillbrow was “weirdly clean”, she said, before Ponte Tower appeared above the skyline.

“Then you see it,  this massive 173-metre concrete cylinder dominating the skyline. You cannot miss it.”

“54 floors, ancient, slow, they squeak, which is scary. You stand there for ages waiting, doors open and it is just a dark box,” she said.

Walking towards the apartment also brought the building’s history back to mind.

“Right next to you is the core, that open hollow cylinder in the middle where legend says people jumped or were thrown in the 80s and 90s,” Sunny said.

She said she could not stop thinking about the building's troubled past as she walked through it.

The view from their 52nd floor apartment in Ponte Tower.

Once inside their apartment, however, the atmosphere changed.

Sunny said she and her friend spent their evenings watching K-dramas, having dance parties and playing murder-mystery games.

“When you switch off and look out the 52nd floor, all of Joburg is glittering below you, totally silent because you are so high up,” she said.

“Beautiful and eerie at the same time. You feel like you are floating above the city in a tower everyone says you should not be in.”

One of her biggest surprises was seeing how the building had changed over the decades.

“50 years ago this building was pure chaos with gangs, murders, prostitution, the core was a dumping ground for everything, including people and now it is a family building,” she said.

She recalled meeting a resident who was unaware of much of Ponte’s history.

“She just pays rent and lives her life. That resilience surprised me,” Sunny said.

The experience also changed how Sunny viewed the people living in Hillbrow.

She said residents she encountered were simply “normal people” working, studying and raising children.

“They do not walk around thinking about the dark history every day. For them it is just home,” she said.

“It made me realise we judge buildings by their past, but people inside are just trying to live.”

Sunny acknowledged that she did experience a sense of tension outside the building, but said she did not feel that someone was going to attack her while inside Ponte.

The experience eventually became content for Sunny’s TikTok audience, where viewers questioned why she would deliberately choose to spend the night in a building with such a reputation.

But Sunny said the stay was never planned as a stunt.

“Everyone thinks we did it for TikTok views. Little do they know we were just two clueless Durban girls who did not Google Hillbrow before booking a non-refundable Airbnb,” she said.

“We did not chase danger, danger found us because we cannot read maps.”

She said her intention was to document what actually happened rather than manufacture a frightening experience.

For Sunny, the experience became an unexpected lesson in balancing curiosity with caution.

“Life is too short to let fear paralyse you. The world will always have a horror story about every place. Be smart, be safe, but still live,” she said.

“As a creator, the best content is not forced. I did not plan to stay in Joburg's most notorious tower, I planned a Comic Con. But the most viral stories are the accidents.”

“My job is to tell it honestly — yes, it was scary, yes, it has a dark, bloody history, but it was also full of normal people who deserve more than me calling their home ‘the death tower’ — sorry guys,” she said.