Rising prices, energy turbulence, the spinning wheel of inflation. We need to look for alternatives to save money. As everywhere else, so on our little island of Japan, the most important line item in monthly expenditure is property rent. So to all business people in Japan, I would like to draw your attention to the website freak: https://www.oshimaland.co.jp Do not be alarmed by the extremely simple user interface of the site. This page has a much deeper subtext than it may seem at first sight.
Oshima Teru (大島てる) is a Japanese company that operates a website providing information on accident-related real estate. Such properties are called jikobuken 事故物件 in Japan. In other words a property where someone committed suicide, someone killed someone, burned down, in other words the previous owner or tenant of the property died by accident. In the Japanese subconscious, such a property is immediately associated with the idea that you are likely to be living not alone. Probably nine out of ten Japanese will refuse to rent such a property because it is simply embarrassing if someone has shaken their legs in a stranger-than-usual way.
The company that runs the website was founded in 1837. I didn’t misspell the year. Japanese companies love history. It is true that almost two hundred years ago, the company’s activities were completely unrelated to real estate. The current oshimaland page was opened in 2005. As I mentioned, it gives the address of the property and also a short note on what the accident was.
The information is published free of charge and the revenue comes from advertising on the website.
The company itself has no permanent office and is supported by a large number of collaborators and volunteers. In the case of homicides, information is collected from newspapers and other media. Court hearings are monitored and then addresses and other information are identified from the indictment. Since it is difficult to assess suicide cases, the volunteers themselves conduct interviews with neighbours. In general, the information gathering process is based on publicly available sources.
The company is headed by Teru Oshima (real name Manabu Oshima). Oshima’s father is a university professor and Teru himself spent three to seven years in the USA and Australia. Teru may be a geek, but he is certainly not stupid. He is a graduate of the most prestigious university, Tokyo University. He also studied, although he did not graduate, at Columbia University.
As you might expect, the company has had its share of legal troubles. The owner of an apartment building in Yokohama filed a civil lawsuit in court claiming that the content of an article on www.oshimaland.co.jp was untrue and defamatory. He demanded the removal of the information from the website and an apology. However, the defendant won the case. After the court’s judgment came into force, the owner of the plaintiff’s flat wrote again to delete the information, stating that he would pay around EUR 4 000. However, Oshima refused, saying that “if the content is found to be incorrect, of course we will correct it, but otherwise we will do nothing”.
Why is this kind of information so sensitive and how does it relate to rental or sales prices. If you are renting or buying property in Japan, look out for 心理的瑕疵物件, shinrite kikashi buken (literally translated as “mentally damaged objects”), and sometimes the phrase kokuchijiko ari 告知事項有 (notifiable objects). Properties with such a notice in Japan are priced or rented at around 20-30%, and even cheaper if it is a murder.
How to “whitewash” buildings marked as a disaster. For example, if it is a rented apartment, the most effective solution is to rent it out to someone for at least a month. After a month, the contract can be terminated and then the next landlord is no longer obliged to inform the distressed parties about the apartment/house. However, the information on the oshima website does not disappear. As the saying goes, if you get on the internet, it’s forever. Selling such a crooked property will not be helped by the services of a whitewashing agent, so the owner will have to settle for at least 30% below the market price. By the way, an acquaintance of mine bought an exlusive flat a few years ago. So far he said everything is fine:)
I remember more than ten years ago there was a case in the Japanese media where the owner of a house was mummified after death. The beauty of it was that the daughter lived in the house with her father. One day, the pension administration looked around and saw that the old man had turned 110 plus years old and decided to go and congratulate him. They arrived at the latter’s house and found a mummy in the room instead of the old man lying there. During the investigation, the natural question that arose was how many years ago the old man had died and how much had been overpaid in pensions. It turned out that the pension had been dripping into the old man’s account for several decades after his death. The daughter asked how it was that you, who had been living in the room next door for twenty-plus years, had not noticed that Dad was dead. The investigators had a brilliant answer. They said, “My father was a strict man. He asked me to close the door and not to disturb him, so I will follow my father’s orders”. And how can we not remember that, according to traditional Japanese wisdom, there are four terrible things in life 地震雷火事親, namely an earthquake, thunder, fire and a father’s wrath.
So I wish to avoid all these four things in my life.
