Minpaku AirBnB

2018-10-29T10:17:36Z

Lundman:

== 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(airbnb). The staff were very young girls, not the ojisantachi(old men) 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(rubbish) 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 (small gifts) at the same time. Open to ideas and suggestions here. We have to tell neighbours within a 10 metre radius. (10 metres from entrance door). 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 (PITA) level is quite high.

=== April 13, 2018 ===

update on the garbage, just pasting from the mail I got.....And to talk about garbage, I called Shibuya Garbage Office this morning. You are right ! The man in order said, fundamentally you have to make an agreement to Garbage collection agency, but when there is not much garbage, then you buy the seal for business garbage, then you can take out the garbage as usual. The limit of the amount of garbage are 3bags (45L/bag ) every time. The seal/sticker for business garbage costs just over 3000yen for a pack of 10 and can be purchased at the convenience stores.

=== 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 (a nuisance) 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 :)

=== May 11, 2018 ===

The next step. L-san, who is helping me, made an appointment with Shibuya ward office to submit the documents, she had already done an online registration for us. The current appointments for minpaku at the ward are for only 30 minutes and it took us a week to get an appointment so I guess there are a lot of other people going through the same process. Safety in numbers? ☺
The old guy with no teeth had contacted L-san because he didn’t understand what minpaku was so we will go and meet him next week and explain it. He’s very traditional though so I may have to take husband who speaks limited Japanese to add gravitas. He wasn’t angry or upset when he called, just confused. Will take that as a win.

Stopped and got a quick printout of our family register for 300yen. The minpaku area at Shibuya is still small but packed with staff now, there were at least a dozen staff behind the counter. Two other people were already there for their appointment. No seats are offered, it is one of the first times I have experienced dealing with paperwork and signatures without being offered a seat. It feels like they didn’t anticipate this much action. The two staff who we dealt with today, one was an elderly gentleman who was fairly relaxed and interested in chatting a bit, the other was a young girl who seemed like she had had enough, she spoke briskly and left no room for error. There were two young girls standing by her taking notes, she was definitely under pressure.

Handed across the papers we did have, I think we had 6 out of 9, and this was checked off on a list by the elderly gentleman. I used my hanko (signature stamp) three times. There were 3 papers we didn’t have, 1 of which we actually did have but it was not up to the standard they required. The second was just a paper to say my husband has given me power of attorney. They brought out a compass to measure the radius around our home on our printed google map to make sure we had informed the correct amount of neighbours. There was some discussion about the empty home of a woman who recently passed but no discussion at all about the abandoned house behind us.
They also checked our map showing a 150metre radius to check there were no schools in that area. They were quite serious about this.

One of the papers they needed seemed to be a Japanese only paper and there was no translation of what a foreigner would need for this. Eventually the strict girl went away and got a photocopy of something which had a lot of Japanese words on it and the word affidavit in English. She said we needed something to say I am not bankrupt and am not mentally handicapped. I was standing right there. ☺

So we left the papers we did have there, I’d like to believe the process has been started. Walking out of the ward office with fewer papers than we walked in with seems like progress. Parking lot discussion involved the fabled affidavit and L-san suggested I try my embassy, which was easy as that was on my way home anyway. So I took copies from her of what I was looking for and started on that mission.

Got to the New Zealand embassy and got through to the front desk, showed the staff there my papers and he was a bit confused but said he would call someone.. A guy came down and I showed him the papers, he asked immediately if I was doing airbnb, I said yes, and that I needed this paper for the registration. He said that that kind of paper doesn’t exist in New Zealand. I told him if I can hand them a physical and official piece of paper it might be enough. They just need something for their checklist. He then suggested just writing something myself, having it translated and checking if that is what they want. He said to tell the ward office that the embassy is waiting to sign it for me if they tell me it is what they want. Signing costs 7000yen so I need to be 100% sure that will be acceptable. He also thanked me for being the first to try this asked me to let him know if there is a paper they can prepare for any future Kiwis registering for minpaku.

So I came home, googled what affidavit means, and wrote one based on a template he gave me.

And that’s where I am now ☺

=== May 17, 2018 (T-29 days until the new airbnb laws kick in) ===

Yesterday I had the affidavit I wrote signed by the New Zealand embassy staff. At no point was my id checked there but I guess a good kiwi accent can get you pretty far. They insisted I read the affidavit and swear on the bible. I said I wasn't religious so swearing on the bible means next to nothing to me but they said that was fine and to just go with it. 7,500 yen for a stamp to say I was legit and they believed me and 20 minutes total in and out of the embassy including the 12 minutes it took for them to find the stamp.

So today L-san and I went to the ward office again, I had hopes that this may be the last trip but of course it wasn't. L-san had prepared a contract to say that my husband is renting the first floor of the building to me for free as the house is in his name. I had his hanko (signature stamp) so just stamped it on his behalf and we are good to go. I did tell him about it afterwards. She told the ward office that we are married and it is our house but they still needed this paper. The affidavit passed their scrutiny, we got the stressed out lady behind the desk who now has a noticeable rash on her face and was scratching it a lot. Interesting to watch her slow descent into this governmental madness. Our appointment was for 30 minutes from 16:00-16:30pm. At smack on 16:30pm she just picked up her bag and left. We stayed and talked with the remaining staff who were noticeably more relaxed once she left. There was a lot of discussion about the exact size of the airbnb, and a magnifying glass was used to check the blueprints.

They seem to have trouble comprehending that we have a shared entrance area and still have some issues understanding that we live in the same house, although this is one of the requirements for getting an airbnb licence. There was discussion about the thickness of the walls and whether those measurements needed to be added. No fewer than 3 highlighter pens were used on the blueprints and there was a lot of calculation. At one point L-san said it was all a bit silly and can they just tell us what number they want and we will write it, we are easily under the 50m regulations for the fire safety certificate which we already have. The staff laughed, but they didn't tell us what number they wanted, they weren't sure of it themselves. So that paper needs to be typed again and they were unable to photocopy my passport, despite the photocopier right there, so I will make a copy for them.

Closing in on 5pm, well over our allotted appointment time, Lorraine said we would be back tomorrow at 8:30am sharp with the papers. The staff laughed and we laughed with them. And then they realised she was serious. One staff bravely said they are just arriving at 8:30am and perhaps 8:40 would be better. We'll take that thank you very much and we will be there tomorrow at 8:40am with, what just might be, the final papers. But I won't count on it...

=== May 18, 2018 (T-28 days) ===

Early start at the ward office this morning and finally all the application papers have been submitted! The staff got a bit frilly about us not having an official print out of the online application but one of them took pity on us and printed it for us. Stressed out girl apologised for leaving so abruptly yesterday and was in a better mood this morning, actually thanking us at some points for providing clear documentation. Still some discussion about the size of the airbnb and getting numbers to match up which they did. One of our papers was missing a 0 at the beginning of a 10 digit registration number as the computer had not allowed enough space for L-san to include it. It had to be handwritten in. One paper didn't pass the erasable pen test, my bad, sorry, so I rewrote with a regular pen. All of the papers were checked off, it was very satisfying to see all the marus (circles) (Japanese check-mark) going onto the checklist paper. Finally all of the papers were put into a large envelope and a paper with a list on was taped on the front of the envelope. The staff immediately signed the top 2 items on the 6-7 item list. I guess we need to get all those items signed off as the registration process. On the desk behind the counter there were 2 similar envelopes with 4 items checked off on their lists so others have also made it this far.

So the next step, once the registration is complete, they will email L-san and we need to make another appointment at the ward office. At that time we will get the required door sign for our home to say we are registered and information about how to submit guest details to the ward office. I hope we will also get the registration number then, without it, airbnb is going to cut our account from their listings in 28 days...
L-san guesses it may take 2-3 weeks for this process, we're cutting it fine indeed but I don't think we could have got here any faster.

And, if anyone wants to book a place to stay in Tokyo, in case our listing is cut.....

[https://www.airbnb.com/rooms/10582789?s=51 Hus in Yoyogi]

Instagram pippins_inn_airbnb

=== May 22, 2018 (T-24 days) ===

This evening L-san, the husband and my good self had a meeting with the neighbourhood leader, who was a bit confused about what minpaku/airbnb was. It turns out he had done a bit of research and knew what to be concerned about. His first concern was rubbish and the sheer amount of excess rubbish that our potential 2 guests could produce. I was expecting him to be concerned about this and had stopped at the local convenience store and purchased a 10 pack of "excess rubbish" stickers which can be put on any extra bags exceeding the maximum allowed for pickup in Shibuya ku. Their website says 4 45 litre bags but, if you ask any of the staff, they say 3 45 litre bags. We usually only put out a maximum of 2 45 litre bags each time.

Personally I think they should be more concerned about all of the beer cans and wine bottles that we need to recycle on recycling day pickup. The law says that we should outsource our extra rubbish pick up to a separate company but, since the leader knows us and recognises our faces, he said it will be ok for us to just use the stickers. He was concerned that we might not have a big enough rubbish collection box and offered to give us another but we said we would be fine. Most of our guests are more concerned about the rubbish and recycling than we are and a lot of the questions I get when we check someone in are about this.

So rubbish was discussed at length and then we moved onto business, as it turns out the neighbourhood leader is a fairly shrewd businessman. Our monthly 200 yen neighbourhood bill will be increased to 1000yen. I thought this was actually just a 2400yen bill for the Happy New Year paper they put on our door every year but maybe it covers more than that. And, since we would now officially be a business, our "donation" to the annual festival should be a bit higher. Maybe we'll have airbnb written on one of the festival plaques this year. :) We're not too concerned about these new fees as we have come this far and it's too late to back out now. The leader said he will be in charge of telling the neighbours when (!!) we get approval as there is a certain neighbour that is urusai (a PITA). I guess we agree on that. He seemed to be on our team and was keen to hear from us as soon as we get permission to go ahead, I guess so he can start charging us.

=== May 23, 2018 GOAL reached, achievement unlocked!! ===

I received a message from L-san this morning to tell me the good news that Shibuya ku had already approved the application and we have the magical number we need to pass to airbnb. This is great as Airbnb has been messaging me daily asking for this, I think they are getting quite concerned about how few people are actually able to get the registration number. Swiftly inputted the number into the system and we are good to go. Tomorrow morning L-san and I will go to Shibuya ward office to pick up our official sign to put on the door. We will hold back on putting that up until we have told the neighbourhood leader, a few days from now, so he feels that we didn't apply for this until after having spoken with him.

=== May 24, 2018 ===

This morning L-san and I met at the ward office at 9am and we walked out of the ward office at 9:08am with the official door sign with our registration number. The staff were friendly, and possibly relieved that they had finished dealing with us. The door paper was produced along with an additional paper to show precisely where on the door it was to be placed on June 15th. The fanfare and champagne corks popping was only in my head. The airbnb area at the ward office had 2 stacks of freshly printed flyers from the fire department showing cute characters and how to register your home with the fire department for airbnb. I guess they were tired of answering questions too and whipped up some cute new mascots (a cat, a tiger and a sheep) to portray airbnb registration. The door sign is not laminated and that is my official registration so I colour photocopied it and am warming up the laminator now to finish preparing it.

=== Forms Submitted ===

Form 1 the application papers, several pages.

[[File:airbnb1.jpg|frameless|180px|Form 1]]

Form 2 is something

[[File:airbnb2.jpg|frameless|180px|Form 2]]

Form 3 is the affidavit that I wrote to say I am not bankrupt or mentally handicapped, this was signed by the New Zealand embassy

[[File:airbnb3.jpg|frameless|180px|Form 3]]

Form 4 is a translation of form 3

[[File:airbnb4.jpg|frameless|180px|Form 4]]

Form 5 is something

[[File:airbnb5.jpg|frameless|180px|Form 5]]

Form 6 shows that we own the land

[[File:airbnb6.jpg|frameless|180px|Form 6]]

Form 7 is the blueprints for the airbnb

[[File:airbnb7.jpg|frameless|180px|Form 7]]

Form 8 is a contract to say my husband (the house is in his name) is renting the first floor to me for free :)

[[File:airbnb8.jpg|frameless|180px|Form 8]]

Form 9 is a checklist from the online registration

[[File:airbnb9.jpg|frameless|180px|Form 9]]

Form 10 is very important, this is the layout that the fire department wants to see

[[File:airbnb10.jpg|frameless|180px|Form 10]]

FYI to neighbours minpaku page, handed out to homes within 10m radius from home

[[File:airbnb11.jpg|frameless|180px|Form 11]]

The sign to put on the door to the house

[[File:airbnb12.jpg|frameless|180px|Form 12]]

=== Friday July 20, 2018 ===

The minpaku/airbnb is doing very well, so well in fact that we have already reached our 180 day limit for the year ending March 2019.

So it's time to take the next step, registering for a budget hotel license. This would allow us to rent the room for the full year.
Remember all those hoops we jumped through before? So now let's add fire to them and see how we do. :)

L-san made a reservation with our friends at the ward office this morning to discuss this next step. She said this would be a negotiation meeting more than anything else. It was. There were a list of things we need to be able to pull this off.

We need a lockable linen cupboard, in order to ensure that guests don't leave poison or something dangerous inside(?). A bit silly really as the reason the current linen cupboard is unlocked is so that guests can freely help themselves if they need extra towels or blankets. Anyway, not a big problem to solve, we'll get a lock for the cupboard.

A front desk, apparently we need one, putting up security cameras is not an alternative option. This problem can be solved by clearing the large cupboard under the stairs and putting in a table.

Proper bath circulation equipment to ensure that the water is filtered and there is no chance of dirty water or mildew. This problem can be solved by having someone change the motor (?) part of our jacuzzi bath, estimated cost will be around 100,000yen.

We need to obtain permission from the Olympic youth centre which is 200 metres from our home, apparently they have to OK any new budget hotels, L-san said this is not difficult and is just a case of them putting a hanko on a piece of paper for us.

And here is the doozy that has us scratching our heads and wondering what to do...

The toilet is not right next to the guest area, it is 1.5 metres down the hall and the main problem seems to be that it is in the shared entrance area that we also use. It needs to be in the guest area. This will require either moving the toilet or creating a second entrance but it's hard to pull space out of nowhere for things like this. We are currently thinking about this.

So that was the end of that meeting, our next meeting was at the fire department to see what hoops they had prepared for us to jump through. It turns out there are very few and it is quite manageable. We need a smoke sensor in the room which we can choose to pair with one upstairs, we would do this. The electrician who does this would also be able to change the bath filter system. It was undecided whether we would need a garish emergency exit light, the staff thought it would look uncool and we wholeheartedly agreed with him. But it was not his decision to make and he had to consult with someone else. We are waiting to hear from him.
We will also need evacuation instructions on the door, if you know the layout you will know how silly this is, the instructions would be something like "just turn around and walk outside" :)

We also need fireproof curtains for the room, just for the inspection day....

=== Friday 10 August, 2018 ===

Another trip to the ward office. We found a solution for the previous toilet location problem, we will switch the toilet with the washer/dryer since the plumbing is already lined up for this. We spoke with our builder and discussed moving the guest room door out into the hallway so the entire guest unit is self-contained. The laundry area will still be accessible to the guests for their washing, bonus will that we will officially have a laundry room. Another life-goal achieved! Our builder gave us a far more realistic quote for this than the original company who built our home so we will go with him. He can "fix" the bath for us so that it can pass the inspection too and he said he was able to install any extra smoke detectors or emergency lighting if required. Once more we went over what we need to submit in order to apply for the license. Once more we walked away with not much more knowledge than we had when we walked in.

=== Thursday 16 August, 2018 ===

Another trip to the fire department, the staff said this time that we don't need to make any changes, very good news indeed. They also gave me some multilingual pamphlets for how to contact the fire department or ambulance in case of an emergency. A good meeting, added bonus was that this entire meeting took less than 10 minutes.

=== Friday 17 August, 2018 ===

We went to the ward office and showed our renovation drawings (courtesy of my husband the computer magician). We also showed which cupboard we would add a lock to so it would be the designated linen cupboard, the location of the front desk and the shelf where we would store hotel documents. There was a bit of discussion and note taking while we went over every item they had asked us to produce. Since we live near the Olympic youth hostel,we have to get their permission to go ahead. At no point is our small max 2 guest room looking to compete with a youth hostel that hosts thousands but we still need their permission. It seems that the ward office will fax them after we submit our application to get the necessary paperwork required. We need to show that we have a working intercom system between our floor and the guest floor. We currently have a stand-alone intercom that we use when we are BBQing on the roof in case the doorbell rings, hopefully this will be sufficient.
And then, the next part, We got to see physical proof that the hotel license application form actually exists. It was produced with a flourish and a swift hanko to indicate how much we would be charged for the application (a cool 30,600yen). Neither L-san or I were prepared for this amount of progress all of a sudden and I did not have my hanko stamp with me and L-san did not bring stamp ink. There were still some documents required for submitting the application so we walked away with a list and the application form. I quickly cycled home to get my hanko while L-san waited in a cafe. Returned and gave her my hanko and the cash required for the application. It feels like we might be able to achieve this.
I celebrated by stopping at Nitori on my way home and ordering fireproof curtains.

=== Renovation ===

Part of changing from Airbnb licence to budget hotel is that the toilet can not be "an island" across shared-space. So we decided to get the local builder in to do some renovation. The simplest change we could think of would be to swap the place of the toilet and washing machine. Since both places then have sewage, water in, and power point. This meant the toilet would be in the one self contained area for the guests, so we also enquired about creating a "new door" to separate the entire guest area to the shared-hallway. The door placement is a little awkward as it would cover about half of a sliding-door into the bathroom.

Luckily, our local builder is really good, and he had no issues creating a new wall to cover half of the sliding door, then putting in a doorpost on that. A new door, exactly the same make/model as we picked for 1F to match, and as a bonus it comes with a lock and keys. Wall papering and creating a wall bit above the door, and it looks perfect. Meanwhile, the plumber swapped the toilet and washing machine without much hassles, the new place for the washing machine has a tray - which generally is a pain - but the new style is a good design so that is quite pleasing.

We also had to change the taps on the bath. We had the Japanese auto-fill style, which you control from the remote on the wall. The temperature, water height level etc, and push a button to fill it. Unfortunately with Budget Hotel licence, you can not have this style of circulating water (no filtration system), and water has to come from a tap into path. They installed an auto-shutoff tap on the bath for this requirement.

We also had a fold down table attached to the wall by the genkan, which will be down flat against the wall most of the time, but when we check in guests, we lift it up and it will act as a "front desk". Which you have to have. We added a lock (or rather, changed the door handle to a lock type) to the shoe closet, this way we can say it is the "office" for documents. It becomes a bigger hassle if the office is "registered" as upstairs, when it comes to calculating the area used for the business vs personal. Similarly a small lock on the stair closet, to show we have a "lockable linen closet" (also a requirement).

=== Thursday 18 October ===

It's been a long enough wait to be worrisome but this month has been very busy with guests coming and going so the time passed quickly. L-san submitted our hotel application at the end of August, it is now nearing the end of October. The hold-up seemed to be at the local youth hostel, the ward office was waiting to get the paperwork back from them and they just got it back yesterday afternoon. So we passed that level, the next part is the inspection.

We need to have the fireproof curtains (already done), front desk (built and installed), lockable linen cupboard (done),bath downgraded to use taps (also done). We do still need to make our shoe closet look a bit more like an office so that will be this weekend's project. Apparently we need to take all of the food out of the room as we are not licensed to offer food, even the basic rice crackers and cup ramen that we have. I personally wouldn't even consider tea and coffee as food, that's pretty much the same basic level as air to breathe.

We will need to show our guest book which contains copies of guests' passports and their details and a paper which shows our employees. We currently have 3 housekeepers and an accountant. I'm not sure how happy the housekeepers are going to be about sharing their personal details but all of them are legally living here and have sponsorship.

We will also need to show that we have a sign, fortunately I found a fabulous calligrapher on Etsy last month who made us a logo which we can use as a sign. I've printed and laminated it and will put it in the same area as the current minpaku license.

Oh, and one more thing, we also need to apply for a coin laundry license?! Apparently, since we offer a washer and dryer to our guests we need this license. It doesn't seem to matter that we don't charge any extra for this. This seems to be another matter of signing some paperwork (and a fee?) to get the coin laundry license.

The inspection is scheduled for Monday 29 October at 3:30pm. It should take around 90 minutes. Fingers crossed.

=== Monday 29 October, 2018 ===

Inspection day! L-san arrived before the Shibuya inspection team so we had a quick chance to catch up and make sure everything looked as it is expected to look. The inspection team arrived right on time and were a team of 4, the boss of the health centre and 3 ladies, all carrying clipboards and looking very official. Things were noted from the moment they stepped in the door so it was good we had remembered to quickly slap the sign on the outside wall moments before their arrival. They checked the reception desk and confirmed that it can be raised or lowered then checked the "office". The office is actually our shoe closet which has been decluttered and now has a printer and officey-looking things (files, clipboards, post-it notes, pens, a total of 1000yen at the 100yen shop to create the illusion of an office.) This was ticked off on their list and there were a lot of impressed sounds when they saw our huge stock of water bottles in case of emergencies. Easy points there!

There was some concern about a sign I had on the door which reads "turn off aircon and lights before you go". Guests are supposed to contact us (since we are ALWAYS in the home) if they want to leave. I'm still a bit hazy about this rule and not sure of the reasons for it. Anyway we said the sign was for the kids when they go to school. It is exactly the kind of sign we would leave for the kids too. We needed to show we had an intercom so the guests could contact us, noone checked if it actually worked, nor did they check if it was plugged in. It wasn't. We were playing a risky game. The next check was the laundry and I showed the translation for how to use the machine. Then the "linen cupboard". To be fair, this one was the one we spent the least effort on, all that was required was a lockable cupboard and a certain number of bedding supplies ( I think 6). I had just put all the bedding into the cupboard on top of a rolled up mattress that we use when the kids have friends stay. This was not ok and we were told that the linen had to be on a shelf and not on the floor. This was issue number 1.

So we carry on, the bath is inspected fairly thoroughly and they wanted to see the paperwork of what the plumber did which I didn't have as I just send all the receipts I get to the accountant. This was issue number 2.

We continued on to check the books. I have guest information papers and photocopies of all the guests passports. Apparently I have not been asking enough questions, I need to add date of birth/age, where they came from and where they are going when they leave our home. Also, if they are male or female. This was issue number 3.

They had a laser measuring device and measured the room to check it matched with the measurements we had given.
Then they brought out the papers for the coin laundry license, apparently this is just a matter of signing the paper and answering some weird questions like; what are the walls of the room made of, how many watts are the lights and is there rubbish bin in the room? They gave me a list of laundry rules to put on the wall and made me promise I would sterilise the machine between guests. Yeah, sure, no problem.
I had to sign a paper saying, once more, that I am at home all the time. They said the cat is not allowed in the room. The cat is actually the reason for 99% of our bookings so I think he will still be spending time in the room. :) The fact that so many guests have drawn pictures of him and his pictures are all over the room and in the guest books just shows how often he is in there.

They didn't check any of the things we had in the room, they didn't seem to care about coffee or tea in the room. But, the worst thing, they didn't even check the fireproof curtains!!!! So we'll be changing back to the lovely homemade curtains soon.

They told us that the feedback from the olympic centre was that our guests were not allowed to use their space in case of emergency evacuation. I said of course not, we know our evacuation place is Yoyogi park, they were impressed that I knew this.

Husband came down with a mini table and asked if that would be suitable to put linens on and everyone said yes so he asked if he could just prep that now, they said no. So that has been prepped now they have left and we will take them a photo tomorrow, along with the info about the bath and the new guest information sheets.

I saw the actual license, they had it with them and they confirmed the spelling of everything with me before promptly putting it back into a folder. We are very close to getting this. They mentioned that we would be the first people in Shibuya to move from a minpaku(airbnb) license to a hotel license. This also means we will be the first people in Shibuya to lose a minpaku license as it will be revoked when we upgrade to hotel.

Minpaku AirBnB

2018-10-29T10:13:44Z

Lundman:

== 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(airbnb). The staff were very young girls, not the ojisantachi(old men) 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(rubbish) 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 (small gifts) at the same time. Open to ideas and suggestions here. We have to tell neighbours within a 10 metre radius. (10 metres from entrance door). 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 (PITA) level is quite high.

=== April 13, 2018 ===

update on the garbage, just pasting from the mail I got.....And to talk about garbage, I called Shibuya Garbage Office this morning. You are right ! The man in order said, fundamentally you have to make an agreement to Garbage collection agency, but when there is not much garbage, then you buy the seal for business garbage, then you can take out the garbage as usual. The limit of the amount of garbage are 3bags (45L/bag ) every time. The seal/sticker for business garbage costs just over 3000yen for a pack of 10 and can be purchased at the convenience stores.

=== 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 (a nuisance) 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 :)

=== May 11, 2018 ===

The next step. L-san, who is helping me, made an appointment with Shibuya ward office to submit the documents, she had already done an online registration for us. The current appointments for minpaku at the ward are for only 30 minutes and it took us a week to get an appointment so I guess there are a lot of other people going through the same process. Safety in numbers? ☺
The old guy with no teeth had contacted L-san because he didn’t understand what minpaku was so we will go and meet him next week and explain it. He’s very traditional though so I may have to take husband who speaks limited Japanese to add gravitas. He wasn’t angry or upset when he called, just confused. Will take that as a win.

Stopped and got a quick printout of our family register for 300yen. The minpaku area at Shibuya is still small but packed with staff now, there were at least a dozen staff behind the counter. Two other people were already there for their appointment. No seats are offered, it is one of the first times I have experienced dealing with paperwork and signatures without being offered a seat. It feels like they didn’t anticipate this much action. The two staff who we dealt with today, one was an elderly gentleman who was fairly relaxed and interested in chatting a bit, the other was a young girl who seemed like she had had enough, she spoke briskly and left no room for error. There were two young girls standing by her taking notes, she was definitely under pressure.

Handed across the papers we did have, I think we had 6 out of 9, and this was checked off on a list by the elderly gentleman. I used my hanko (signature stamp) three times. There were 3 papers we didn’t have, 1 of which we actually did have but it was not up to the standard they required. The second was just a paper to say my husband has given me power of attorney. They brought out a compass to measure the radius around our home on our printed google map to make sure we had informed the correct amount of neighbours. There was some discussion about the empty home of a woman who recently passed but no discussion at all about the abandoned house behind us.
They also checked our map showing a 150metre radius to check there were no schools in that area. They were quite serious about this.

One of the papers they needed seemed to be a Japanese only paper and there was no translation of what a foreigner would need for this. Eventually the strict girl went away and got a photocopy of something which had a lot of Japanese words on it and the word affidavit in English. She said we needed something to say I am not bankrupt and am not mentally handicapped. I was standing right there. ☺

So we left the papers we did have there, I’d like to believe the process has been started. Walking out of the ward office with fewer papers than we walked in with seems like progress. Parking lot discussion involved the fabled affidavit and L-san suggested I try my embassy, which was easy as that was on my way home anyway. So I took copies from her of what I was looking for and started on that mission.

Got to the New Zealand embassy and got through to the front desk, showed the staff there my papers and he was a bit confused but said he would call someone.. A guy came down and I showed him the papers, he asked immediately if I was doing airbnb, I said yes, and that I needed this paper for the registration. He said that that kind of paper doesn’t exist in New Zealand. I told him if I can hand them a physical and official piece of paper it might be enough. They just need something for their checklist. He then suggested just writing something myself, having it translated and checking if that is what they want. He said to tell the ward office that the embassy is waiting to sign it for me if they tell me it is what they want. Signing costs 7000yen so I need to be 100% sure that will be acceptable. He also thanked me for being the first to try this asked me to let him know if there is a paper they can prepare for any future Kiwis registering for minpaku.

So I came home, googled what affidavit means, and wrote one based on a template he gave me.

And that’s where I am now ☺

=== May 17, 2018 (T-29 days until the new airbnb laws kick in) ===

Yesterday I had the affidavit I wrote signed by the New Zealand embassy staff. At no point was my id checked there but I guess a good kiwi accent can get you pretty far. They insisted I read the affidavit and swear on the bible. I said I wasn't religious so swearing on the bible means next to nothing to me but they said that was fine and to just go with it. 7,500 yen for a stamp to say I was legit and they believed me and 20 minutes total in and out of the embassy including the 12 minutes it took for them to find the stamp.

So today L-san and I went to the ward office again, I had hopes that this may be the last trip but of course it wasn't. L-san had prepared a contract to say that my husband is renting the first floor of the building to me for free as the house is in his name. I had his hanko (signature stamp) so just stamped it on his behalf and we are good to go. I did tell him about it afterwards. She told the ward office that we are married and it is our house but they still needed this paper. The affidavit passed their scrutiny, we got the stressed out lady behind the desk who now has a noticeable rash on her face and was scratching it a lot. Interesting to watch her slow descent into this governmental madness. Our appointment was for 30 minutes from 16:00-16:30pm. At smack on 16:30pm she just picked up her bag and left. We stayed and talked with the remaining staff who were noticeably more relaxed once she left. There was a lot of discussion about the exact size of the airbnb, and a magnifying glass was used to check the blueprints.

They seem to have trouble comprehending that we have a shared entrance area and still have some issues understanding that we live in the same house, although this is one of the requirements for getting an airbnb licence. There was discussion about the thickness of the walls and whether those measurements needed to be added. No fewer than 3 highlighter pens were used on the blueprints and there was a lot of calculation. At one point L-san said it was all a bit silly and can they just tell us what number they want and we will write it, we are easily under the 50m regulations for the fire safety certificate which we already have. The staff laughed, but they didn't tell us what number they wanted, they weren't sure of it themselves. So that paper needs to be typed again and they were unable to photocopy my passport, despite the photocopier right there, so I will make a copy for them.

Closing in on 5pm, well over our allotted appointment time, Lorraine said we would be back tomorrow at 8:30am sharp with the papers. The staff laughed and we laughed with them. And then they realised she was serious. One staff bravely said they are just arriving at 8:30am and perhaps 8:40 would be better. We'll take that thank you very much and we will be there tomorrow at 8:40am with, what just might be, the final papers. But I won't count on it...

=== May 18, 2018 (T-28 days) ===

Early start at the ward office this morning and finally all the application papers have been submitted! The staff got a bit frilly about us not having an official print out of the online application but one of them took pity on us and printed it for us. Stressed out girl apologised for leaving so abruptly yesterday and was in a better mood this morning, actually thanking us at some points for providing clear documentation. Still some discussion about the size of the airbnb and getting numbers to match up which they did. One of our papers was missing a 0 at the beginning of a 10 digit registration number as the computer had not allowed enough space for L-san to include it. It had to be handwritten in. One paper didn't pass the erasable pen test, my bad, sorry, so I rewrote with a regular pen. All of the papers were checked off, it was very satisfying to see all the marus (circles) (Japanese check-mark) going onto the checklist paper. Finally all of the papers were put into a large envelope and a paper with a list on was taped on the front of the envelope. The staff immediately signed the top 2 items on the 6-7 item list. I guess we need to get all those items signed off as the registration process. On the desk behind the counter there were 2 similar envelopes with 4 items checked off on their lists so others have also made it this far.

So the next step, once the registration is complete, they will email L-san and we need to make another appointment at the ward office. At that time we will get the required door sign for our home to say we are registered and information about how to submit guest details to the ward office. I hope we will also get the registration number then, without it, airbnb is going to cut our account from their listings in 28 days...
L-san guesses it may take 2-3 weeks for this process, we're cutting it fine indeed but I don't think we could have got here any faster.

And, if anyone wants to book a place to stay in Tokyo, in case our listing is cut.....

[https://www.airbnb.com/rooms/10582789?s=51 Hus in Yoyogi]

Instagram pippins_inn_airbnb

=== May 22, 2018 (T-24 days) ===

This evening L-san, the husband and my good self had a meeting with the neighbourhood leader, who was a bit confused about what minpaku/airbnb was. It turns out he had done a bit of research and knew what to be concerned about. His first concern was rubbish and the sheer amount of excess rubbish that our potential 2 guests could produce. I was expecting him to be concerned about this and had stopped at the local convenience store and purchased a 10 pack of "excess rubbish" stickers which can be put on any extra bags exceeding the maximum allowed for pickup in Shibuya ku. Their website says 4 45 litre bags but, if you ask any of the staff, they say 3 45 litre bags. We usually only put out a maximum of 2 45 litre bags each time.

Personally I think they should be more concerned about all of the beer cans and wine bottles that we need to recycle on recycling day pickup. The law says that we should outsource our extra rubbish pick up to a separate company but, since the leader knows us and recognises our faces, he said it will be ok for us to just use the stickers. He was concerned that we might not have a big enough rubbish collection box and offered to give us another but we said we would be fine. Most of our guests are more concerned about the rubbish and recycling than we are and a lot of the questions I get when we check someone in are about this.

So rubbish was discussed at length and then we moved onto business, as it turns out the neighbourhood leader is a fairly shrewd businessman. Our monthly 200 yen neighbourhood bill will be increased to 1000yen. I thought this was actually just a 2400yen bill for the Happy New Year paper they put on our door every year but maybe it covers more than that. And, since we would now officially be a business, our "donation" to the annual festival should be a bit higher. Maybe we'll have airbnb written on one of the festival plaques this year. :) We're not too concerned about these new fees as we have come this far and it's too late to back out now. The leader said he will be in charge of telling the neighbours when (!!) we get approval as there is a certain neighbour that is urusai (a PITA). I guess we agree on that. He seemed to be on our team and was keen to hear from us as soon as we get permission to go ahead, I guess so he can start charging us.

=== May 23, 2018 GOAL reached, achievement unlocked!! ===

I received a message from L-san this morning to tell me the good news that Shibuya ku had already approved the application and we have the magical number we need to pass to airbnb. This is great as Airbnb has been messaging me daily asking for this, I think they are getting quite concerned about how few people are actually able to get the registration number. Swiftly inputted the number into the system and we are good to go. Tomorrow morning L-san and I will go to Shibuya ward office to pick up our official sign to put on the door. We will hold back on putting that up until we have told the neighbourhood leader, a few days from now, so he feels that we didn't apply for this until after having spoken with him.

=== May 24, 2018 ===

This morning L-san and I met at the ward office at 9am and we walked out of the ward office at 9:08am with the official door sign with our registration number. The staff were friendly, and possibly relieved that they had finished dealing with us. The door paper was produced along with an additional paper to show precisely where on the door it was to be placed on June 15th. The fanfare and champagne corks popping was only in my head. The airbnb area at the ward office had 2 stacks of freshly printed flyers from the fire department showing cute characters and how to register your home with the fire department for airbnb. I guess they were tired of answering questions too and whipped up some cute new mascots (a cat, a tiger and a sheep) to portray airbnb registration. The door sign is not laminated and that is my official registration so I colour photocopied it and am warming up the laminator now to finish preparing it.

=== Forms Submitted ===

Form 1 the application papers, several pages.

[[File:airbnb1.jpg|frameless|180px|Form 1]]

Form 2 is something

[[File:airbnb2.jpg|frameless|180px|Form 2]]

Form 3 is the affidavit that I wrote to say I am not bankrupt or mentally handicapped, this was signed by the New Zealand embassy

[[File:airbnb3.jpg|frameless|180px|Form 3]]

Form 4 is a translation of form 3

[[File:airbnb4.jpg|frameless|180px|Form 4]]

Form 5 is something

[[File:airbnb5.jpg|frameless|180px|Form 5]]

Form 6 shows that we own the land

[[File:airbnb6.jpg|frameless|180px|Form 6]]

Form 7 is the blueprints for the airbnb

[[File:airbnb7.jpg|frameless|180px|Form 7]]

Form 8 is a contract to say my husband (the house is in his name) is renting the first floor to me for free :)

[[File:airbnb8.jpg|frameless|180px|Form 8]]

Form 9 is a checklist from the online registration

[[File:airbnb9.jpg|frameless|180px|Form 9]]

Form 10 is very important, this is the layout that the fire department wants to see

[[File:airbnb10.jpg|frameless|180px|Form 10]]

FYI to neighbours minpaku page, handed out to homes within 10m radius from home

[[File:airbnb11.jpg|frameless|180px|Form 11]]

The sign to put on the door to the house

[[File:airbnb12.jpg|frameless|180px|Form 12]]

=== Friday July 20, 2018 ===

The minpaku/airbnb is doing very well, so well in fact that we have already reached our 180 day limit for the year ending March 2019.

So it's time to take the next step, registering for a budget hotel license. This would allow us to rent the room for the full year.
Remember all those hoops we jumped through before? So now let's add fire to them and see how we do. :)

L-san made a reservation with our friends at the ward office this morning to discuss this next step. She said this would be a negotiation meeting more than anything else. It was. There were a list of things we need to be able to pull this off.

We need a lockable linen cupboard, in order to ensure that guests don't leave poison or something dangerous inside(?). A bit silly really as the reason the current linen cupboard is unlocked is so that guests can freely help themselves if they need extra towels or blankets. Anyway, not a big problem to solve, we'll get a lock for the cupboard.

A front desk, apparently we need one, putting up security cameras is not an alternative option. This problem can be solved by clearing the large cupboard under the stairs and putting in a table.

Proper bath circulation equipment to ensure that the water is filtered and there is no chance of dirty water or mildew. This problem can be solved by having someone change the motor (?) part of our jacuzzi bath, estimated cost will be around 100,000yen.

We need to obtain permission from the Olympic youth centre which is 200 metres from our home, apparently they have to OK any new budget hotels, L-san said this is not difficult and is just a case of them putting a hanko on a piece of paper for us.

And here is the doozy that has us scratching our heads and wondering what to do...

The toilet is not right next to the guest area, it is 1.5 metres down the hall and the main problem seems to be that it is in the shared entrance area that we also use. It needs to be in the guest area. This will require either moving the toilet or creating a second entrance but it's hard to pull space out of nowhere for things like this. We are currently thinking about this.

So that was the end of that meeting, our next meeting was at the fire department to see what hoops they had prepared for us to jump through. It turns out there are very few and it is quite manageable. We need a smoke sensor in the room which we can choose to pair with one upstairs, we would do this. The electrician who does this would also be able to change the bath filter system. It was undecided whether we would need a garish emergency exit light, the staff thought it would look uncool and we wholeheartedly agreed with him. But it was not his decision to make and he had to consult with someone else. We are waiting to hear from him.
We will also need evacuation instructions on the door, if you know the layout you will know how silly this is, the instructions would be something like "just turn around and walk outside" :)

We also need fireproof curtains for the room, just for the inspection day....

=== Friday 10 August, 2018 ===

Another trip to the ward office. We found a solution for the previous toilet location problem, we will switch the toilet with the washer/dryer since the plumbing is already lined up for this. We spoke with our builder and discussed moving the guest room door out into the hallway so the entire guest unit is self-contained. The laundry area will still be accessible to the guests for their washing, bonus will that we will officially have a laundry room. Another life-goal achieved! Our builder gave us a far more realistic quote for this than the original company who built our home so we will go with him. He can "fix" the bath for us so that it can pass the inspection too and he said he was able to install any extra smoke detectors or emergency lighting if required. Once more we went over what we need to submit in order to apply for the license. Once more we walked away with not much more knowledge than we had when we walked in.

=== Thursday 16 August, 2018 ===

Another trip to the fire department, the staff said this time that we don't need to make any changes, very good news indeed. They also gave me some multilingual pamphlets for how to contact the fire department or ambulance in case of an emergency. A good meeting, added bonus was that this entire meeting took less than 10 minutes.

=== Friday 17 August, 2018 ===

We went to the ward office and showed our renovation drawings (courtesy of my husband the computer magician). We also showed which cupboard we would add a lock to so it would be the designated linen cupboard, the location of the front desk and the shelf where we would store hotel documents. There was a bit of discussion and note taking while we went over every item they had asked us to produce. Since we live near the Olympic youth hostel,we have to get their permission to go ahead. At no point is our small max 2 guest room looking to compete with a youth hostel that hosts thousands but we still need their permission. It seems that the ward office will fax them after we submit our application to get the necessary paperwork required. We need to show that we have a working intercom system between our floor and the guest floor. We currently have a stand-alone intercom that we use when we are BBQing on the roof in case the doorbell rings, hopefully this will be sufficient.
And then, the next part, We got to see physical proof that the hotel license application form actually exists. It was produced with a flourish and a swift hanko to indicate how much we would be charged for the application (a cool 30,600yen). Neither L-san or I were prepared for this amount of progress all of a sudden and I did not have my hanko stamp with me and L-san did not bring stamp ink. There were still some documents required for submitting the application so we walked away with a list and the application form. I quickly cycled home to get my hanko while L-san waited in a cafe. Returned and gave her my hanko and the cash required for the application. It feels like we might be able to achieve this.
I celebrated by stopping at Nitori on my way home and ordering fireproof curtains.

=== Renovation ===

Part of changing from Airbnb licence to budget hotel is that the toilet can not be "an island" across shared-space. So we decided to get the local builder in to do some renovation. The simplest change we could think of would be to swap the place of the toilet and washing machine. Since both places then have sewage, water in, and power point. This meant the toilet would be in the one self contained area for the guests, so we also enquired about creating a "new door" to separate the entire guest area to the shared-hallway. The door placement is a little awkward as it would cover about half of a sliding-door into the bathroom.

Luckily, our local builder is really good, and he had no issues creating a new wall to cover half of the sliding door, then putting in a doorpost on that. A new door, exactly the same make/model as we picked for 1F to match, and as a bonus it comes with a lock and keys. Wall papering and creating a wall bit above the door, and it looks perfect. Meanwhile, the plumber swapped the toilet and washing machine without much hassles, the new place for the washing machine has a tray - which generally is a pain - but the new style is a good design so that is quite pleasing.

We also had to change the taps on the bath. We had the Japanese auto-fill style, which you control from the remote on the wall. The temperature, water height level etc, and push a button to fill it. Unfortunately with Budget Hotel licence, you can not have this style of circulating water (no filtration system), and water has to come from a tap into path. They installed an auto-shutoff tap on the bath for this requirement.

We also had a fold down table attached to the wall by the genkan, which will be down flat against the wall most of the time, but when we check in guests, we lift it up and it will act as a "front desk". Which you have to have. We added a lock (or rather, changed the door handle to a lock type) to the shoe closet, this way we can say it is the "office" for documents. It becomes a bigger hassle if the office is "registered" as upstairs, when it comes to calculating the area used for the business vs personal. Similarly a small lock on the stair closet, to show we have a "lockable linen closet" (also a requirement).

=== Thursday 18 October ===

It's been a long enough wait to be worrisome but this month has been very busy with guests coming and going so the time passed quickly. L-san submitted our hotel application at the end of August, it is now nearing the end of October. The hold-up seemed to be at the local youth hostel, the ward office was waiting to get the paperwork back from them and they just got it back yesterday afternoon. So we passed that level, the next part is the inspection.

We need to have the fireproof curtains (already done), front desk (built and installed), lockable linen cupboard (done),bath downgraded to use taps (also done). We do still need to make our shoe closet look a bit more like an office so that will be this weekend's project. Apparently we need to take all of the food out of the room as we are not licensed to offer food, even the basic rice crackers and cup ramen that we have. I personally wouldn't even consider tea and coffee as food, that's pretty much the same basic level as air to breathe.

We will need to show our guest book which contains copies of guests' passports and their details and a paper which shows our employees. We currently have 3 housekeepers and an accountant. I'm not sure how happy the housekeepers are going to be about sharing their personal details but all of them are legally living here and have sponsorship.

We will also need to show that we have a sign, fortunately I found a fabulous calligrapher on Etsy last month who made us a logo which we can use as a sign. I've printed and laminated it and will put it in the same area as the current minpaku license.

Oh, and one more thing, we also need to apply for a coin laundry license?! Apparently, since we offer a washer and dryer to our guests we need this license. It doesn't seem to matter that we don't charge any extra for this. This seems to be another matter of signing some paperwork (and a fee?) to get the coin laundry license.

The inspection is scheduled for Monday 29 October at 3:30pm. It should take around 90 minutes. Fingers crossed.

=== Monday 29 October, 2018 ===

Inspection day! L-san arrived before the Shibuya inspection team so we had a quick chance to catch up and make sure everything looked as it is expected to look. The inspection team arrived right on time and were a team of 4, the boss of the health centre and 3 ladies, all carrying clipboards and looking very official. Things were noted from the moment they stepped in the door so it was good we had remembered to quickly slap the sign on the outside wall moments before their arrival. They checked the reception desk and confirmed that it can be raised or lowered then checked the "office. The office is actually our shoe closet which has been decluttered and now has a printer and officey-looking things (files, clipboards, post-it notes, pens, a total of 1000yen at the 100yen shop to create the illusion of an office.) This was ticked off on their list and there were a lot of impressed sounds when they saw our huge stock of water bottles in case of emergencies. Easy points there!
There was some concern about a sign I had on the door which reads "turn off aircon and lights before you go". Guests are supposed to contact us (since we are ALWAYS in the home) if they want to leave. I'm still a bit hazy about this rule and not sure of the reasons for it. Anyway we said the sign was for the kids when they go to school. It is exactly the kind of sign we would leave for the kids too. We needed to show we had an intercom so the guests could contact us, noone checked if it actually worked, nor did they check if it was plugged in. It wasn't. We were playing a risky game. The next check was the laundry and I showed the translation for how to use the machine. Then the "linen cupboard". To be fair, this one was the one we spent the least effort on, all that was required was a lockable cupboard and a certain number of bedding supplies ( I think 6). I had just put all the bedding into the cupboard on top of a rolled up mattress that we use when the kids have friends stay. This was not ok and we were told that the linen had to be on a shelf and not on the floor. This was issue number 1.
So we carry on, the bath is inspected fairly thoroughly and they wanted to see the paperwork of what the plumber did which I didn't have as I just send all the receipts I get to the accountant. This was issue number 2.
We continued on to check the books. I have guest information papers and photocopies of all the guests passports. Apparently I have not been asking enough questions, I need to add date of birth/age, where they came from and where they are going when they leave our home. Also, if they are male or female. This was issue number 3.
They had a laser measuring device and measured the room to check it matched with the measurements we had given.
Then they brought out the papers for the coin laundry license, apparently this is just a matter of signing the paper and answering some weird questions like; what are the walls of the room made of, how many watts are the lights and is there rubbish bin in the room? They gave me a list of laundry rules to put on the wall and made me promise I would sterilise the machine between guests. Yeah, sure, no problem.
I had to sign a paper saying, once more, that I am at home all the time. They said the cat is not allowed in the room. The cat is actually the reason for 99% of our bookings so I think he will still be spending time in the room. :) The fact that so many guests have drawn him and his pictures are all over the room and in the guest books just shows how often he is in there.
They didn't check any of the things we had in the room, they didn't seem to care about coffee or tea in the room. But, the worst thing, they didn't even check the fireproof curtains!!!! So we'll be changing back to the lovely homemade curtains soon.
They told us that the feedback from the olympic centre was that our guests were not allowed to use their space in case of emergency evacuation. I said of course not, we know our evacuation place is Yoyogi park, they were impressed that I knew this.
Husband came down with a mini table and asked if that would be suitable to put linens on and everyone said yes so he asked if he could just prep that now, they said no. So that has been prepped now they have left and we will take them a photo tomorrow, along with the info about the bath and the new guest information sheets.
I saw the actual license, they had it with them and they confirmed the spelling of everything with me before promptly putting it back into a folder. We are very close to getting this. They mentioned that we would be the first people in Shibuya to move from a minpaku(airbnb) license to a hotel license. This also means we will be the first people in Shibuya to lose a minpaku license as it will be revoked when we upgrade to hotel.

2018-10-19T05:16:54Z

Lundman:

File:Airbnb1.jpg

2018-05-24T00:42:51Z

Lundman: