Apartment Quest 2008

The Word of the Month Award goes to 間柄(aida gara: relationship).

Aida gara was just one of many new words I have learned in my quest for an apartment via regular Japanese realtors. I know, I know, I told myself I would never move again after the trauma and menstruation cycle-altering stress that was Apartment Quest 2007.

But here we are again.

Apartment Quest 2008 has proven that, like my all-time favourite Japanese saying, "Ah yes, but one must not generalise,". Contrary to popular belief that all Japanese realtors are a racist nightmare to deal with, in our case, it's more that some are more helpful than others. We ended up choosing an eleventh storey, three-bedroom quirky place with the nicest of all the realtors.

The Japanese are known to have a friendly demeanour. So much so that even when they are being unwelcoming, unhelpful and condescending, it comes across with warmth, friendliness, smiles and perhaps even some candy as they show you the door and tell you to come back two weeks before you plan to move. This was the case with the first Japanese realtor we tried which put me in a terribly dark mood for around a week. After which I decided to email a bunch of realtors in Japanese stating what sort of place we were looking for, our budget, and that if the landlords were iffy on foreigners, we would be happy to meet them for a chat.

I also went to see a hole-in-the-wall realtor recommended by a friend as being foreigner-friendly.

The emailed places all got back to me with properties where the landlords were fine with foreigners. Before emailing me, two of the realtors rang up to ask me an insane number of increasingly private questions.

Realtor R ("R" for: Is this all Really necessary?) went as far as to ask me what level my Japanese is, as well as the level of the person I would be sharing the apartment with. Thank goodness this was all being done over the phone, as I was free to furrow my brows and mouth, "WTF?". I said that we had both achieved Level 2 and 3 respectively for the Japanese Proficiency Test. Realtor R then asked what the levels meant. At this point I threw my free gloved hand up in the air (I was in the stairwell of a subway station at the time) and slapped it against my forehead. I pulled some numbers out of the air: "Level 3, well, a pass for this stage means people can read around 2000 kanji and can hold down an every day conversation with no problems. Level 2 is more kanji and more grammar. We've both lived here for around 4 years. We can communicate just fine."

But it was one question I fielded from Realtor S ("S" for: Say WHAT?) that made me want to tell him to F-Off. But he was so polite. How could I refuse? His questions went from the usual race-related ones, to:

Him: "And you say you'll be sharing with a friend,"
Me: "Yes, that's correct,"
Him: [something I didn't initially understand]
Me: "I'm sorry, could you say that again?"
Him: [repeating part of the sentence I understood, not the part I didn't]
Me: "No, no, you said what was the something-ara?"
Him: "Oh, aida gara. What is the aida gara between you and your friend?"
Me: "Aida gara. I'm sorry, but I don't know what that is."
Him: "Oh, [in English] 'relationship'."
Me: "Oh, you mean like, kankei?"
Him: "Ah, yes."
Me: "So you want to know the relationship between me and my friend?"
Him: "Yes."
[me about to explode]
Me: "My friend. Is a a friend. Friend. Buddy. Chum."
...

I'm surprised he didn't ask me for our measurements and weight. How about a urine sample while you're at it. Why would anyone need to clarify what TYPE of friend they're moving in with? Obviously J-Ho is more than a friend, but I thought that by calling us roomies it would make things SIMPLER, not so invasive. What other answers do people normally give, I wonder?

"Oh, we're Friends With Benefits."

"Oh, she's my mistress and I need our own separate love nest."

"Oh, we're friends at the moment, but I'm planning on making a move on her in the future once we're sharing a place. Y'know, the 'ol 'Oopsy, didn't mean to walk in on you in the shower' sort of thing. Please don't tell her."

I mean, seriously, WTF?

It didn't surprise me that the guy ended up showing us just one shitty, slummy apartment, pathetically (but politely) throwing out the usual realtor lines like, "This is a superbly spacious apartment," and "You think it's a bit old? I don't know about that, women are so good at making a space so much brighter and attractive to live in,"

Huh.

For $1,500 a month Buddy AidaGara, us women like our spaces not looking like perhaps a drug deal had gone horribly wrong during floor-warping season. Next time, how about using some of your hair wax on that floor before showing it to potential tenants.

Realtor T (T for Timing Not So Good) showed us several pretty cool places (we cycled like demons on battery powered bicycles! It was fun!), but, like their name, their/our timing wasn't so hot. Some places were already reserved with the POSSIBILITY of cancellation. And the insides of the sexiest place couldn't be viewed March 25. We need to move by March 30. So alas Realtor T, although pretty awesome (no one rang to ask me any questions! Not even to check if we were employed or not!) didn't quite cut the mustard.

The last realtor isn't even worth mentioning.

This experience has also shown that that there are landlords out there who give preference to married couples, or couples who are planning to get married. Two "friends" or even siblings may get bumped off in favour of people who are pretty much guaranteed to have sex with each other.

All this while trying to get you to pay up to SIX MONTHS of rent in advance. Add to that the contract renewal fee (usually around one month's rent) that usually hits tenants every two years, and you have some very poor tenants out there. Our landlord was kind enough to take my negotiated price even further, discounting not only our rent, but our reikin (money you give them that you never get back) as well!

Realtor A, the clear winner in Apartment Quest 2008, is a blink-and-miss-it tiny realtor on the main street, fighting it out with all the big players. Small shop clearly doesn't mean small minds. When I walked into the shop after work last week, there was an old guy paying his rent in cash to the rotund young man behind the desk. "And here's some money to cover the bank transfer," said the old guy, dropping a few more coins into the man's palm. I told the guy I was looking for a place and he sat me down and got me to tell him what I was after. He then spent the next 30 or so minutes ringing up various places and getting floor plans for me. Only at the very end did he even ask for my name. He was informative and friendly and had no air about him at all.

Realtor A gets the Two Thumbs Up™ and we get a cool place!

WHEE!