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When looking for an apartment in Japan, you can save a lot of money on rent if there’s some amenity or nicety you’re willing to do without. Choosing an above-ground-level unit in a building with no elevator, for example, or an apartment with just a basic toilet, not one of Japan’s fancy washlet models, can easily knock 10,000 yen or more off your monthly housing expenses.
But according to Japan’s TV Asahi news, some young Japanese people are going even farther than that, and looking for apartments without a bathtub or shower.
The financial appeal is significant. TV Asahi spoke with a 20-something Tokyoite living in a bath/shower-less studio apartment near Nerima Station, just a 10-minute train ride from downtown Tokyo, paying just 32,000 yen a month. Another no-shower apartment dweller is within walking distance of Tabata Station on the Yamanote Line, the loop line that runs around the center of Tokyo, whose rent is almost as cheap, at 33,000 yen a month.
An apartment with no bathing facilities might sound like it’d exclude you from all but the most odor-accepting workplaces and social circles, but it’s actually not as much of an obstacle in Japan as it would be in many other countries. That’s because you can still find sento, or public bathhouses, in Japanese towns. They’re not nearly as common as they used to be, but in a city with as many people as Tokyo, sento haven’t completely disappeared. There’s even a website, Tokyo Sento Fudosan (“Tokyo Public Bath Real Estate”), that specializes in helping renters find no-bath apartments that are within a short distance of a public bath.
▼ A look at some public baths and no-bath apartments
According to Tokyo Sento Fudosan, it’s not necessarily economic hardship that’s causing people to seek out these low-cost, few-frill apartments. Instead, the realtor says, there’s an appeal to the retro atmosphere. No-bath apartments were much more common two or three generations ago, and some people see the old-school practice of gathering a bundle with your soap, shampoo, towel, and change of clothes, then walking to the sento for a bath as a relaxing ritual and life rhythm.
There’s also the fact that while sento aren’t as fancy as full-fledged hot spring resorts, their multi-person tubs are still more spacious than what you could fit in a private apartment, and with sento themselves not as widely used as they used to be, odds are you aren’t going to have to share the public bath tub with all that many people at any given time, giving you the opportunity to stretch out and relax, giving your mind a break from the pressures and responsibilities you might feel if you were lounging about your own home.
▼ If your low-cost apartment has a bath that looks like this, it’s kind of tough to unwind and destress.
Of course, the lower cost of no-bath apartments is a benefit that can’t be ignored, and Tokyo Sento Fudosan says that the greater financial flexibility allows renters to put more money towards their hobbies, investments, or towards hitting savings targets.
Online reactions to TV Asahi’s report have been mixed, though. While many can see an upside to living this way, many others say it’s not something they’d want to do.
“I really can’t get behind trying to spin poor people’s poverty as a positive.”
“I think the proper way to frame this is there are people who can’t earn enough to spend money on their hobbies or save very much unless they live in an apartment with no bath.”
“This kind of lifestyle is only fun for a while at the start.”
“I always did want to live in an apartment like Ikkoku-kan from Maison Ikkoku [a Rumiko Takahashi anime/manga about the residents of an old, run-down apartment building with no bath].”
“I’m jealous of people who can get off of work early enough to go to the sento before it closes.”
“I absolutely have to have my own bath, toilet, refrigerator, and microwave.”
“I actually don’t need a bathtub, so I wish there were apartments with just a shower and no tub [a configuration that’s incredibly rare in Japan].”
“If someone made an apartment building with no showers, and also ran a sento and convenience store on the first floor of the building, I bet a bunch of people would want to live there.”
If you’re thinking of trying the no-bath apartment lifestyle in Japan, there are a couple of things to consider before signing your lease. As alluded to by one commenter, not all sento are open 24 hours. Traditionally they stay open late enough so that customers can come by after work, if you’re regularly doing night shifts, clocking a lot of overtime, or having drinks with friends on your way home, the local sento might be closed by the time you’re ready for a bath. Also, what’s a pleasant evening stroll to the bathhouse in good weather becomes a lot less appealing when it’s cold, raining, or snowing. Finally, the ordinary price for sento is 500 yen, so if you’re bathing every day (which is the cleanliness standard in Japan), that’s 15,000 yen a month you’ll need to budget.
On the other hand, even with the added sento expenses, you’ll probably be coming out ahead with your rent savings, have access to bigger and more varied baths, and never have to deal with the hassle of scrubbing a bathtub yourself. So if all that sounds good to you, living the no-bath apartment life actually is doable in Tokyo.
Sources: Teleasa News via Hachima Kiko, YouTube/ANNnewsCH, Tokyo Sento Fudosan
Read more stories from SoraNews24.
-- Need a soak? Amazing interactive map lists every public bath and day-use hot spring in Tokyo
-- Miniature sento bathhouse range is this season’s must-buy gacha capsule toy collection
-- A guide to public bathhouses, the newest hot spot for tourists in Tokyo
- External Link
- https://soranews24.com/2023/01/23/apartments-with-no-bath-or-shower-rising-in-popularity-among-young-tokyoites-report-says/
22 Comments
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Garthgoyle
I'm cheapo and poor. And even then I would not dare living in any of those trashy and miserable places.
Cold's creeping in through the windows and not insulated walls, need to go outside to take a shower.
Rainy day but it's weekend so I don't have to go out... Nope. Gotta go out under the rain to take a shower somewhere out there...
Morning pee time? Nah, forget about that. Who needs toilets when you can pee in a bottle? :D
Crazy that this is Tokyo.
TunaMan
The idea of leaving it to visiting a sento is nice. I'd do it anyway even with one.
I just hope this serves as a rise in business for them since I know they were dying.
Roten
I agree with the suggestion that this is click-bait for unknowing foreigners and would like to see how many Japanese workers would want to live in a place without at least a shower. I have been to many inner-city sento, and there are/were many that were as grungy looking as the article's picture of a bath with the mold on the wall. There is a certain charm with going to a nice sento from time to time, perhaps every night for a while if it is close, but that does not diminish the need for something to wash in at home. What happens when you have diarrhea or some other illness and need to wash multiple times a day? Or when it is really cold, or when a typhoon comes? And where will you wash any larger things in your house that need washing and you can't fit in the little kitchen sink? I could understand, maybe, an article about apartments with common kitchens and indoor hallways and communal showers and toilets down the hall than no showers at all, and that still would be a big inconvenience. Real estate companies could advertise them as inner city dorms. Next we will see SoraNews 24 suggesting that people should go back to the era of non-flush toilets and talking about how much cheaper they are waterwise.
Pukey2
Anonymous:
I have to say, I take more showers at the gym than at home. Sometimes, I don't even have a single shower at home during the week. But I would never want an apt without one, because you never know when you might need it. Using the gym means I can have a hot shower for as long as I like, without having to worry about the gas bill.
What next, apts with no toilets?
Luddite:
There are channels on YT which try to normalize incredibly small apts. It just isn't right. This is not something people in a developed country should have to put up with.
Luddite
Trying to normalise and glamourise homes that are not fit for use. These places would not be legal in many countries, shouldn’t be in a first world country like Japan.
Speed
I lived in a bathless/showerless apartment in Tokyo but back in the 60s and 70s. Even my brand new apartment in the 70s didn't come with one.
But it wasn't that inconvenient back then. Public baths were ubiquitous and cheap. We'd go to the bath every night right across the street for about 35-50 yen.
If we preferred another bathhouse, there was another one about two blocks away. They were everywhere and some were open really late till 2 am and others that opened at 5 am. You had lots of options.
1glenn
If someone really has to live on a tight budget, then they might not have a choice but to live in an apartment with no shower.
We, myself included, have gotten used to having an indoor toilet and bathing situation, such as a shower, but they are conveniences that we pay for.
Growing up, we had only a shower, but no bathtub. We didn't care.
Up until the last 60 or 70 years, it was not at all unusual to live in a farmhouse with an outdoor toilet. The fortunate ones had a water pump in their kitchen. Otherwise, it was necessary to bring water from a well or fountain. I suspect billions of people around the world still live without electricity, gas, running water, or even sewers, not to mention toilets. Even the ancient Romans built sewers into their cities, but we lost that technological knowledge for over a thousand years.
My grandparents in the old country lived in a house that was built in the 18th century. It was built without indoor plumbing of any kind and of course, it was built without electricity or gas piping. When I visited them the house had been upgraded, but not to the most modern standards. It had electricity and gas, but water was piped in only to the kitchen. The toilet was a modern ceramic affair, connected to the water main and the sewer, but it was outdoors, and the house had no bathing facilities. There was a public bathing facility with a swimming pool and showers nearby. A shower, including a towel and small piece of soap, cost 15 cents.
So what I am saying is that I would prefer to have the convenience of an in-home shower, but I can understand if one had to choose to live without one.
RonJB
A year or two ago in the UK, there were a number of articles about a new trend for apartments without kitchens or cooking facilities.
I prefer the theory that it's dodgy builders who forgot to include vital facilities in their construction plans attempting to offload unsaleable properties by planting stories in the media of "modern lifestyles".
Abe234
Not popular at all and is probably just a fringe article and the authors opinion trying to fill his time, “oh must find some quirky Japanese thing to feed the gaijin”. That makes this an opinion. Piece. It’s gonna cost more to go to a Sento everyday, and a waste of time, inconvenient in the rain, snow, boiling hot summer, Not to mention when you feel sick, and I don’t think most people want to stand a sink washing them selves down at home because they can’t go to the Sento.I find myself getting more and more turned off by these kinds of articles.
Sven Asai
So they aren’t smelling but only providing a retro atmosphere? I like that, just my humor. Anyway, the money for rent per month that’s saved will now be used in external bath facilities and commuting to them and probably quickly exceed the money saved. And even my controversial friends from the other side, those climate and energy savers, will surely agree that it is quite a resource wasting when many people need more transportation and heated baths anywhere far away from home.
Anonymous
Gym membership are cheaper than in the past. Ever see people in a gym locker room but never on the floor?
Hello Kitty 321
When I came to Japan very few small apartments had a bath/shower and the toilets were generally communal. However, there were numerous nearby sentos where you could meet up with friends and go out for a drink afterwards. The only problem was that you could not have a bath/shower in the morning as the sento did not open till lunchtime.
Ah_so
I'm not that bothered about a bath, but in summer you might want to shower more than once a day.
No, a shower is easy to fit. It should be illegal to have apartments without facilities to keep clean.
rcch
“ If you’re thinking of trying the no-bath apartment lifestyle in Japan, there are a couple of things to consider before signing your lease. As alluded to by one commenter, not all sento are open 24 hours. Traditionally they stay open late enough so that customers can come by after work, if you’re regularly doing night shifts, clocking a lot of overtime, or having drinks with friends on your way home, the local sento might be closed by the time you’re ready for a bath. Also, what’s a pleasant evening stroll to the bathhouse in good weather becomes a lot less appealing when it’s cold, raining, or snowing. Finally, the ordinary price for sento is 500 yen, so if you’re bathing every day (which is the cleanliness standard in Japan), that’s 15,000 yen a month you’ll need to budget. “
I was waiting for this…; but(!) these are not the only downsides of living in a place like this…; ridiculous article… trying to romanticize this nonsense…; yes, some (poor(?)/weird(?)/crazy(?)/young(?)) people will actually choose to live in these apartments but they’re a tiny minority(!)
..
[ “I always did want to live in an apartment like Ikkoku-kan from Maison Ikkoku [a Rumiko Takahashi anime/manga about the residents of an old, run-down apartment building with no bath].” ]
… come back to reality … ;)
kohakuebisu
A low cost apartment in Tokyo will not have a bathroom as spacious as the bottom photo. That's from an old house in the countryside.
The classic format for these stories is dubious theory based on next to no evidence. Given where we are in 2023 though, the obvious reason to rent a no-bath apartment would now be because you are near a 24 hour gym (a recent development) that you would be joining and paying for anyway as a monthly membership. If you can get a free shower five minutes away anytime you like, you might as well go there and save on your gas or water bill. I bet some people in no-bath apartments never go to the sento.
Hercolobus
In the end you will spend more money going to the sento, plus time and inconvenience.
Aly Rustom
agree with you both. screw that. I would never want to live in a place like that.
purple_depressed_bacon
Stop romanticizing unsuitable accommodations. It's an apartment if there are lavatory facilities, shower or bath, a properly kitted out kitchen and decent amount of space. Even prison cells have toilets nowadays. This is just a shady way to lure gullible (first time) tenants into renting a place that will end up being more hassle than is worth the rent.
wallace
They are a hassle. First place I lived had no bathroom and every night we went to the sento down the street. Time and expense.