“Garbage houses” - 14% of all houses in Japan are empty (7 photos)

The population in Japan is aging. And he not only grows old, but dies. And suddenly it turned out that the houses of these dead people remained useless and empty. A recent calculation showed that 13.8% of all residential properties in Japan - more than 9 million - remained empty after the death of the owners.





Reasons for the proliferation of ghost houses

Of course, the main reason for empty houses is depopulation. There are no heirs or people willing to live in this once popular region. At the same time, housing in cities is still very expensive for everyone else.



In just a year, an abandoned house has become overgrown with wild grapes, similar to our slums.

But the second reason is the cost of demolition is too expensive. Due to seismic activity in the region, some houses are sometimes in dire need of reconstruction or demolition. But even demolition in Japan is very expensive and is carried out at the expense of the owner.

And he decides to simply go somewhere to live, and leave the problem with the empty house hanging, so as not to waste money. Here are the houses with boarded up windows, overgrown with weeds for decades.

Akiya phenomenon





In some abandoned houses you can find "artifacts from a bygone era"

Such houses even have their own name - akiya (empty houses). And you, too, may fall under the curse of Akiya - an inheritance from your grandfather.

This is really a curse, because you can’t live there - it’s far from work, or there is no work in the region. But no one will buy it, and demolition is expensive. Therefore, some heirs even prefer to hide and hide if they are looking for them to hand over the inheritance.



Rice paper walls are torn and damaged by any branch or wind.

But in this case the state also has no right to do anything with such houses. Formally, they are still someone else's.

The most inconvenient thing is that when one of the spouses dies, the other gets ownership of only half of the house. And the second half of the house automatically belongs to the children. And they left, went into hiding, or simply broke all ties with their family.



The house in the province is gorgeous, but no one needs it either

And without their permission you can’t even sell the house. So it turns out that the second old man is cursed and tied to this house. Either live in it, or run away and hide like children.

Urbanization is destroying Japan

It seemed that Covid and the popularization of remote work could solve this problem - the rapid desolation of villages. All of Japan is moving towards cities, especially Tokyo.



But there is still a state program for the restoration of abandoned temples in Japan, they are nobody’s

Yes, to such an extent that Akia began to appear not only in villages where they had been engaged in agriculture since ancient times. But even in the suburbs that are quite close to cities, because living in an apartment is still better.

If the bureaucracy had been more flexible and had come up with a way out of the bureaucratic hell, half of these houses would have been bought for restoration. But rules are paramount in Japan, and houses continue to age and crumble.



Some people live in houses while they are being renovated and then sell the renovated properties.

What will happen to these houses in the next ten years? Will they come up with a solution or let them fall apart on their own?