Korean Job Discussion Forums

lille · Joined: 27 Jan 2009 Location: Seoul

Recently, I was reading about getting an apartment on the Galbijim wiki and noticed that they recommended you change your lock upon moving in to your apartment. This has me a little unnerved: are tenant's rights sparse in Korea? Should I be expecting to walk in on my boss snooping through my apartment? Is there any recourse if this happens?

What are landlord-tenant relations like in Korea? Are neighbours generally respectful? I'd love to hear your anecdotes about apartment and officetel life.

Xuanzang · Joined: 10 Apr 2007 Location: Sadang

Neighbors can be a giant pain in the ass. Once at my officetel, these drunken foreigners at 5 or 6am decided to make it snow in the hallway. They sprayed the fire extinguisher EVERYWHERE and made a giant mess. Had to clean off my door and dust off the flame retardant that blew in. I knew it was foreigners because they woke me up with their drunken English ramblings.

The hallway was cleaned up by the cleaning ajumma but still that kind of behavior should have been left in college.

Korean neighbors can be equally as bad considering the threads I`m read on here about arguments and the police saying "tough" about noise complaints.

lille · Joined: 27 Jan 2009 Location: Seoul

Hah, yipes. Suddenly I'm grateful for all the unwanted lessons I've gotten in neighbourly passive-aggression.

RACETRAITOR · Joined: 24 Oct 2005 Location: Seoul, South Korea

Tenant's rights? Never heard of it.

lille · Joined: 27 Jan 2009 Location: Seoul

Oh gosh. So basically if my landlord or boss is sketchy, any old stranger could have copies of my key?

lebowski · Joined: 30 Jan 2003 Location: Seoul

yep, they could have a copy of your key. And, if you really pissed them off, even if you changed the locks, they could have a locksmith come and open the door.

bassexpander · Joined: 13 Sep 2007 Location: Someplace you'd rather be.

Tenants rights?

Listen to my podcast about a guy who was ripped-off by his landlord:

www.themidnightrunner.com

What's also scary is how easy it was to pick the lock.

polonius · Joined: 05 Jun 2004

A couple people I know lost their keys, but had some inside their apartment. To open the door, locksmiths have this long metal arm contraption that they stick in the newspaper trap/milk trap at the bottom of most of the apartment doors. They were able to open the door in 30 seconds.

After seeing that, I rigged it so no one could pull that on me.

RACETRAITOR · Joined: 24 Oct 2005 Location: Seoul, South Korea

Worse than the key thing is the fuzzy guarantee you'll get your key money back.

Darkray16 · Joined: 09 Nov 2008

what exactly did you do to rig your door so it couldn't be opened by a locksmith anymore?
I want to do the same.

polonius · Joined: 05 Jun 2004

Now, this is not to say they can't drill out the lock istelf, but, as far as the milk trap door, it depends on what you have. I have one that has a door on the outside and inside, so, I took a small piece of metal, like a metal ruler, and screwed it over top of the inside one. This will prevent them from getting in through there. However, I have seen apartments where the flap door on the inside isn't there. Then you could use a piece of sheet metal, and screw it over top. You will need a drill to get this done.

If not, you could try to put a bunch of the baby locks, the plastic ones over top of the trap. If you have a bunch of them super glued, that might work.