Minpaku AirBnB

April 10, 2018

This morning I went to Shibuya ward office with our estate agent who helped us 2 years ago when we were building our house. She went over all the things needed to register for minpaku. The staff were very young girls, not the ojisantachi I was expecting. They seemed to know their stuff although my agent pushed them a few times on some specific points.

My next step is to get some certificates to say I am who I say I am (?) and that I live in the house, and to register with a gomi company so that the guest gomi isn't being taken by shibuya ku gomi service. I said that the Shibuya website says we can put out up to 4 45litre bags at a time but they said minpaku rubbish must be picked up by a separate company. There is no getting around this as the flyer that I have to give to the neighbours has to have the outsourced gomi company and their phone number on it.

I also need to go to the fire department and arrange for an inspection as well as for emergency lighting to be installed.

There are a lot of other papers regarding the house and layout but the estate agent already has them. I don't know what will happen if the neighbours complain after I give them the "FYI we're going to do minpaku" paper. Will probably give some omiyage at the same time. Open to ideas and suggestions here. We have to tell neighbours within a 10 metre radius. At no point was zoning areas discussed.

My agent told them I teach cooking classes at home (which I do) but didn't mention that I also work outside the home. She told me not to tell them that.

We are planning on installing security cameras on the outside of the house but we are waiting to see if the neighbours complain and, if they do, this will be our peace offering.

I think it went well and it isn't impossible but the mendokusai level is quite high.

April 20, 2018

A trip to the Shibuya fire department today, since our airbnb space is under 50 m^2 and is a standalone house and we live there we did not need the emergency exit signage. The fire staff said that the laws may change in the future and we may need the exit sign then (or when we change to the hotel licence) but, for now, we are ok and we got a hanko to prove it. We had tried to get an appointment on Wednesday but the staff at the fire department said they have been swamped with minpaku applications and the earliest we could get there was this afternoon.

Our agent is going to do the application online and we will go to the ward office after golden week to hand in the necessary papers. In the meantime I have a paper to hand to the neighbours which says we are planning to do minpaku and we'll try our best not to be meiwaku about it and to call me or talk to me if they have any concerns. Was surprised that the number on the paper is my number and not some Shibuya minpaku complaints hotline.

Have picked up packs of Lindt chocolate to hand out with the papers, we also have to give a paper to the manager of the neighbourhood association, a really old guy with no teeth that I can't understand very well, hope he can eat chocolate, continuing on bravely with fingers crossed and hope for the future :)