My husband and I are pensioners. It would cost a lot of money to rebuild the house, and I don't think it is necessary. We have no choice but to continue living in the house.

Local governments have been accelerating efforts to address the fire hazards in residential areas packed with wooden houses

The vast majority of houses in Japan are wooden. Is Suginami conducting social cleansing?

If the house has been standing 50 years it can't be that much of a hazard...

There's nothing wrong with wood-frame construction, but there's everything wrong with no space between houses, and that's where most of urban Japan fails the grade. Just a thought from the son of a fire chief, in Canada, who spends two to three months a year in Japan, often in neighbourhoods where he's scared sh*tless of a domestic fire caused by any one of a dozen bad heating habits. And on top of that, wood-frame construction is much safer than concrete construction in an earthquake-prone environment. Ask any engineer.

This is why you "reform" your house. My house more than 47 years old but we have added to it massively.