Malikana Guesthouse — Hotel in Gauteng

Robbed at Guesthouse

Over $2,000 USD was stolen from my travel group during our two-night stay in this guest house. My cousin and I left our room for several hours for a morning excursion. At this time the TSA lock on my suitcase was tampered with and $420 USD was stolen, my cousins TSA lock was also opened, and $400 USD was stolen from her suitcase. I immediately noted the incident upon our return from the excursion. The equivalent of over $1,000 USD was stolen from three other travelers in several currencies. Everyone that had cash missing had left their cash locked in a TSA lock suitcase.

We were traveling with a group and our group leader facilitated a discussion with the guest house owners. The owners, husband and wife, instantly became hostile and denied that it ever happened prior to hearing most of my concern. While the leader and I were calm and attempting to facilitate a constructive conversation, the owners negated this option. I can pinpoint the exact several hour block that the incident occurred. They were insistent that they are the only ones that have access to the rooms and even housekeeping is constantly monitored and not allowed to be alone in guest rooms. The guesthouse owners were also insistent that they were the only people present in the home all day and they could not be at fault. This is false, the owners of the guest house family who lived onsite in a separate home and were constantly in and out of the guest house. There were also staff present in the home while we were away.

My concerns with this guest house is that the rooms lock with flimsy skeleton keys and that there are not safes in the room. It is not advised to bring cash and documents on your person while in Johannesburg due to the high crime rate. This left the best option to lock the belongings in the suitcase. I suggested to the owners that perhaps safes would be a beneficial option in the future. The wife stated that my items were just as likely to be taken from a safe there as they were from my suitcase. Another guest with stolen cash noted that she had a broken safe in her room.

Upon arrival to the guest house the wife spoke extensively about the rolling blackouts in their city and the significant financial strain of running a generator. She stated that they financially could not run the generator constantly and therefore the generator would only run intermittently at peak guest need times. It is suspicious that that they would verbalize financial strains prior to the equivalent of over $2,000 USD being stolen from five members of the group.

The guest house had an uncomfortable atmosphere as if we were intruding in someone’s home. There was one family room area to gather but the husband occupied the TV and strictly watched shows of large game animals being hunted. Their grandson was at the one computer playing video games a significant portion of every day. Despite there being pool table, it was not useable due to their personal items being scattered across it. Multiple guests felt uncomfortable and just sat in their rooms when not at meals or excursions.

The guest house was quite cold. I am from a winter climate and needed to put on two pairs of wool socks, a fleece coat, and a winter hat to sleep at night. There is a small space heater in each room but was in effective to heat even the small area...

Over $2,000 USD was stolen from my travel group during our two-night stay in this guest house. My cousin and I left our room for several hours for a morning excursion. At this time the TSA lock on my suitcase was tampered with and $420 USD was stolen, my cousins TSA lock was also opened, and $400 USD was stolen from her suitcase. I immediately noted the incident upon our return from the excursion. The equivalent of over $1,000 USD was stolen from three other travelers in several currencies. Everyone that had cash missing had left their cash locked in a TSA lock suitcase. ||||We were traveling with a group and our group leader facilitated a discussion with the guest house owners. The owners, husband and wife, instantly became hostile and denied that it ever happened prior to hearing most of my concern. While the leader and I were calm and attempting to facilitate a constructive conversation, the owners negated this option. I can pinpoint the exact several hour block that the incident occurred. They were insistent that they are the only ones that have access to the rooms and even housekeeping is constantly monitored and not allowed to be alone in guest rooms. The guesthouse owners were also insistent that they were the only people present in the home all day and they could not be at fault. This is false, the owners of the guest house family who lived onsite in a separate home and were constantly in and out of the guest house. There were also staff present in the home while we were away. ||||My concerns with this guest house is that the rooms lock with flimsy skeleton keys and that there are not safes in the room. It is not advised to bring cash and documents on your person while in Johannesburg due to the high crime rate. This left the best option to lock the belongings in the suitcase. I suggested to the owners that perhaps safes would be a beneficial option in the future. The wife stated that my items were just as likely to be taken from a safe there as they were from my suitcase. Another guest with stolen cash noted that she had a broken safe in her room. ||||Upon arrival to the guest house the wife spoke extensively about the rolling blackouts in their city and the significant financial strain of running a generator. She stated that they financially could not run the generator constantly and therefore the generator would only run intermittently at peak guest need times. It is suspicious that that they would verbalize financial strains prior to the equivalent of over $2,000 USD being stolen from five members of the group.||||The guest house had an uncomfortable atmosphere as if we were intruding in someone’s home. There was one family room area to gather but the husband occupied the TV and strictly watched shows of large game animals being hunted. Their grandson was at the one computer playing video games a significant portion of every day. Despite there being pool table, it was not useable due to their personal items being scattered across it. Multiple guests felt uncomfortable and just sat in their rooms when not at meals or excursions.||||The guest house was quite cold. I am from a winter climate and needed to put on two pairs of wool socks, a fleece coat, and a winter hat to sleep at night. There is a small space heater in each room but was in effective to heat even the small area...

Let’s see, where should I start? There was a small space heater in each room but it was so cold I had to sleep with my winter coat on. The “locks” on the doors are just skeleton keys. Also, you can see through the hole of the lock, which was a little uncomfortable. But probably the worst part of my stay was being robbed. There are no safes in the rooms. My travel companion and I can pin down to a couple-hour timeframe of when the money was stolen. Our money was locked inside our luggage when we left. This means that they opened our luggage and went through our stuff, which is also really upsetting. Between my travel companion and I over 800 USD was stolen. Between our whole tour group it was approximately 2,000. The house has a tall cinder block fence with electric fencing on top, so you think you’d be safe but it turns out that who we needed to watch out for is someone allowed inside the house. The owners claim that they were the only ones at the house during the time we were gone so money could not have been stolen. This was false. When we arrived back at the guesthouse there were several people doing landscaping that had access to...