View previous topic :: View next topic |
Author |
Message |
Black_Beer_Man
Joined: 26 Mar 2013 Posts: 453 Location: Yokohama
|
Posted: Wed Dec 11, 2013 11:28 am Post subject: "Apato" VS "Mansion" - A Warning to Newc |
|
|
A teacher in my area explained these two terms to me recently. Apato and Mansion are two categories of apartments. He said that apatos were typically two storied apartment buildings "flimsily built".
Sadly, I learned this too late. I had already moved into an apato. The rent is cheaper, but I have to deal with thin walls that feel like cheap wooden panels. The noise pretty easily travels through from my next door neighbor's apartment. It's so bad that I can even hear him sneeze.
The building has wooden floors and the tenet above me stomps on his floor (my ceiling) and wakes me up sometimes in the wee hours of the morning.
My advice to newbies is to move into a mansion (which is a higher quality building). The price difference is slightly higher- maybe 10,000 yen a month. Sometimes the price is the same as apato. Also, make sure it has cement floors.
Avoid moving into an apato at all costs if you value your sanity. |
|
Back to top |
|
 |
TokyoLiz
Joined: 16 Jan 2003 Posts: 1548 Location: Tokyo, Japan
|
Posted: Thu Dec 12, 2013 12:49 am Post subject: |
|
|
I lived in a typical "apaato", a 1k plus loft on the second floor of a building, for nearly years. It's okay, but not that private.
In ground floor concrete rooms, damp and mold are serious problems. A friend who could only afford a ground floor mansion had dehumidifiers running all year. The senmenjo, bathroom and toilet had poor air circulation, and her clothes were coated in blue mold before she figured out the remedy. The room had carpets, too. Carpets attract mites and ticks.
For the last year, I have lived in an older 2 story house. It's a classic 1970s building with tatami, a tokonoma, shoji, fusuma and a big kitchen.The collective age of the neighbours is 700 years. So it's quiet except for cleaning and the neighbour lady's enka habit.
I think I'm the second noisiest house because I host guests from abroad. |
|
Back to top |
|
 |
nightsintodreams
Joined: 18 May 2010 Posts: 558
|
Posted: Thu Dec 12, 2013 1:37 am Post subject: |
|
|
I've lived in one mansion, three Leo Palaces and a BOE apartment. I've never had any of the problems listed above. Everyone's experience is different. |
|
Back to top |
|
 |
rxk22
Joined: 19 May 2010 Posts: 1629
|
Posted: Thu Dec 12, 2013 1:38 am Post subject: |
|
|
I thought the def of apt vs Mansion varied by region? For instance in Kansai, I heard that Mansion was for 1ks. |
|
Back to top |
|
 |
Pitarou
Joined: 16 Nov 2009 Posts: 1116 Location: Narita, Japan
|
Posted: Thu Dec 12, 2013 2:20 am Post subject: Re: "Apato" VS "Mansion" - A Warning to |
|
|
Black_Beer_Man wrote: |
My advice to newbies is to move into a mansion (which is a higher quality building). The price difference is slightly higher- maybe 10,000 yen a month. Sometimes the price is the same as apato. Also, make sure it has cement floors. |
Words like apaato and manshon are just that: words. It's the building that matters.
I happen to live in an apaato that, in many respects, is better quality than some manshon. In particular, the concrete construction means that noise is not a problem. |
|
Back to top |
|
 |
TokyoLiz
Joined: 16 Jan 2003 Posts: 1548 Location: Tokyo, Japan
|
Posted: Thu Dec 12, 2013 2:38 am Post subject: |
|
|
Oops. I meant nearly *10 years.
Like Pitarou says, it depends on the quality of the building. The place I lived in was awesome. Until The Big One. After that, I walked downhill in through the kitchen  |
|
Back to top |
|
 |
nightsintodreams
Joined: 18 May 2010 Posts: 558
|
Posted: Thu Dec 12, 2013 7:26 am Post subject: |
|
|
I went along with your definintion but I always thought an アパート was the individual apartment/flat, where as the マンション was the building as a whole (i.e. a block of flats, as we say in British English). |
|
Back to top |
|
 |
kah5217
Joined: 29 Sep 2012 Posts: 270 Location: Ibaraki
|
Posted: Thu Dec 12, 2013 10:03 am Post subject: |
|
|
I'm in the first floor of a 2 story LP.
Pros:
Window can be a door
No stairs
More room for laundry/airing bedding
If you like animals, you sometimes see them outside your window
Cons:
Upstairs neighbor is always dropping stuff on the floor
Can't leave the window open at night without worrying about intruders
My window faces the street so no privacy with open curtain
More bugs can come in
The walls are selectively thin, I think. For instance, I can hear snoring and occasional tub draining, and of course drunken taiko practice. But I rarely hear others' televisions, and the neighbors must not be into any vices because I haven't heard anything embarrassing. |
|
Back to top |
|
 |
Black_Beer_Man
Joined: 26 Mar 2013 Posts: 453 Location: Yokohama
|
Posted: Thu Dec 12, 2013 2:24 pm Post subject: |
|
|
nightsintodreams wrote: |
I went along with your definintion but I always thought an アパート was the individual apartment/flat, where as the マンション was the building as a whole (i.e. a block of flats, as we say in British English). |
The principal of my junior high school confirmed the definition of apato as a cheaply built building.
He said that another problem with these buildings is poor insulation on the windows. He said that they don't close tightly, so in winter, a draft of cold air often passes through the small gaps between the windows and the frames. |
|
Back to top |
|
 |
Pitarou
Joined: 16 Nov 2009 Posts: 1116 Location: Narita, Japan
|
Posted: Fri Dec 13, 2013 12:25 am Post subject: |
|
|
Black_Beer_Man wrote: |
... another problem with these buildings is poor insulation on the windows. He said that they don't close tightly, so in winter, a draft of cold air often passes through the small gaps between the windows and the frames. |
It's not "those buildings". It's lower quality buildings in general. And there are some poor quality manshon out there.
It's like the difference between high street, shopping center, mall, department store, and retail park. While we all understand what the difference is, nothing stops marketers from stretching these terms to breaking point when it suits their purposes.
By the way, foam draft-excluder tape from the 100 yen shop works great. |
|
Back to top |
|
 |
teacheratlarge
Joined: 17 Nov 2011 Posts: 192 Location: Japan
|
Posted: Mon Dec 23, 2013 5:08 am Post subject: |
|
|
Some of the mansions are poorly built too. The first one I was sharing in Tokyo also had the noise problem with where the bathrooms connected so you could hear someone coughing in the next apartment as if they were in the same room!
Also the rooms didn't retain cold or hot air well (poor insulation). |
|
Back to top |
|
 |
Black_Beer_Man
Joined: 26 Mar 2013 Posts: 453 Location: Yokohama
|
Posted: Mon Dec 23, 2013 11:51 pm Post subject: |
|
|
teacheratlarge wrote: |
Some of the mansions are poorly built too. The first one I was sharing in Tokyo also had the noise problem with where the bathrooms connected so you could hear someone coughing in the next apartment as if they were in the same room!
Also the rooms didn't retain cold or hot air well (poor insulation). |
I am sorry to hear that. It was a learning experience for sure, though, wasn't it?
Now you and I know what to look for in our next apartments. It is preferable to live on the top floor at one of the ends of the building so that you only have to put up with one neighbor (and hopefully that neighbor does not make problems). Also, look for a "mansion" with cement floors (not wood) especially if you don't live on the top floor. |
|
Back to top |
|
 |
teacheratlarge
Joined: 17 Nov 2011 Posts: 192 Location: Japan
|
Posted: Wed Dec 25, 2013 1:56 am Post subject: |
|
|
It was okay, nothing to worry about. Besides, I am in a house now, so I have totally different considerations.
I was just posting more for newcomers that sometimes even the newer buildings are not necessarily better. |
|
Back to top |
|
 |
milkman
Joined: 12 Jul 2013 Posts: 29
|
Posted: Wed Jan 01, 2014 11:28 am Post subject: |
|
|
I used to live in an apaato that was on the first floor, didn't really have any problems and I even had something that resembled a backyard. The place was pretty old, but the rent was good and I didn't have any real complaints about the place, even during the big earthquake there was no damage at all. The only problem with being on the 1st floor is that there's a much higher chance that you'll be getting insects entering your place, they kept getting in whenever I went in and out. No matter how hard I tried to minimize the time that the door was open or how many of those repel sheets I put out (useless things, those), those *beep* mosquitoes would still find a way inside. They had a habit of flying in my face while I was sleeping, their buzzing would wake me up and I would have to search for it, couldn't go back asleep unless I found and killed it or else it would just wake me up again (and I'd be so stressed out knowing this was going to happen, so I wouldn't be able to sleep anyway). Drove me crazy, sometimes it would take over an hour of hunting before I killed the damn thing. Roaches were also frequent but those didn't bother me so much, and I set traps all over the place which did seem to be effective. Used to welcome winter because it meant I would be free from the pests for another half-year. This was in central Tokyo in an area surrounded by factories, so it's not like I was living in the sticks.
I now live on the 8th floor of a mansion and haven't had any insect problems since, it was worth moving just to not have to deal with that anymore. It's definitely something to consider when looking at places, there's no way I'd live on the 1st floor again unless the entrance to the room was in a indoor hallway. |
|
Back to top |
|
 |
mitsui
Joined: 10 Jun 2007 Posts: 1562 Location: Kawasaki
|
Posted: Thu Jan 02, 2014 1:54 am Post subject: |
|
|
When I was new to Japan I lived in an apato. My neighbor upstairs had two kids and had a husband who delivered newspapers. Sometimes he woke me up as he started his motorcycle at four a.m.
Walls are thin and in the winter it got cold.
When the wife got pregnant with the third kid I had had enough. One girl always cried.
I moved to a mansion that was warmer in the winter but summers were hot.
No noise like before but there was a dumb rule about holding your dog or dogs, and dogs had to be held all the way to the sidewalk, even in the elevator. |
|
Back to top |
|
 |
|