{"id":170,"date":"2026-10-08T08:59:00","date_gmt":"2026-10-07T23:59:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.iiie-r5.com\/?p=170"},"modified":"2026-10-08T07:48:03","modified_gmt":"2026-10-07T22:48:03","slug":"room-hunting-then-and-now-edo-6","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.iiie-r5.com\/?p=170","title":{"rendered":"The Edo Landlord Was a Hired Manager | Room Hunting, Then and Now: Edo \u2465"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"The
Photo: a Japanese house with a tiled-roof gate (PJH \/ Unsplash). For illustration. The red stamp, which reads \u5bb6\u5b88 (yamori<\/em>), is also an illustration.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

This is the English edition of our Japanese series \u300c\u304a\u90e8\u5c4b\u63a2\u3057\u4eca\u3080\u304b\u3057\u300d (Room Hunting, Then and Now). \u65e5\u672c\u8a9e\u7248\u306f\u3053\u3061\u3089<\/a> \uff0f All English articles<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

In rakugo<\/em>, Japan\u2019s traditional comic storytelling, the row-house landlord is a familiar figure. He scolds the tenants, looks after them, and is a big name in the neighborhood. Naturally I assumed he owned the row house. He did not.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The official name was \u201cyamori\u201d<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

The proper word for an Edo landlord is yamori<\/em>, literally \u201chouse keeper.\u201d A dictionary defines it this way: a person who managed land and houses on behalf of the landowner or house owner, and collected the ground rent and house rent (Digital Daijisen).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The owner was someone else, and the landlord was the owner\u2019s agent. A Japanese history dictionary published by Yamakawa says the yamori<\/em> received a \u201cyamori<\/em> wage.\u201d In other words, a manager working for pay.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

More than collecting rent<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Collecting rent was not the whole job. The yamori<\/em> was also stationed at the jishinban<\/em>, the neighborhood guard post, and handled the town\u2019s public duties. He took on the owner\u2019s civic obligations too.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The same history dictionary describes the relationship with tenants as a \u201cfictive parent-child relationship.\u201d A stiff phrase, but it is the old saying known from rakugo<\/em>: \u201cThe landlord is as good as a parent, the tenant as good as a child.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In Edo \u2462 I wrote about landlords going to ask around an applicant\u2019s old neighborhood before letting them move in. If you are going to be a stand-in parent, of course you choose carefully.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"A
Then: a room in an old Japanese house (Photo: Sava Bobov \/ Unsplash). For illustration.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

An unexpected source of income<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Besides the wage, there was one more source of income: the night soil that collected in the row house\u2019s shared toilets.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In Edo this was valuable fertilizer. Farmers from the surrounding area bought it, and the money is said to have gone to the yamori<\/em> (Edo Ginmi Mond\u014d Hikae<\/em>, official commentary of the Edo Culture and History Certification Test).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The more tenants, the more income. I cannot think of a better reason to care about full occupancy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In today\u2019s terms, a property management company<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Collecting rent on the owner\u2019s behalf, looking after the building, listening to the tenants. Today that is the work of a property management company.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I also manage properties entrusted to me by their owners. That makes the yamori<\/em> my Edo-period colleague. Although today\u2019s management companies do not do the civic duties, the parenting, or the fertilizer sales.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When you rent a home in Japan, your point of contact is often the management company and not the owner. That separation between owner and manager is a tradition going back to Edo.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"A
Now: the management company keeps the keys and looks after the building (Photo: Jakub \u017berdzicki \/ Unsplash).<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

A note on sources: for this article I relied on dictionary and encyclopedia entries, and on an article presenting the certification test\u2019s official commentary.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Next time: the shared spaces of the row house. The well and the rubbish pit.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Looking for a home in Sapporo?<\/strong>
Message us on LINE: https:\/\/line.me\/ti\/p\/u2qP4VZ5ZU<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Please note:<\/strong> Lease contracts and the legally required explanation of important matters (j\u016by\u014d jik\u014d setsumei<\/em>) are provided in Japanese.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The famous row-house \u201clandlord\u201d of Edo did not own the building. He was a yamori, a manager paid to run it for the owner.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":168,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-170","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-english"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.iiie-r5.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/170","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.iiie-r5.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.iiie-r5.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.iiie-r5.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.iiie-r5.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=170"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.iiie-r5.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/170\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":303,"href":"https:\/\/www.iiie-r5.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/170\/revisions\/303"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.iiie-r5.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/168"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.iiie-r5.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=170"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.iiie-r5.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=170"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.iiie-r5.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=170"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}