Here’s this month’s Home Truths column in the Japan Times, about UR housing. The article is mainly a how-to piece and doesn’t really get into the details of what the buildings and apartments themselves are like. We’ve written about UR a lot in this blog, as well as in our sister blog Yen for Living, since we’ve been living in UR units since 2000. Below are links to some of these posts that provide more specific information.
Security deposits / Tour of Nouvelle Akabanedai / Amenities / Tour of UR Ogikubo / Matsudo public housing / Japanese needed? / Low-income housing / Tour of Heart Island Shinden / ‘kudokushi’ savings / Tour of East Core Hikifune
Cat Foreheads & Rabbit Hutches 
One subject that you might like to cover is how
to pursue probable fraud. I know of one danchi
where they just rammed through a proposal to
spend 20Myen on several “NMR Pipetector”s.
These claim to use “NMR principles” as well as
“microwave” to transform red pipe rust into
black pipe rust and “make pipes last up to
40 years longer”. These “NMR Pipetector”
clamp on the outside of steel pipes and
they require no power!
An NMR or microwave device (NMR is quite
different from microwave) that requires
no power sounds a bit like a car that
requires neither gasoline nor electricity.
Also, any reasonably knowledgeable person
should know that microwaves and NMR fields
cannot penetrate steel pipes and “transform”
the tap water in the pipe into a magical
liquid that stops corrosion and kills bacteria.
The web site of the company that makes this
magical device looks like it was constructed
by an amateur on almost zero budget. The
device is supposed to be patented in several
countries including America, but is not sold
in America (maybe punative damages could be
extremely expensive). They even claim that
it’s used in Buckingham Palace!
After some discussion, only 30 out of the
90 people present at the meeting voted for
spending 20Myen on this, but there were
about 70 absentee votes that the current
president used to ram it through.
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I’ve often seen ads for those devices on the Hibiya subway line (complete with the reference to Buckingham Palace) and never understood what they were talking about. Thanks for clearing that up.
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Had arrived at the conclusion that it was a scam couple of years ago when it was presented to our owners. Fortunately funds were not readily available and as a result of some pressure applied to the num-nut promoting it, we avoided the mistake. Don’t understand the technology, but I presume you’re not meant to.
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Got a question. It’s about keeping pets such as rabbits in a danchi. Is there a way to get permission to keep one?
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Still working my way slowly through your excellent blog! Just wanted to leave a note this time and let you know your article link isn’t working.
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