Since my housing snafu in mid-December, I’ve been on the market for a new apartment. I know it’s going to end up costing about 3500-4000 USD, but that comes with the territory in Japan. I’ve been hoping to make an upgrade in several keys areas of my domicile, among them location, size, and amenities. Right now I have about a twenty to twenty-five minute commute on my bicycle, but it’s entirely down Yamate Street, which is about as construction-ridden and pollution filled a ground level road as they come in the city. It’s a good workout, but the toll it takes on my alignment bothers me, to say nothing of what my lungs must think of it. If possible, I’d like to move a little closer to the office and find a less-heavily travelled route.
Given that, I made my list of requirements and potential dwellings and carpet bombed the real estate web sites [Much later I found out how fruitless this is, being mostly composed of fake listings and ad bait to attract customers to realtors' offices.] I even worked through two regional realtors, to maximize my chances of return with one while the other was idle. In the end, I saw enough floorplans to write a book on the state of property rental in west central Tokyo.
In terms of location I wanted to be no farther from work than I currently was, which gives us about a six kilometer radius from Nakameguro. I also wanted to be on either the JR Yamanote or Sobu Line, with accessibility to a big station in less than fifteen minutes, like Shinjuku or Shibuya. Additionally, I needed at least as much space as I currently had, about 21 square meters, or my furniture wouldn’t fit in. In some cases even more space wouldn’t work depending on the layout. In the end, I concentrated on the area in between Yotsuya, Shinjuku, and Shibuya, with the ideal being Sendagaya, where I originally lived when I came to Tokyo four years ago.
I don’t have time to go into detail about all the politics and hoops I had to jump through just to see these places, but it may still be interesting to enumerate the places I have pictures of, and ultimately what was wrong with them (for me). [It's actually quite comical now that I think about it.]
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This first apartment was an old building in Sakamachi, east of Higashi Gaien and between Yotsuya and Shinanomachi. Anything in this area peaked my interest because the commute would involve skipping Yamate dori all together and going through the incredibly upscale areas of Jingumae, Aoyama, Hiroo, and Ebisu. As it was, though, this apartment’s rent was slightly above my upper limit of 90000 yen (750 dollars a month), and the kitchen was barely wide enough to stand in. Ultimately it would take setting up my food preparation area and gas stove in a separate room down the hall. It also didn’t have a balcony (a feature I wanted to add this time) or much direct sunlight for my wide array of plants.
This second apartment is just west of Yotsuya station, in Saneichou. There were no apartments adjacent to or below the room, so sound would be a surefire non-issue. The amenities and fixtures were new, and incredibly the rooms were spacious. Everything was sparkling, and the dining kitchen was even carpeted. The owner was also an elderly old lady who ran a traditional Japanese sweets store around the corner which dated back nearly a hundred years. I almost went with this place despite the appreciable lack of direct sunlight, but in the end it fell through because I tried to do a run around the good ‘ol boy real estate system to save on a couple thousand dollars of service fees. It wasn’t pretty when the realtors got wind of it.
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Lions Mansion is an extremely large chain of managed buildings all over Japan. Everyone’s heard of them and you’d think that with that much influence and success things would be handled a little more professionally. Such was not the case and this mansion in Nishi-shinjuku was a pit when we visited. It looked a lot like a some sort of gangster or cromag had previously lived there. Two refridgerators and a collection of broken furniture still remained, and stains from fluids of various origins were smeared across all the walls. I’m not sure which was more amusing, the decapitated cockroach bodies on the floor or the broken toilet seat which had been wrapped with duct tape. Even if the place was guaranteed to be renovated before move-in and heavily discounted, I don’t think you could have paid me to live there. It was suggestions like these from my first realtor that led me to quickly part ways with them. The view of the capitol was very nice though.
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This little room was on the top floor of a crumbling and poorly maintained building only accessible by a spiraling series of progressively narrow roads which culminated in a set of decaying concrete stairs. In Akebonobashi the place gave good access to the east for when one is inclined to ride to Akihabara, but other than that, it was a bust. The heater was in the kitchen, leaving the bedroom ice cold, and the roof had no awning. This design problem was made readily clear by the freezing cold rain that was pouring the day I looked at the place. No sooner than I cracked open the window the tatami floor begin to get soaking wet. The toilet was also traditional Japanese style and not good for reading.
It’s no use crying about “what the market will bear”, because that’s always going to be true, especially in real estate. Time after time I saw small, poorly laid out apartments with little in the way of restoration since their contruction thirty-some years ago, when people were smaller and without an abundance of useful electric appliances. And for these gems each was listed at well above 80000 yen simply because it was less than three kilometers from the center of the city. My impression is that people still keep paying for these decreipt places for simply that reason. This room was on the top floor of a building that was rusting apart at the seams and completely empty (an especially stubborn owner I suppose). Flaking lead paint curled along every square inch of the facade giving the appearance of a geriatric poodle. The room itself had mold deep in the tatami mats, as well as disturbingly all along the inside closet walls. I wondered if the house had been under water as I remembered with trepidation all the horror stories I heard about condemned houses in the wake of hurricane Katrina. Once the mold has penetrated the mere surface, the only option left is to replace the wood completely. Somehow, the state the building was in left me little hope that this could be negotiated. The layout was also poor, the kitchen being too large but without useable wall space, leaving no practical place for my desk. Though the apartment sported two balconies to the north and south, the latter was useless as it looked directly into a larger apartment building.
Still, there was one incredibly redeeming point was not listed on the ad sheet. The southern balcony had a nearly hidden steel escape ladder leading up to the roof. Curious, I had to indulge and climbed up. Without any railing, the roof didn’t seem to be meant for any practical use other than access to the satellite dish. However, that’s all there was, and the large, concrete building top was nearly large enough for a pool. A 360 degree panoramic view of southern Shinjuku opened up and my mind raced at the thought of all the gorgeous photographs I could take up there, sunsets and sunrises. A deck chair, sunbathing, a private barbecue under fish scale clouds: it was fascinating. The best part was that the only means of access was through the top apartment, so if I rented, it would all be mine. This secret hideaway was almost enough to make me bear the decaying hulk below; but not enough to contract some sort of chronic illness from the spores that were already clinging to every paperlike surface inside. Since I had a feeling that I wouldn’t be back, I took a dozen or so shots with the A-1 before saying goodbye to that beautiful, silent sky.
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One of my favorite listings was an apartment in the very large, very clean Towa High Town. The building is located on the very eastern edge of Shinjuku, right by Gaien Nishi street. It’s an area similar to the Upper West Side in terms of swank and style. The apartment wasn’t cheap, either. It was 91000 yen, but it was ridiculously huge and had a fantastic downtown view facing southeast. It also had the incredibly appealing benefit of not requiring any “key money” or intermediary service fees (this totals about 2400 dollars). The whole building looked like a hotel, had a number of elevators, and a security camera in the lobby. Oh, if only I could have landed it.
Unfortunately, it turns out that I wasn’t wanted there. Despite positive assurances from the management company that things would be all right, after applying I was turned down. Oddly enough, all of the vacancies in the building open at that time were mysteriously held by the same owner, so reapplying for a different room wouldn’t change things. Was it my income? The fact I’m foreign? Or that the listing was introduced to me by the slimy realtor I was trying to work around? I’ll never know, but I guess it wasn’t meant to be. Oh well, as my dad says, “You gotta be ready to walk.” I tried hard not to get my hopes up about it until the contract was closed, but of course I was still more than a little let down.
