{"id":241,"date":"2026-10-12T08:59:00","date_gmt":"2026-10-11T23:59:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.iiie-r5.com\/?p=241"},"modified":"2026-10-08T07:48:00","modified_gmt":"2026-10-07T22:48:00","slug":"room-hunting-then-and-now-edo-10","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.iiie-r5.com\/?p=241","title":{"rendered":"Edo vs. Today: What Has Changed in Room Hunting? | Room Hunting, Then and Now: Edo \u2469"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"Edo
Photo: an alley in Kyoto (David Emrich \/ Unsplash). For illustration. The red stamp, which reads \u7dcf\u307e\u3068\u3081 (s\u014d-matome<\/em>, \u201csummary\u201d), 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

For nine episodes I have been looking into how people rented homes in Edo, the city that became Tokyo. This is the wrap-up. Compared with today, what changed and what did not?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What has not changed<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

You need someone to vouch for you.<\/strong> To rent a home in Edo you needed a guarantor called a tanaukenin<\/em>. For people with no one to ask, a business appeared: guarantors for a fee. In Osaka, 53 of them were officially recognized as an association in 1732 (Edo \u2461<\/a>). That is today\u2019s guarantee company.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The landlord checks you first.<\/strong> The Edo landlord questioned the applicant and the family in detail, and is said to have gone to ask around the previous neighbourhood (Edo \u2462<\/a>). Today it is an application form, documents and a guarantee company\u2019s screening. The question is the same.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The owner and the manager are different people.<\/strong> The row-house \u201clandlord\u201d was a yamori<\/em>, a manager hired by the owner (Edo \u2465<\/a>). Today we call that a property management company.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Shared spaces come with rules.<\/strong> Once a year all the residents cleaned the shared well together. Dumping rubbish in rivers was banned in 1655 (Edo \u2466<\/a>).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Rent it instead of buying it.<\/strong> A shop called a sonry\u014dya<\/em> lent out clothes, bedding and utensils (Edo \u2467<\/a>). It is a distant ancestor of furnished apartments and rental services.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"An
Then: a street of wooden houses (Photo: Andy Arbeit \/ Unsplash). This is Narai-juku in Nagano, not an Edo row house. For illustration.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

What has changed<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

How you search.<\/strong> A paper \u201cfor rent\u201d sign on an empty house was the signal (Edo \u2460<\/a>). Today you see photos and floor plans on your phone.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Size and equipment.<\/strong> The smallest room, kushaku-niken<\/em>, was about 10 square metres, with a little over four tatami mats of floor. No bath. The well and the toilet were shared (Edo \u2463<\/a>).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The weight of rent.<\/strong> That room cost about 300 mon a month, roughly 19 bowls of soba. In one carpenter\u2019s household budget, rent was about 8% of income (Edo \u2464<\/a>).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Preparing for fire.<\/strong> Edo had more than 100 great fires in 264 years (Edo \u2468<\/a>). Today we have fire insurance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What I think after nine episodes<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

This part is my own impression.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The tools have been replaced completely. The paper sign became a smartphone, the guarantor became a guarantee company, and asking the neighbours became paperwork. But the core has hardly moved. The landlord checks: can I trust this person? The tenant checks: can I live in this room? Room hunting has been a process of checking each other for 300 years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Screening, guarantee fees and piles of documents were not invented to annoy anyone. Learning that alone made the research worth it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"A
Now: a furnished one-room apartment (Photo: Stephen Pontes \/ Unsplash). For illustration.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Homework I still owe<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

To be honest, there are two things I could not find out.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

First, why the for-rent sign was pasted at an angle (Edo \u2460<\/a>). Second, how much it cost to hire a guarantor in Edo (Edo \u2461<\/a>). I have not found reliable sources for either. If I do, I will write about it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What comes next<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

From tomorrow I am starting a \u201cToday\u201d series: no guarantor, high move-in costs, worries about screening. I will check each one against government and city sources.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The history continues too. Next is the Meiji period, starting with the deposit, shikikin<\/em>. The dictionary lists six meanings for that word.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

From now on, \u201cToday\u201d and \u201cThen\u201d will alternate, one day each.<\/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":"

For-rent signs, guarantors, screening by asking the neighbours, a 10 m\u00b2 room for 300 mon a month. A look back at nine episodes on renting in Edo: what changed, what did not, and what I still could not find out.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":239,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-241","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\/241","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=241"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.iiie-r5.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/241\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":295,"href":"https:\/\/www.iiie-r5.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/241\/revisions\/295"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.iiie-r5.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/239"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.iiie-r5.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=241"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.iiie-r5.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=241"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.iiie-r5.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=241"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}