House cleaning and Japanese handymen

In Japan, increasing abandoned houses are a social problem, and people seek new owners or users. But in most cases, the first hurdle towards the renovation of old Japanese houses is clean-up and disposal of the household goods and interiors. Most owners who abandon properties leave them without cleanup, as it takes enormous time and effort, and despite that, the act produces nothing.

Like many other cases, my uncle shifted away from the house gradually, leaving the furniture and household goods as they were. Partly because they are busy, but they have fond memories of any goods, and feel reluctant to throw them out as garbage. However, already 20 years have passed since the death of my great grandma, and now it’s time to deal with them.

THE HANDYMAN INDUSTRY IN JAPAN

When cleaning up the vacant house, we occasionally call handymen. There are countless handyman companies across Japan, from self-employed handymen to nationwide franchising companies. Mainly they do household chores in place of clients, but expand into even odd businesses intruding into clients’ privacy. On top of that, they listen to customers’ complain, or impersonate clients’ boyfriends/family members.
For a story of a handyman, please see: https://www.businessinsider.com/men-in-japan-are-being-hired-as-agony-aunts-maids-and-fake-boyfriends-2018-9

The handyman business isn’t prevalent in Japan. A factual survey in 2019 shows more than 90% of Japanese have never used the service, except for men at age 20 to 39. However, it’s expected that the aging society might boost the industry to support senior citizens living alone, for example, by home-delivery and shopping services. Besides, needs for cleaning up the belongings of the dead are growing.
For the details of the survey, please see: https://j-net21.smrj.go.jp/startup/research/service/cons-benriya.html (in Japanese)

A start-up guide says the handyman business can be launched in the following two ways: franchised or independent.
If you take the first option, you will be charged a franchise fee (as initial fee) and a royalty on a regular basis. The former is roughly 10,000USD, and the latter varies from 500 to 1,000 USD per month. In addition, the fee for training by the franchising company is about 5,000USD.
In the case of the independent type, you will need about 15,000USD for equipment and vehicles for basic services (repairs, garden maintenance, etc.), and about 5,000 USD for advertising expenses including website creation. In total, the estimated initial cost is about 20,000USD, even if you are going to use your house as an office.
Regardless of which option is chosen, the necessary start-up cost is 20,000 to 30,000 USD. No license is required, though, so the barrier to entry is low.
For the guide, please see: https://j-net21.smrj.go.jp/startup/guide/service/05029.html)

CHARGES AND BOOKING

The commonly used formula for handy-man services is “hourly rate* hours worked + charge for travel costs”. The average hourly rate is 3000JPY (approx. 28USD), common for both Tokyo and other areas.

After collecting multiple quotes, I chose a locally-based company “Hands of a cat”. The company name came from a Japanese proverb: so busy that you need even a hand of a cat (In English, “I’ll take all the help I can get”.)

It proposed the cheapest fee, as it doesn’t charge travel costs when the destination place is in the same town, and gives some discounts for service longer than 6 hours a day. Now I'm a repeat client. They send the invoice to us in the cute envelope. 

envelope for an invoice

CLEANUP OF THE TEA HOUSE

What we asked for this day were: cutting the grass in our garden and the small mountain behind, taking out the garbage, removing and scrapping the furniture. A handyman showed up in a van, which was full of necessary tools and equipment.

While they were cutting grass, my uncle and I entered into the cleanup of the annex. The annex is a tea house clinging to the side of the small mountain behind our main house. Plants and bamboos here grow rapidly, and the mountain gets pathless. Then pit vipers expand their territory, and the mountain is swallowing the building. Indeed, nobody had been inside the tea house for a long time.

The residence space consisting of two rooms, toilet, kitchen, and back entrance hall, was added to the tea house about 50 years ago. I myself stepped into the tea room for the first time in nine years, and into the residence space for the first time in my life. The second room has a closet full of Japanese-style bedding, and my first task was to drag out and discard them. I found vestige of a nest of marten or weasel a long time ago. I was feeling like sneezing even wearing a mask. Nonetheless, there’s no living rodents and insects. The annex was so old that even creatures abandoned it long before.

floor plan 

By the way, I forgot to take picture inside, but the toilet is to be flushed by using a squirt gun. I’ve never seen such a type of toilet anywhere but here. 

door to toilet

My uncle and I pulled old furniture including a bed out of the annex, then scrapped and smashed them with a hammer, and throw the timber off of halfway up the mountain onto the corner of the garden next to the main house (the annex is located on the mountain slope, 8 to 10 meters above the ground floor of the main house.). It would have been good for stress release, but unfortunately I was under no stress. It was just a heavy labor.

SCRAPPAGE AND POST-CLEANING

We left the scrappage and garbage in the corner of the garden for the time being. Our house is located in the middle of the steeply sloped area with high concentration of old residential houses. That is, pathways are impassably narrow for any car and needless to say, heavy machinery. So, we have to haul waste stuff out toward the road in a primitive way, such as pushing a wheelbarrow for home use. Moreover, the waste regulation is complicated, so it’s more efficient to do it with the help of handymen in one go after stocking up. 

progress of the day 

In this context, the geographical conditions here lead to increasing ruined houses. It’s appallingly expensive to demolish houses and drag down the scrappage in the area where standard heavy machinery can’t go alongside. Mountain terrain has the difficulty that flatland can escape. About 73% of Japan's land area is mountainous, so the challenge is perhaps common in Japan.