Job Discussion Forums

[Black_Beer_Man]

I live in a guest house in Nakayama, Yokohama managed by InterWhao inc. My room is among the 7 rooms they rent in a basement apartment.

What I find to be unbelievable is the poor manners of the tenants (all Japanese guys) and the guest house company.

Two of the tenants here (ummm...lets's call them tenant #1 and tenant #5 because I don't know their names) routinely waste electricity, gas and clean water.

Tenant #1 leaves the lights on in the kitchen and bathroom after using these rooms despite there being signs posted by the guest house company in these areas asking the tenants not to do so. He also likes to slam his door. "Swoosh-bang!"

Tenant #5 starts filling the bathtub, goes to his room, forgets about it, lets the bathtub overflow and waste clean drinkable water (as well as the gas to heat the water). The bathtub overflows anywhere from 30 minutes to several hours depending on the occasion. I have witnessed this on no less than 7 occasions (I have the dates written down on paper). The last time was overnight from about 12 AM - 5:30 AM.

The guest house company's response each time has been woefully inadequate and ineffective. The manager only wrote letters to the tenants asking them not to waste the utilities.

The tenants don't read and obey the signs posted in the guest house asking them not to waste electricity, gas and water. Do you really think they'll bother to read these letters? Of course not. The manager has written them 3 times and shortly after, the same tenants waste the utilities again.

What's wrong with these people? Don't they remember Fukushima? This was the #2 worst nuclear power disaster in history and tenant #1 wastes electricity like it is has no value.

About 750,000,000 people around the world have no clean water to drink and tenant #5 just lets the bathtub overflow wasting 100's of liters of clean drinking water as he sleeps or plays video games. What's wrong with this guy? Why doesn't he care about anyone else but himself?

And InterWhao guest house just writes these useless letters to the tenants. No evictions.

What a disappointing guest house company InterWhao is. And what a poor representation of Japanese people these tenants are!

Any thoughts, advice or experiences you'd like to share in this thread?

[Shakey]

If it bothers you, move. I can guarantee you that the sales staff do not give a shit about this. In fact, they see you as being "urusai."

But take a video. Put it up on YouTube so that people can see it.

[jesso92]

[fluffyhamster]

I'm assuming that the communal utilities aren't divided between and directly billed to the tenants but come out of the general rent, so unless everyone's rent's being hiked to cover the (admittedly senseless) waste, what's the problem really?

The rundown Tokyo guesthouse I once lived in for a few months had its share of oddball tenants, but what made me finally move was the state of the facilities - blocked shower drains, toilet pipes overhead that would drip onto the toilet below, and such a lack of insulation and heating that it seemed warmer outside than inside during winter even with two ceramic heaters running. Stuff like that is what I'd call real problems.

[Lamarr]

Because the bills are included in the rent presumably, so some people won't care about leaving electrics, heating, air cons on, and water running.

I've worked with guys who've lived in guesthouses and heard stories. One of them was telling me about some guys living in his guesthouse who'd come over for a month or so stay in Japan, had gone out on the turps one night, and he came down in the morning to find one of them crashed out in the lounge in a pool of his own sick.

Another guy I worked with lived in one called Oakhouse. The woman who owned it lived next door or a few doors down from him, and had a bunch of cats that she allowed to use the walkway outside his room as a toilet. There was a story over on Let's Japan about one nutcase who apparently threatened or attempted to rape someone.

Living with people is never easy. Everyone has their own little ways. Things which one person is perfectly relaxed with and doesn't care about will wind up and irritate the hell out of someone else (especially with regards to cleaning and noise). To avoid stress, I'd clean and tidy up communal areas straight after you've finished using them, and keep the noise down between about 9pm and 9am. Then at least it's hard for anyone to blame you for being a nuisance.

[rxk22]

Well, single Japanese men can be really awful. I guess just having mom around to clean up for them is 99% of why things are gross there.

[Lamarr]

[nightsintodreams]

Really doesn't sound that bad to me. If you don't like it, you could always be a big boy and move into your own apartment.

[Black_Beer_Man]

I'll tell you exactly why these two tenants make me angry.


Their selfish wastefulness of precious natural resources.

Japan is natural resource poor country (especially in terms of energy and food). You would think that the people in such a country would have an appreciation of the little amount of resources they have. They might demonstrate some responsibility by not wasting them.

This is not the case in my guest house and ultimately InterWhao, the company that manages it and refuses to evict the tenants that waste water, gas and electricity.

This morning I was having a Skype video call with an Indian friend in New Delhi. He was appalled when I told him about tenant #5's frequent overfilling of the bath tub. Some people in New Delhi only get 3 hours of clean water a day.

Japan has lots of money, so who cares? They can just buy their way out of environmental problems.

It's a logical assumption to come to the conclusion that both Interwhao guest house company and the wasteful tenants value water and electricity in terms of money.

I bet if these tenants had their own apartments and paid their own water and electricity bills, they wouldn't waste these resources.

Interwhao most likely just does calculations (How much are the utility bils? How much profit do we make at the end of the day?) when they consider how to respond to my complaints. These tenants, even if they're bad, pay rent and make money for Interwhao, so it makes economic sense to keep them even of their behavior harms Japan's environment.

However, I always thought that the Japanese loved their country and valued integrity over money. In the case of INterWhao, I guess not.

Why don't they understand that they can't drink money?

Does it harm Japan's environment? Of course it does.

Early yesterday morning at 12:30 AM, I went into the kitchen and, as usual, I saw that one of the tenants left the lights on in both the kitchen and bathroom (despite there being signs near the light switches asking the tenants to turn them off after use).

Now let's imagine for a minute that all of Japan's 130,000,000 people did that. Tepco would be so happy and have to build 1 or 2 more nuclear power plants increasing the likelihood of another 3/11 Fukushima disaster.

In conclusion, I can't believe that any Japanese person would think it's okay to waste electricity and water especially after the Fukushima 3/11 disaster.

Interwhao's handling of this problem is woefully inadequate to the point where I think they care much more about collecting rents than protecting Japan's resources.

And to anybody reading this thread who thinks wasting resources is not a big deal, consider the fact that the condition and quantity of pretty much all of the Earth's resources is in decline. Stephen Hawking estimates that humans may have only another 100 years on this planet because we are killing it. I think he is not far off in his estimate. It's up to every single one of us to use natural resources responsibly to at least slow down the deterioration of our home, planet Earth.

[dove]

I hate when people waste resources, too. But I have to admit, what bothered me more about guest house living, are those people who don't clean up after themselves in the kitchen or rest room. Or those who don't take their clothes out of the washing machine when the cycle is complete.

[rxk22]

[Black_Beer_Man]

This guest house in Nakayama, Yokohama (operated by InterWhao company) is also not a safe place (in my opinion). The rooms are basement apartments.

In November, I noticed that tenant #3's door window (made of plexiglass) was smashed in near the door knob. It really looked as though either that tenant (because he lost his key )or a stranger broke into the room.

Either way, this is "break and enter" which is an illegal act.

In addition, there are no locks (key or codes) to enter the guest house through the front door or a side door that the building has.

I have recommended many time that the guest house company install locks on these doors or at least security cameras, but of course they ignored my request.

[rxk22]

Sounds awful. Just move, a 1K is cheaper and less of a PIA

[victory7]

[Black_Beer_Man]

The water waster guy moved out this month. I am happy about that because I think this behavior is disgusting, selfish and disrespectful (to the Earth and the 750 million people in this world who don't even have clean water to drink).

Some of the other guys are not turning off the lights in the kitchen and bathroom after using them.

This does make me sad that people simply don't care or are too ignorant to care about wasting energy resources.

I am not solely blaming Japanese people for acting so irresponsibly. Some foreigners act that way too (as victory7 has reported well).

If you live in a sharehouse / gaijin house, do report such bad behavior to the landlord. If they don't respond, be persistent and tactful and follow up your complaint. If they still do nothing, then do what I have done here. Report it online on Dave's discussion forums. Peace!