From ChibaWiki
Caring for Your Japanese Home
Troubled by tatami? Flustered by your futon? Don't panic. Learn all the ins and outs of all the confusing stuff in your new place. Find out how to deal with the fixtures, appliances, and critters that come along with living in Japan.
Tatami (畳 [たたみ])
The real reason why you take your shoes off indoors.
Do
- Vacuum with the grain, not against it or diagonally
- Clean up spills immediately. If you're a spill-prone person, keep plenty of towels close at hand.
Don’t
- Leave wet clothes sitting around. They will grow mold very quickly, and the moisture and mold will seep into the tatami.
- Drag heavy things. It will leave gashes and rips in the tatami.
- Walk on it with shoes (or slippers, supposedly). Shoes can cause rips and dents and bring in dirt, bugs, and mites (dani) from outside.
Each mat costs 10,000円+, so be careful if you have to pay for damages when you leave.
Bugs (Mushi 虫[むし])
Dani ダニ
Ticks or mites that infest tatami.
- Invisible, nasty little biters. If you develop a strange rash, it's probably dani.
- Kill them with Dani Aasu. It's a poison that you inject into the tatami. Insert the needle into the mat and spray. Apply in 3 or 4 spots in each mat. Make sure there's proper ventilation and maybe leave the house for a while after use.
Cockroaches (Gokiburi ごきぶり)
Giant, flying cockroaches
Don’t freak out!
- Keep your kitchen clean.
- Store food in airtight containers.
- Use roach motels and sticky traps.
- Don't leave piles of newspaper around, they love to hide between sheets of paper.
- Roaches can enter your house through your sink drain. You may want to buy a metal drain trap at a hardware store to keep them from coming and going as they please.
Don’t smash them! They’ll make a mess that's really hard to clean, especially in tatami.
Mosquitos (Ka 蚊 [か])
Earth/Aasu Noomatto (アース ノーマット)
- Come out in late spring and summer, but have been spotted in fall and winter, too
- Close your doors/windows in late afternoon and at night
- Electric room spray, Earth/Aasu Noomatto (アース ノーマット) works like Plug-Ins™ and is effective in killing small insects in your living space
- Bug spray is effective, too
Futon (布団 [ふとん])
Traditional Japanese futons are different from the college/bachelor pad-mattress-on-a-frame-that-folds-to-make-a-sofa type in the west. It's a set of fold-able bedding that is stored in the closet when not in use. It's great for small Japanese living spaces! Most likey, your BOE gave you a set when you arrived.
Laying out the futon
This little guy loves his futon.
Layers go like this, from bottom to top:
- First is the matto (マット), a foam pad about 5cm thick.
- On top of that goes the actual futon, or shikibuton(敷布団), it's a thick, quilted dealy.
- Next come the sheets. You can get a zippered pocket sheet that fits over the shikibuton.
- After that are whatever blankets (mofu 毛布) you want. Useful in the summer is a thin blanket that's made of terry cloth, like a towel.
- On top of everything goes the duvet (kakebuton 掛け布団) with a duvet cover. The side with the hole (usually with mesh) goes on top.
- All done! ^_^
Japanese pillows are small, hard, and sometimes have an indentation in the middle. This is the kind you'll probably be given. It's very good for sleeping on your back (the supposed proper sleeping posture here). Give it a try. But if you just can't get comfortable on it, western-style pillows are easy to find, though a little pricey. Kainz home is bound to have some, and shimamura should sell pillows as well. If you are still having a hard time finding one, and need to ask someone in Japanese, the word is "makura （枕）."
Taking care of it
A common neighborhood sight on sunny days.
- Keep it clean. The heavier parts, like the shikibuton and matto are hard to launder at home, and you'll need to take them to a dry cleaner or laundry service if they get dirty.
- In between these infrequent cleanings, hang them outside on sunny days to air out. Make sure to beat them like a rug to get out any dust. Doing this will prevent mold and dani from taking over your bedding.
- Do not store your futon if it is wet or damp. Make sure it is completely dry or it will grow mold. Ick. If you put it out to air and it starts to rain, get it inside immediately!
Warning! A futon is not a western bed. You can't lay it out and leave it there for weeks and months on end. If you do, mold will grow on the underside and make its way into the filling/wadding. This is especially bad if you have tatami. If you don't want to start growing new friends under your bedding, you should air out your futon at least once a week. For those of you who are lazy and don't mind your place looking like a mess, an easy way to avoid growing mold is to simply flip your futon over on to a different patch of floor when you wake up. What's really important, is just to give your floor and the underside of your futon a chance to breath and dry out. If you are unable to air out your futon, an alternative is to buy a futon dryer (futon kansoki 布団乾燥機). Another thing that helps, but is not a replacement for hanging out your futon, is a desiccant sheet meant for use in storing (or simply using) futons. These will absorb the mosture through a chemical process, but will lose their efficacy fairly quickly. Hanging them out in the sun will "recharge" them.
If you have a western bed, it's a little better since the mattress up off the floor and air can circulate underneath. However, it's a good idea to put your mattress out in the sun every once in a while, too.
Food Garbage / Your Kitchen Sink
Stinky Sinks
You will not have a garbage disposal. Chances are you will have one of two set ups with your kitchen sink. You should check to see which one you have before you start using your kitchen sink, so you can deal with it appropriately.
The more common set-up involves a strainer that will sit on top of your actual drain pipe. Grocery stores sell mesh nets that line these strainers. Anything you wash down your sink will end up getting caught in the strainer. As you would expect, it will begin to stink if it's left there for too long. Pull out the net full of food waste, throw it in the garbage, and put a new net in the strainer.
A more rare set-up does not have a strainer, but an interesting water trap to keep the sewer stink from coming up your sink. Instead of the standard double u-curve in the pipe, there's a small pot of water around the top of the pipe, and a top that goes over it. These are extremely hard to clean if you get food in there, and they will stink if you don't keep them clean. You will want to buy an external strainer to sit in the corner of your sink. You'll want to run all your food waste through that so it doesn't go down the sink. The strainer is called a "clean corner," and you can buy mesh nets to line them as well.
Nasty Nama-gomi (Organic "raw" garbage)
Don't be that guy. You know, the one who when visitors walk into his home, they all blink, scrunch their noses, and think to themselves "He actually *lives* in this disgusting smell all day? Didn't his mother teach him *anything*?"
Japan, and especially Chiba, are hot and humid during the summer. Food rots very quickly. This leads to very short and frequently very accurate expiration dates. Obviously, for your health's sake, don't eat anything with meat or dairy that you have left out for a day in the heat. But most importantly for your and your guests' mental well-being, don't let your house fill with the simmering bouquet of rotting garbage.
The best ways to do this are to:
- take out your trash often (once a week would be ideal), and
- have a separate, tightly sealable bin for organic rubbish (food scraps, peelings, eggshells, unwashed cardboard yogurt cups, the contents of your sink drain trap, etc. - anything that rots or molds that is not liquid enough to wash convincingly down the drain).
- Large tupperware bins work well (purchase at 100 yen shops or Cainz Home).
- Line with a trashbag for easy removal cause this will get STANK after a week or so in the summer's heat.
- Open quickly, insert garbage swiftly, seal tightly with alacrity. Air out brief blast of stank with fan. Wash thoroughly between emptyings.
- Keep your raw garbage outside. Your balcony is a good place to do this. Not only does it keep the stink outside, but it will avoid tempting mice and roaches to enter your home. If they're after your garbage, there's not a whole lot you can do; best let them at it outside of your house, then make them come in your house to get it.
- Don't put garbage outside in nothing but a trash bag. Crows will tear them open.
If you follow these directions carefully, bye bye messy garbage stank in your home, hello sweet summer goodness.
Mold (黴 [かび])
Chiba is hot, wet, low-lying, and has a long summer. This means that inevitably, at some point (or constantly), most Chiba residents will have to deal with that terrible foe, mold. Left un-combatted, mold is not just ugly and smelly, it can actually cause serious health problems. So if you end up getting a case of the mold, here are some tips on how best to deal with it:
- Follow the futon and tatami tips above.
- Ventilate your place as much as possible. Check on areas of your house that don't get good ventilation occasionally (closets, bathrooms, etc. - mold can even grow on clothes in your closets in some cases). Ventilating your place is great for people living on the 2nd floor or above (though significantly harder for people on the first floor), EXCEPT when it's very humid outside - in that case, see next step.
- Mold thrives at humidity levels of above 60% or so, so use dehumidifiers (close doors and windows first) to try and cut down the amount of moisture whenever possible. Most aircon come with a dehumidify mode (除湿 [じょしつ]) equipped, though it's often not very effective. You can find more effective single-purpose mechanical dehumifiers (除湿機 [じょしつき]) for extreme purposes at large electronics stores for 10,000-20,000 yen (and up). But actually, what Japanese people use most often is chemical dehumidifiers, called 湿気取 [しっけとり] ("shikke-tori"), which look like little plastic bins with styrofoam balls inside, which you crack open and they suck water out of your air by the pint. They're quite cheap, just a few hundred yen or less a pop (or three pack, for that matter), and can be found at any drug or home store, and you can stick them all around your house (*especially* in otherwise hard-to-dehumidify areas like closets). They have to be tossed out and replaced when they fill up with liquid though, and they are probably not quite as effective as a proper mechanical one.
- For cleaning mold outbreaks, use カビキラー ("kabi-kiraa"), a horribly powerful cleaning agent. Kabi Killer is to bleach what napalm is to gasoline. When you use it be sure to keep the place well ventilated. WARNING: In addition to being pretty nasty for your health if you breathe it in or get it on you too much, this stuff also will bleach clothing and other items so be careful.
- If the mold gets really bad and you think it's affecting your health, consider an air purifier (空気清浄機 [くうきせいじょうき]), which is kind of a reverse fan that filters particles out of the air around it. Air purifiers of reasonable size can be found at large electronics/appliance stores, e.g. Yodobashi for 10,000 yen and up. (Slight caveat: you have to replace the filter eventually on most of these.)
- Tons of links and info about mold in English: http://healthandenergy.com/mold.htm
Heating
The safest way to heat your home is your air conditioner. It might be a bit expensive though. You may want to consider using a kerosene heater during your waking hours.
(too lazy to write anything now. Please see the following links)
External Links
Tokyo With Kids
Summertime Remedies
Ibaraki JETs (Summer & Winter Advice)
wikiHow
Extra mold info
