How Do They Live Here?

Most JET alums had their housing already set by the time they got there.  But what about our Japanese friends who come to the U.S.? How does their housing experience compare to that of JET alums?

Kishi, Accounting Manager for a Trading Company
My company gave me an allowance for housing but I had to find it on my own.  I didn’t want to use a broker since I know they take a big cut, so I just picked a neighborhood near my office and walked around talking to doormen and building managers until I found something, and it’s worked out great.  I think in the past Japanese workers would always use a broker, but increasingly that’s changing.  Other people at my company now ask me for advice and information in order to find a place without a broker.

Kaz, Interior Designer
I went to a Japanese agency that specializes in finding roommate situations in New York for Japanese people, and after seeing two or three places ended up living with a 69-year-old Ecuadorian-American man.  My room was very small — 10×10 feet — but my roommate let me do my own thing and would go away for extended trips to Ecuador twice a year.  Occasionally he would try to make conversation with me but mostly he just watched TV and I would stay in my room when I was home.  I never brought friends back to the apartment because it was so old that I was embarrassed to show it to other people.  I lived there for about four years, but then my roommate went to Ecuador and didn’t come back.  His niece got in touch with me and explained that he had passed away while in Ecuador and that she needed to come to the apartment to get the will.  After that, I had one month to move out.  I went back to the roommate service and now live with another elderly man.  But he coughs and sneezes all night and the walls are thin, so I think I want to try and find another living situation.

Atsuko
My husband, who is Australian, and I moved to New York from Tokyo and stayed with friends while we looked for an apartment.  One of the challenges for us was that neither of us were U.S. citizens and no brokers would even show us an apartment until my husband got his social security number.  We stayed with friends for a month until we found an apartment on the Upper West Side, but then it took us months to get a landline, cell phone and cable because we had no credit history in the U.S.  We had to get a pre-paid cell phone for several months to build up a credit history before Verizon would let us get a landline.

Shizuka (Saitama-ken), Recruiter for Bremar Associates
I went to college in Florida and lived in a very rural area.   I had a one bedroom apartment that was the best, the newest, and largest in the town, with AC, dishwasher, big walk-in closets all included for just $500 per month.  So I was very surprised when I came to New York and saw that apartments didn’t come with those accesories.  And the only apartment that I could get for $500 was a futon bed with a curtain in the lobby of the apartment.

At one point I tried finding a roommate.  I went to an agency that matches roommates (I did not know about Craig’s List at that time.)  I had to pay a non-refundable fee of $200 plus a fee of $300 which they would keep only if I got an apartment through them.  I only had one week to look and was pressed for time.  So I paid $500 in total in advance.  The agency set up some appointments to see apartments, but I also missed an appointment set up by the agency because the interview at the previous appointment they had scheduled for me took longer than expected.  The agency left me a voice mail warning for being a no-show and wouldn’t return my $300 after that.

I finally found a room to share for $800 in Astoria.  The apartment itself was small but very clean.  My room was big and faced south so I got a lot of sunshine.  That was the very first decent apartment I saw —  the others I saw were not fit for humans —  so I was happy and decided to take it.  My new roommate told me that we would split the rent 50/50, but somehow he paid only $350 while I was paying $800.

After that I moved to Brooklyn into a three-bedroom apartment.  I had a few roommates come and go. The last roommates were French and Russian, so we were all bilinguals in the apartment.  I think this happens only in NY!

Kazumi
I first came to the U.S. with my parents when I was 11 years old. My parents gave me a few months’ advance notice that we were relocating to Dallas from Tokyo.  I was terrified and sad, and cried almost everyday until the day of the move. When we arrived in Dallas and walked into our home, the first thing I saw was the fireplace. I was suddenly very happy, because as much as they tell you about Santa Claus in Japan, most Japanese houses do not have a fireplace for him to come through!

It also blew me away that it was so big and horizontal — it all fit without the second floor. I couldn’t believe that there were two bathrooms and that there were two sinks in every bathroom! It was strange for the toilet to be in such a large space, with a bathtub. Since I was an only child, and the house had three bedrooms, I had two bedrooms to myself, plus a den to play in, and an enclosed patio to bask in the sun. The patio made up for the lack of a tatami room…There was a large spa bathtub in the master bedroom that I could take a bath in occasionally, and reminded me of Japanese bathtubs.  (I have yet to find tubs in the U.S. that are deep enough, though.) The “bubble bath” concept was totally new and fascinating to me, and I enjoyed it very much.

The house also came with eat-in kitchen, dining room, huge living room, utility room, two car garage, and nice yard where my father learned the traditional Texan ritual of BBQ.  Our house wasn’t even big compared to Texas standards.  Now that I’ve lived in New York for the past 14 years, and the last four years in a mere 360 sqare foot one-bedroom in Harlem with a spouse and a child, I miss the house tremendously. One of my goals now is to come up with creative ways to somehow match the Texas experience in New York City, without having to dish out $5 million for a townhouse.

Kenji (Takarazuka-shi, Hyogo-ken), Student at Baruch College
when I was sleeping, I awoke and noticed an empty beer can moving around on the floor, seemingly by itself.  I had never seen One of my first apartments was in Chelsea, and I found it through a Japanese agency.  I found my room was extremely hot.  I was on the second floor, and there were Chinese and pizza stores right under my room on the first floor.  My room was being baked by the oven.  I used the air conditoner 24/7. I had a huge electric bill during the summer time.  I also had a roach problem, as many people do.  One night such a huge roach in my life.  In the case of both apartments, I had to pay 1.5 months’ worth of rent of the annual payment as an agency fee.  And yet, the agency didn’t help me with anything after I moved into each of the apartments.  I asked for help when I faced a living problem, but they just said, “We don’t care what happens to you after we found your apartment.”  This suprised me a lot because an agency in Japan wouldn’t say this.  Since I don’t have a credit history and a guarantor, I had to rely on the agency to rent an apartment by myself.

I moved to another apartment after that, but my current apartment is in actually with the same landlord in the same building.  He let me have an apartment in his building without any extra fee.  There haven’t been any major problems, but I was suprised when a man came down the fire escape mumbling somthing at 4:00 in the morning.  An apartment in Japan usually does not have a fire escape for each room.

Sayaka (Tokyo-shi), Human Resources Professional
When I looked for my first apartment, I had no credit history, so basically I needed to find an apartment that didn’t require a credit history.  I found a good apartment in Queens that my broker took me to see.  I had no idea that I would need to pay a deposit when I decided to take the apartment.  The building manager was very nice, though, and somehow he trusted Japanese tenants so much (not sure why) that he told me I can just pay any amount for the deposit and just come back the next day or so to pay the rest.  At that time, I only had $10 on me, so I only paid $10 for the deposit!!!   He was kind enough to keep my apartment until I came back a day later.

Rie, (Oita-shi, Oita-ken)
I went to college in the Adirondacks (about forty minutes’ drive from Lake Placid).  At first I lived in a dorm, but I found out that there were small cabins right outside of the campus (five minutes driving at most).  The cabins were rented by students most of the time.  Five cabins in row, and no TV connections.  That was my first place.  Just $350 per month, all inclusive.  I was 22 or 23.  Living in North Country was nothing like my living situation in Japan.  Unlike Japan, it was very isolated, expecially in the winter, and quiet.  After living in Tokyo the place was too quiet, and I didn’t know what to do to enjoy my free time.

I moved to NYC after college.  I decided to rent an apartment  with my Japanese friend who previously lived in Manhattan.  Using a Japanese broker, we looked around at some apartments in Queens.  I was around 25 or 26 at this point.  It was a bit annoying to prove that we had good financials because I was in the process of looking for a job, and my roommate was a student.

Soon after, I ended up getting a job at a hotel in the Berkshires in Massachusetts.  Luckily, one of my co-workers and his wife were looking for a roommate and asked me if I was interested, so I decided to take the offer.  It was a pretty big two-family house.  We had three-bedrooms, one-and-a-half bathrooms, a big kitchen, dining room and living room.  After living at the house for a year or so, the couple moved away and I took over the place by myself which meant I was responsible for all the utilities as well.  Summer is awsome, but in wintertime it snows a lot, and the bill for heating was pretty high.  I should have found a place with heat included.  Dealing with the house’s problems wasn’t fun, such as when a water pipe froze one cold day.  If I lived in the northern part of Japan maybe I would have experienced the same things.

Megumi Kikuraku
I went to a Japanese agency to find my first apartment.  The rent was $1,100 a month for a very small studio on the Upper East Side in 1999.  The broker’s fee was two months’ rent.  The Japanese apartment agencies were very useful and helpful.  At that time I couldn’t speak English very well to negotiate with American real estate agencies.  I didn’t want to live in Brooklyn or Queens because I had just come from Japan and wanted to experience living in Manhattan.  The rent on the Upper East Side was cheaper than downtown.  Before
living on the Upper East Side, I lived in an NYU dorm in the East Village.  I thought the Upper East Side was boring, and only elderly people lived there. But I did feel safer there.  The only problem with the apartment was that I saw the little mice very often, which I never saw in my apartment in Japan.  I told the landlord about that but he never did anything.  It made me think that that’s why Disney could draw Mickey Mouse!  They were very small and cute, but disgusting.