Pregnant woman loses baby after falling from veranda
8:06pm Saturday, April 21

MINOKAMO, Gifu -- A heavily-pregnant woman fell from her second-floor veranda when a handrail collapsed, forcing doctors to deliver her baby by Caesarean section, police said. The child died shortly later.

The 33-year-old woman, who was seven months pregnant, was drying a futon over the handrail on the veranda of her apartment in Minokamo, Gifu Prefecture, on Thursday afternoon, when it collapsed, causing her to fall around four meters to the ground.

She was taken to hospital, where doctors performed an emergency Caesarean section to try and save her child. The baby died about eight hours later. The woman suffered serious pelvic injuries.

Police officers said that the 2.5-meter-wide handrail was attached to the veranda's floor by more than 10 screws, but that most had worked loose. (Mainichi)

This is an extreme and very sad example, but from what I've seen most landlords feel little to no responsibility to building maintenance and upkeep. What's your experience?

My experience with landlords is that they are great if you ask for things to be done. It is really up to the person living in the place to look for problems and report them. If the owner doesn't repair them then they can be called negligent however, if the occupant doesn't alert the owner of problems then it is really their own fault.

The above is a very sad case but surely she would have noticed it the handrail was loose?

I have asked for and received from landlords the following:
Plumbing fixes for a leaky sink
Airconditioner replacement
Changed locks (this one was in the middle of the night when our locks seized up without warning)
etc

I have received without asking:
new gas hot water heater
Drain cleaning
garden maintenance
pest control
upgraded internet lines
upgraded TV aerials

Landlords are not mind readers so if there is a problem speak up. This is what you pay your rent and maintenance fees for. If you are lazy then you have no right to whinge.

I have had the opposite experience you have in Japan. Landlords treating reports of problems as a nuisance, and if they can be convinced to fix the problem, trying to pass the charges to the tenant (should be covered under rent/maintenance fees as you say). A complete dodging of ownership responsibility. Deposits kept for cleaning/repairs that never happened. Claims that the place was rennovated before I moved in turn out to be false. Perhaps it's because I've lived in the relative countryside of Japan the duration of my stay.

I have heard horror stories too of deposits being kept unfairly. However, I have only moved once and was able to get most of my deposit back.

I can only tell you what my experiences have been. I guess it depends on how much demand is out there. Seems to me these days that landlords want to keep good tennants happy - this is in Tokyo though and my apartments have been in the mid-range and nice when I moved in.

My landlord is sweet as pie, shes always sending me round fresh veggies, and them potato chips the wife likes and stuff, although im gonna have to ask her for a digital antenna to be installed, as my balcony digi antennas reception has recently been gubbed by a new hi rise built across the road. But as GG said, we pay for this, its not unreasonable to ask, although it helps if you have a good relationship with the old landlady there.

Oradea wrote:My landlord is sweet as pie, shes always sending me round fresh veggies, and them potato chips the wife likes and stuff, although im gonna have to ask her for a digital antenna to be installed, as my balcony digi antennas reception has recently been gubbed by a new hi rise built across the road. But as GG said, we pay for this, its not unreasonable to ask, although it helps if you have a good relationship with the old landlady there.

Ditto my landlord. Puts up with all sorts of bull and never complains and does repair things or calls someone to do it when asked.

I've had good and bad experiences. Best experiences have been where the owner/landlord lived in a house or apartment at the same location - in these situations I saw them almost on a daily basis on the way to work or whatever, so it was easy to ask for stuff to be done.

gomigirl the wise wrote:"Landlords are not mind readers so if there is a problem speak up. This is what you pay your rent and maintenance fees for. If you are lazy then you have no right to whinge."

I agree 110%! I had a slight problem with the rental agency that tried to rent out the apartment to me, they tried to take me for a ride and after I fired back at them and let them know my rights and I will not be bushwhacked, they quickly changed their tone, they gave me a \10.000 discount on my rent and threw in a brand new A/C, they fix anytime we have a problem, I get a lightning fast response and while I don`t get any Veggies, I am treated very well always.
My landlord is a real standup guy, I have no complaints, but I totally agree, what happened was a great tragedy by all measures and charges should be filed against the landlords, but if you ever have a problem "YOU HAVE TO SPEAK UP!" We shouldn`t try to generalize. not all Japanese Landlords are slumlords....God knows, I can give you some REAL slumlords back where I come from. It`s a case by case situation.

GomiGirl wrote:My experience with landlords is that they are great if you ask for things to be done. It is really up to the person living in the place to look for problems and report them. If the owner doesn't repair them then they can be called negligent however, if the occupant doesn't alert the owner of problems then it is really their own fault.

The above is a very sad case but surely she would have noticed it the handrail was loose?

I have asked for and received from landlords the following:
Plumbing fixes for a leaky sink
Airconditioner replacement
Changed locks (this one was in the middle of the night when our locks seized up without warning)
etc

I have received without asking:
new gas hot water heater
Drain cleaning
garden maintenance
pest control
upgraded internet lines
upgraded TV aerials

Landlords are not mind readers so if there is a problem speak up. This is what you pay your rent and maintenance fees for. If you are lazy then you have no right to whinge.

It's not clear from the story that she knew or should have known of the balcony's dangerous state of disrepair. Why are you so quick to blame the victim here? If all that stands between a balcony and a precipitous drop is a thin metal barrier, I think a good landlord would have incorporated routine inspections of the screws into his maintenance schedule.

kamome wrote:It's not clear from the story that she knew or should have known of the balcony's dangerous state of disrepair. Why are you so quick to blame the victim here? If all that stands between a balcony and a precipitous drop is a thin metal barrier, I think a good landlord would have incorporated routine inspections of the screws into his maintenance schedule.

For sure the landlord should be checking on this sort of thing, but also tennants need to be aware of their surroundings. I have looked at apartments for myself and for others and common sense dictates that you grab the balcony and give it a good shake to see how study it is. I have heard lots of horror stories of people going over unstable balconies.

But this lady must have used the balcony often to hang out the futons. Sure the story doesn't say if she knew or not so I may have jumped to the wrong conclusion but it really is something that you need to look out for yourself.

BTW have FG members checked their balconies recently?

GomiGirl wrote:. . . BTW have FG members checked their balconies recently?

If I had one, I'd check it out after that story - very sad.

My faculties should be checked too.

However, my humble 3-minute-verdict-based-on-the-few-facts-available would have to be with kamome-san on this one. If most of the screws holding the rail had worked themselves loose, then that's something that should've been noticed in an inspection. A landlord can't sit back and take maintenance money but then fail to conduct adequate routine inspections that would identify the very fatal hazards that justify maintenance money being charged. I would submit that it is a non-delegable responsibility too (ie: you can't expect the tenant to do the job for you). There would be some degree of contributory negligence by the lady for failing to notice too but I would've thought that there's definitely some liability on the landlord.

That poor lady.

I have lived in smallish Japanese cities my 10 years here (couple hundred thousand). Maybe the conservative, inaka mentality is to blame, but most every landlord has been loathe to do even the most routine maintenance, check and repair things that have given out due to age and normal wear and tear.

Everything I have succeeded in getting replaced or fixed was through browbeating and going to the local housing authorities to get assistance with ignorant (willfully or otherwise) owners. Maybe those living in Tokyo and area benefit from the more competitive housing market, and the fact that any sort of reform tends to start there.

GomiGirl wrote:For sure the landlord should be checking on this sort of thing, but also tennants need to be aware of their surroundings. I have looked at apartments for myself and for others and common sense dictates that you grab the balcony and give it a good shake to see how study it is. I have heard lots of horror stories of people going over unstable balconies.

But this lady must have used the balcony often to hang out the futons. Sure the story doesn't say if she knew or not so I may have jumped to the wrong conclusion but it really is something that you need to look out for yourself.

BTW have FG members checked their balconies recently?

I would have thought that it should have been the responsiblity of the fire department since they do annual inspections.

I thankfully (?) live in a govt. owned danchi in Fukuoka that has been quite seriously re-painted and re-conditioned. The balconies on the buildings are hardcore - nothing that is remotely going to work itself loose in any hurry. That being said, I've seen that a few bolts have been replaced in various places.

I haven't had to ask for anything to be fixed yet. As it stands though, that the biggest worry is the tatami says everything.