Job Discussion Forums

[movinaround]

I don't want to railroad another thread, so I thought I would start a discussion here about this. I did share apartments in my second and fourth years of university. They were awesome flatmates. But even still, I am pretty sure I would never share an apartment in a foreign country, especially Japan, with someone I didn't know (and was likely to be weird, and not the good kind of weird either ).

There are some benefits, but most of the benefits can be made up just by having good friends. The disadvanatages are much harder to get around.

What do you think?

[markle]

gaijin or Japanese?

[JimDunlop2]

It can go either way and I don't see why sharing an apartment with a stranger in Japan should be any different than sharing an apartment with a stranger in your home country. The same general idea would apply...

Whether you are the one moving IN to an established place, or are the one whose name appears on the lease agreement, interviewing prospective roommates is the key, I think.

Make sure you reserve the right of refusal at the outset of any such interview... But ask plenty of questions like: do they smoke/drink/take drugs, do they have any pets, what kind of hours do they keep, what are their pet peeves, are they vegetarian (and can't handle the smell of you cooking meat), are they Jewish or Muslim (and won't let you keep bacon in the fridge), do they have a girl/boyfriend that they'll be phoning/shagging every free moment of the day, hobbies or sports that you have or don't have in common..... whatever.

I think that just like in university, you can end up with a friend for life, or an arch-nemesis... The fact that it's in Japan doesn't seem to make much difference to me.

[gaijinalways]

I had some great flatmates when I moved to Japan; a Japanese woman from Kyushu and an American male. They were quite nice as my female roomate even loaned me a futon as when I moved to Japan I had almost nothing. Their previous flatmate was a doozy. He was living in the apartment some nights away from his wife, wasn't supporting her, and sometimes had his girlfriend over and ladies of the night.

Later on, he was having problems with an Internet business he was running, and he started not paying his bills, including a phone bill that was being ramped up from his long sessions for work and sex lines. Instead of trying to make an arrangement to pay, he started harassing the Japanese woman whose name was on the lease. Luckily for her, she mentioned it to an American friend of hers who lived in the same building. This guy was as nearly as tall as me but about 130 kg, an ex American footballer. He told the guy if anything happened to Reiko that he would kill him. The guy cleared out that afternoon.

But my flatmate was determined to make him pay. It took several months, and threatening to report him to immiigration, talking to his ex-business partner, his 'girlfriend' (who was clueless that he was married) and she ended up collecting the money from his mother!

Talk about a flatmate devil!

[furiousmilksheikali]

[JimDunlop2]

Having been on the student council of one of our university's 800+ student residences, let me say that complaints regarding Christians holding bible meetings in their apartments was exceedingly rare, and I've never heard of a Christian telling others that they must eat fish on a Friday.

However, I DID often have to deal with complaints of vegetarians whose roommates kept meat in the fridge, or Muslim students whose roommates kept non-halal food... Those were very real, very legitimate concerns. I often spoke to students from India who complained of feeling ill after their roommates cooked meat in the kitchen and wanted to be moved in with other Indian students.

[kdynamic]

Kind of makes me wonder: is it better to roll the dice with strangers, or risk a friendship by having to deal with eachother's annoying habits and dirty dishes?

[furiousmilksheikali]

[cornishmuppet]

My best friends started as anonymous housemates. Unfortunately, amongst the many were a nutter who drunkenly beat my a ss, a super-talented (artist, as far as I know now works for Marvel) but SUPER smelly fat boy who lumped everyone else with a huge cleaning bill, a pink haired hippie who moved out without a word leaving everyone to speculate whether there was a body behind her locked door or not, and an alcoholic, who liked to come in drunk late at night and leave the door wide open when we lived next door to a heroin addict's reform centre (none of which were reforming). Trust me, the drink/drugs/ women(men) were the least of our problems.

Still, for the all the sht, I wouldn't take those years back. The best of my life. I'd do it again in flash.

[CaseyG]

Living on the edge dude.

[JimDunlop2]