Usually I stay away from exploring regular Japanese houses. It happened way too often that I thought “Oh, this house / apartment building looks abandoned!” and upon closer look it actually was not. Japan has an unbelievable amount of rundown yet inhabited buildings, especially in the countryside and the outskirts of bigger cities – and I don’t want to get in trouble!
When *Rory* and I drove through the countryside on one of our exploration trips, my fellow explorer tried to point my attention to a slightly dilapidated concrete building to the left – and even without looking at it I dismissed the idea, because “there are cars parked”. Well, last time I saw the building half a year prior there were cars parked, but this time I jumped the gun. Rory was indeed right: the cars were gone, leaving behind a building that looked abandoned… and so we stopped.
Still not 100% convinced that the building was really abandoned I left the lead to Rory and had a look at the surroundings – a couple of storage shacks inhabited by half a dozen cats, some garden plots with Napa cabbage (the key ingredient of kimchi…), a few open windows; no real proof that this simple, ugly building was really abandoned. Access of course was easy – two staircases in the back lead to four floors with two apartments each. (The video shows one staircase, the photos I selected are from apartments on both staircases.)
While all apartments basically had the same layout, their interior was like a box of chocolates – we never knew what we were gonna get! Some apartments looked like you could move it in right away if you had low standards, others were completely moldy and a serious health hazard, while the third kind was covered by spider webs. Some were packed with brand-new boxed items, the strangest being the ones labelled “Glycerin Enema Mune 60”, others were filled with all kinds of trashed. Some showed signs of families with children, others most likely were bachelor pads. In one apartment was a calendar – showing last month’s date; which would explain why there were cars parks at the building half a year prior to our visit.
Since the apartment building was just outside of a small town, Rory and I went for a walk after we were done exploring. It was getting dark anyway, so we thought it would be nice to enjoy a countryside sunset. Countryside people in Japan tend to be much friendlier than city folks according to my experience, so it didn’t surprise me at all when a local woman started a conversation with Rory when he took a picture of a cat with an improvised Elizabethan collar – and she confirmed that the apartment building was abandoned just two months prior to our visit after it fell into disrepair.
When approaching and exploring the apartment building I didn’t think it was a good idea being there, but in retrospect it was quite an interesting experience. I still wouldn’t drive hours to get there, but it wasn’t a bad location as far as original finds go!
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Abandoned Kansai 
The view out of the spiderwebs and couch rooms looks really nice. I actually really like that couch as well. An interesting find. Thanks for sharing it!
Hi Silvia,
I didn’t have a closer look, but the couch seemed to be in decent condition – on the one hand it’s sad that it is going to rot there, on the other hand it’s a nice subject for urban explorers…
Quite an unusual discovery! Strange that someone left behind a photo album with personal photos. Great to see the Doremon pachinko game with hand-drawn Doremon on it.
Hi Angelina,
In the album weren’t the only photos left behind – in another apartment there were photos of people hanging on the wall, a young mother and her toddler. It’s always strange to see things like that. And it makes me wonder what those people would think about me and Rory (and now the internet…) having a look at their former home. I guess it’s one of the reasons I usually stay away from private homes…
The partly homemade game I loved, too! The box was still there, including the instructions on how to put everything together.
Really odd that such personal mementos were left behind and I suppose in some ways it could feel like you’ve intruded into the lives of these people even though they no longer live there.
It’s interesting to see what sorts of artifacts people left behind…especially the booze and the children’s toys.
But it seems so random, doesn’t it?
yes
I like the was you have compared and contrasted the various kitchens – variations on a theme. I guess there could be a category of abandonment titled “recently abandoned”…
I only realized at home that I took a lot of kitchen photos, because the kitchen was the first thing to see upon entering an apartment. And since they were so different…
Also, I kind of know when the last tenant moved out, but after seeing all the apartments I wonder when the first one left, because it clearly was a process of several months, maybe even years.
Interesting discovery… And all those boxes of glycerin enema, either this person was working in the Pharma industry or had a bit of a problem…
Hi Sue,
Yeah, the enemas were weird. The funny thing is, I only remember the stack on the photo, but when I had a look at the video I took, I realized there were a couple of boxes in the living room of another apartment…
Weird…
Thinking about lonely older men sitting around in their tiny place is sad, but it is always the momentos of family life and left behind children’s items that get me. This is the second place of residence that I have been to where obviously valued family items were “forgotten.” I can only think of the worst and hope for the best when it comes to the families.
The owner of the countless boxes of enemas though….I hope they are happy now as well while not ruining someone elses day.
I love your blog!
Yeah, like the others who commented above, it is REALLY strange that people leave behind such personal items like that high school photo album.
One thing puzzles me a lot about these abandoned places, why did people leave behind so many things, as if they are ready to come back?
1. Was it because it is easier to just leave what they do not want there than to call up the garbage disposal team which gonna cost a lot?
2. Are there few to little recycling companies in Japan? In Singapore, there are collectors who will take the old bits of metal pipes for recycling.
3. A friend once told me that people leave places close to the way it was because it is just a custom for them.
Thanks lot – you keep reading it, I keep writing it. 🙂
1.) That’s a good point. waste disposal is quite expensive in Japan, that’s why you can see a lot of trash along countryside roads. It probably was easier and cheaper to leave stuff behind.
2.) There are recycling companies, but usually only for bottles, cans, paper and electronics. If you want to get rid of furniture or garbage, you usually have to pay for it.