Job Discussion Forums

drifter13 · Joined: 27 Mar 2007 Posts: 124 Location: Fujisawa

Anyone staying or have stayed at this guesthouse? http://www.e-guesthouse.com/en/index.html

I need a new place to live stat and I was just looking at this. Other recommendations are appreciated.

yamanote senbei · Joined: 28 Jun 2005 Posts: 435

From looking at their site there doesn't seem to be anything obviously wrong with the place, except for it being Nishi Kawaguchi.

What's preventing you from you staying in your Nova housing?

drifter13 · Joined: 27 Mar 2007 Posts: 124 Location: Fujisawa

Nova's current condition doesn't leave me to believe I'll be able to stay here past the month, so I'm trying to look around for a place I can go till I get some actual money (not from Nova probably). I've got a few interviews lined up and I don't imagine staying with Nova much longer. The situation at my training and home branches is grim to say the least.

Guesthouses suit me fine, since I currently live in a 3 person appartment. As long as I get a private room I don't care.

yamanote senbei · Joined: 28 Jun 2005 Posts: 435

I'd stay put.

You have rights as a tenant that you may not know that you have. Of course you and whoever else decides to stay in Nova housing may have to change the locks, but it's probably lot cheaper than moving out. Depending on how many of your roommates move out, you may end up having your apartment all to yourself and paying much less than market value for it.

And join a union. It's the only way to maximize the chances that you are paid for the work you do for Nova. Throughout this late salary business, all union members have been paid.

The best thing for to have done was stay home until you could have
lined up a more stable job at another eikaiwa, as I suggested earlier, but it's too late for that now. Jumping to another eikaiwa now now is going to be difficult with all the Nova refugees about.

southofreality · Joined: 12 Feb 2007 Posts: 579 Location: Tokyo

Yamanote is right, Drifter.

Stay put, even if NOVA closes for good. You do have some rights and there are several sources of information on this issue out there. Check some of the threads at GaijinPot for useful links.

Look at it this way, the landlord will have to go after NOVA to get the unpaid rent or get the NOVA-employed tenant evicted. In the end, you might not be responsible for any rent at all if NOVA pays neither you nor the landlord.

Until a police officer or some other civil servant comes to your door and says 'It's time to leave, gaijin-san', I'd stay. And, I'm sure that civil servant will give you an official warning before you actually have to vacate the premises.

Of course, if NOVA wants you to move to another NOVA apartment, you should do that.

Good luck and let us know whether or not you get paid on time this month.
If everyone gets paid as they should this time, it might be a sign that things are stabilizing a bit. Of course, keep searching for something as good or better than what NOVA has to offer (based on the NOVA where it's business as usual).

chollimaspeed · Joined: 11 Sep 2007 Posts: 120

I agree with southofreality and yamanote sinbad. You don't have to move out of your apartment no matter what NOVA's own problems are. Also, please tell us about your situation next payday. I think the problem last month could have been because NOVA had to pay before the weekend. They don't have to do that this time but next month they will.

drifter13 · Joined: 27 Mar 2007 Posts: 124 Location: Fujisawa

Thanks for the advice. I'll stay put at least until the 15th to see if I get paid. There are a couple of job opportunites that look promising, but both would faclitate moving, since I don't feel like an hour + transit to go to work every morning. I did that for University for 4 years and that was enough. Ultimately, even if Nova pays through I still want to move to another place, maybe somewhere closer to my branch. I'm paying the max rent that Nova charges, and the place ain't that great. For around $100 a month less, I've seen nicer guesthouses that have better rooms and are closer to the Tokyo hotspots. It's still all up in the air until the 15th though, so we'll see.

yamanote senbei · Joined: 28 Jun 2005 Posts: 435

If Nova doesn't pay on the 15th, how do you plan to get them to pay? I'm telling you, and ever other person caught up in the Nova death spiral, that the only way to improve your chances of being paid is to join your local union.

If Nova does pay you on the 15th, and you move to a guesthouse, and then Nova closes the school where you work and transfers you to somewhere further away than your original Nova housing, what will you do?

My advice is to stay put and join a union, now.

drifter13 · Joined: 27 Mar 2007 Posts: 124 Location: Fujisawa

I'm looking into a unions, but i'm not clear on what they'll be able to do for me if Nova simply declares bankruptcy. I'm sure they could probably fight it out for me, but I don't have the time or money to stay here and fight it out. The housing issue has really less to do with Nova and more with the fact that I cannot afford to keep working for a company that has such an uncertain future.

To make it clear, I do not see myself with Nova for any real amount of time at this point. I said before that I have some possibles on the horizon, so the move is really in the event a better situation arises. I can't keep working just to hold a room, which I might have to change the locks on. If I had been given an advance, or was paid last paycheck (which I wasn't since I came in late Sept) I might be more willing to stay put. As it stands this paycheck is gonna be slim anyways, I won't get a real paycheck till mid November (if Nova is even alive by then).

The bottom line is this, right now at this point, I have enough resources to stay in Japan for a month regardless of Nova. If Nova does not pay me on the 15th, I probably won't stick around much longer after that. I'd rather spend the month I have left looking for work, than wasting 5 days a week to try and hold out hope money will come through.

Apsara · Joined: 20 Sep 2005 Posts: 2142 Location: Tokyo, Japan

I'm going to offer the opposite advice to the others- I would actually move out. The fewer ties you have to Nova the better, especially now. Whether I had the "right" or not to stay in the Nova apartment, the uncertainty would be too much for me, especially if I had yet to receive a full paycheck I wouldn't want to sit around waiting for any bombshells.

That place in Warabi looks pretty decent, what it's like to live there will depend on how clean it is kept (have seen a couple of vermin-infested guest houses, they weren't properly cleaned) and who lives there- you sometimes get some really noisy/ weird people.