Project Balcony

Day 18 Friday 27th August 2010

Japanese Craftsman

This morning, after stepping over the badminton rackets again, we met a builder at the house to discuss project balcony removal. These guys work for a “reform company”. This is industry code for “big ripoff outfit”. There was the project manager and his local carpenter. I explained that the balcony was about to fall off, the wall was leaking and that we wanted it watertight as we would not be there for the winter. They were very polite and listened carefully to my plan to remove the balcony and repair the outer cladding. They then had a discussion which lasted for about 45 minutes. The conclusion was that my plan just wasn’t good enough for a craftsman like the carpenter. His proposal involved rebuilding the balcony. When I pointed out that it is completely useless he suggested enlarging it. When I rejected that idea he then suggested that the repair I wanted would need a lot of material such as trim accents, recladding half the outer wall and would take 3 days to perform. Being the rude gaijin that I am I just wanted to cut through all this consensus nonsense and find out what it was going to cost. Another round of discussion commenced. After what seemed like a large chunk of my life had gone by, we got the answer….Y300,000 yen. At least. Maybe. Depending on a few things…….

Luckily for us they were very busy and couldn’t do it in our required time frame so we were able to decline their proposal in a very Japanese way by saying that we loved their ideas but that we just couldn’t wait.

Kiwi property developer

The Osaka builder starts work on Monday.

Furniture disposal plan C was put into effect this afternoon. In NZ you would call in a second hand dealer to go through it and maybe give you some money for the best furniture. The rest could go to the dump.

Shizuka had spotted a Recycle shop add in the phone book and called them to come out and have a look at what we had. I felt sure that they would take the best stuff at least.  There’s a nice wardrobe, 2 single beds, some drawers, couple of TV stands, sideboard, table and chairs…..the usual household stuff.

The recycle shop guy showed up and took a look.

As usual, things are completely upside down here.

He wasn’t even slightly interested in the furniture.

Nobody wants old furniture here. You can’t even if you give it to them for free.

Plastic boxes, however, are like gold it seems.

There are some of those plastic crates like you can buy at the warehouse for about 5 bucks. I was planning on using them to store the few things we will keep.

His eyes lit up when he saw these boxes. “Can I have those?” he says.

“No. What about these golf clubs?” I say.

Not interested.

Sofa. Shelves. Beds. Surfboard.  Nothing.

OK. These people like to use the word “Recycle” but obviously don’t have a clue what it means.

In the end all he took was some plates, a plant stand, some kids toys and a kettle.

Oh…and the only 2 chairs in the place.

Now I have nowhere to sit and a load of furniture nobody wants.