052 Housing prices, traveling in the US, and housing scams

Housing. It's something we all know, regardless of where or how we grew up. In this episode, I talk about my experience with housing, in particular during college and after college in the US. As always, I'll be speaking at a Kuli English Level, which means an upper-intermediate level, and I'll be explaining difficult words as we go. If you have any comments, feel free to write them here, and I will respond to them (although I might be slightly late!)

Bookmark Chapters:

00:00 Start
01:55 Berkeley Year 1: The Dorms
10:29 Berkeley Year 2: The Stolen Bike, and Sunnyvale
19:59 Finding housing when traveling
31:27 Complaining Session: Moving out scam

Transcript

Hello, everyone, and welcome back to yet another episode of Kuli English podcast. And as always, I'm going to be your host, Chris. 

So in today's episode, I want to talk a little bit about housing.

So housing, which comes from the word like house, which is where you live, housing is basically where you live and what kind of home you live in. And of course, it depends on what kind of life you've lived up until this point. So, you know, some people probably lived in this kind of house.

Other people lived in that kind of house. And it's maybe not even a house. It might be like a share house, or it might be like a dormitory or something like that.

But basically, the place where you spend your nights and sleep, and then also just kind of most of your life growing up at home, like that kind of thing is what I mean by housing. And I want to talk about, I guess, like my experience with housing. And I'm going to be talking about a couple different housing situations that I've been in.

And by that, I mean, like different places where I've lived. For example, in college, I lived in a place called The Dorms. And then there are other places too, like there are apartments.

For example, if you do like a summer internship, meaning if you work like a summer job somewhere else, then you might have to live in some kind of thing that's like a, I don't know, corporate housing or something, which is paid for by the company. So I'm going to talk about all this kind of stuff. And I'm also going to talk a little bit about the pricing, just because I always think it's really interesting to learn like, well, how much did that guy pay for housing? Or like how much did college cost for you? But then how much did housing cost for you during college? Like those kinds of things, I always find those pretty interesting.

So I'm going to be talking about my side of it. I'm going to be talking about like my experiences with housing. But as always, first, we start with a short little music break, and then we'll come back and talk about housing.

All right. So let's go ahead and talk about housing. So I guess before we talk about like housing that you stay in as an adult, let me talk about housing that you stay in as a kid.

And like, it's a little bit interesting because I guess as a kid, you don't really have a choice of where to stay. Like whatever family you're born into, or like whatever, you know, group of people that you're born into, you kind of don't really have a choice. Like as a kid, you don't really have any power.

You don't really have money. You don't have a job. So you just have to stay wherever.

And for most people, it means you got to stay with like your mom and dad, like the family home. And then maybe, you know, maybe you stay in a room by yourself, or maybe you stay in a room and you share that room with like your brother or your sister or something like that. And, you know, this all, it all depends on like what family you were born into.

And also, I guess like what's normal in the country that you grew up in. And as a comparison for me, you know, I was born and raised in the US. And let me just say, I think like US. houses or like homes that people live in, in the US, it's just like much bigger than the homes that people live in Tokyo. So I don't say Japan.

I don't say all of Japan has small houses because that's not true. But Tokyo in particular, because it's a really, I guess, populated city, like people don't really stay in like large houses. And then in the US, I guess, because, you know, the land is very wide and it's really big, like the US is much bigger than Japan.

Just California alone is bigger than Japan. Then, of course, like, you know, all the homes are kind of bigger. 

So I'm not really going to talk too much about like the homes that people grew up in, because I guess it, you know, kind of depends on the situation.

Maybe you have stories about like, you know, sharing a bathroom with your brother or sister. Or like, I don't know, maybe you have some stories about, you know, you can't hide your favorite snacks because other people will steal it or something like that. But we'll have these kinds of stories later on as we talk about other things.

So what I want to do is I want to talk about housing or like places that you can live in after you become an adult. So adult is kind of, you know, a vague definition. It's kind of not a very like commonly defined thing.

Everybody has different ideas for what an adult means. So maybe I think in the US, like, basically, if you're 18, then you're an adult. It doesn't mean you can drink alcohol, but it means you're an adult.

And in Japan, it's kind of similar. It's like when you're 18, you're an adult. And then when you're 20, then you can drink.

But let's talk about housing that kind of you have a little bit more control over. Because, you know, like the family home that you grew up in, you're just kind of born and you don't really control that. But the first housing that I want to talk about for me is I went to college, right? So college housing is probably an easy topic to talk about.

So let's start by talking about college housing. So again, college or university. And for me, it was a four-year undergraduate university.

I went to college at the University of California, Berkeley. People just call it Berkeley for short. You don't have to know what it is.

But that area, I guess if you live in that area, it's kind of expensive. And, you know, there are a lot of homeless people. And it's maybe a little bit dangerous.

I really wouldn't recommend that you live there unless you're going to go to the university or you have some big reason why you need to be there. But let me talk about the first housing that I paid for, like in Berkeley. And that was in the college dorms.

So college dorms is like dorms is short for dormitory. It's the same thing, dorms, dormitory. But in the dorms, I stayed in a double.

So double kind of has like, I'm going to be explaining so many things in this episode. But a double, double, usually when people say double and they're talking about housing or hotels and stuff, they mean like a double-sized bed. So, you know, there's like a twin-sized bed.

And if you make it bigger, you've got a double-sized bed or a full. And if you make that even bigger, then it's queen. And then bigger than a queen is like a king.

And then bigger than king, I don't know. I've never, I don't live a fancy enough life to know what that is. But when I say I lived in a double in college, what that means is actually, it means not that there's a double-sized bed.

The bed is like the smallest possible. It's just a single. It's the loser-sized bed.

But double meaning there are two people. So there's me and then my other loser roommate. We're both losers because we pay a lot of money to this university to stay in this double.

And we paid 1,500 a month. So 1,500 a month means 1,500 US dollars every month. And remember that when you say numbers, like there are four-digit numbers and for dollars in particular for money, like instead of 1,500 being read as 1,500 a month, which is totally fine.

A lot of people will also say 1,500 is 1,500 a month. So that's what I would say. I say, I pay 1,500 a month.

Actually, it wasn't $1,500 a month. It was 1,495, $1,495. Uh, but, um, that was like what I paid.

And what my roommate pay, my roommate had to pay the exact same amount. He also had to pay like that much. So we paid about $3,000 a month for like a small little room.

And like the room, it like was just a room. It was a room in the dorms. So like, we don't have our own bathroom and like, we don't have a kitchen.

There's a kitchen, like a shared kitchen in the building, but like it's pretty nasty. Because it's shared by like, you know, like, uh, there's like, what? Like 20 rooms and each room has two to three people. So you've got like 50 people on a floor and then there's like eight floors.

So there's like 400 people sharing one kitchen on the first floor. It's a, it's a very nasty place. So I never used it.

Um, but this place, um, there are doubles and there are triples. And so a triple is very similar. But instead of having two losers in a room, you have three losers in a room.

And the sad thing is if you stay in a triple, like you'd think you would think that the price would be less because, you know, in the double, it's a total of $3,000 a month. You'd think that the triple, which is like almost the same size would be like, you know, similar in pricing. So maybe $3,000 a month and then split between three people.

It's a thousand dollars a month. No, no, no, no, no, no. In the triple, it's basically almost the same price, but it's 1400 a month.

So you get like a hundred dollar discount a month, but you have to share it with two people instead of one person. Uh, so I guess, uh, you can probably tell from like my tone in the way that I'm talking that I actually didn't really like the housing and it's like kind of true, but kind of not true. Like I, I thought it was very expensive and I don't think it's actually worth paying that much to go there, but I still had a really good time and I made a lot of friends and I think the first year in college, like people always recommend you got to stay in like the college housing because that's how you like meet people and you get more exposure.

Like you'll get more chances to meet people. So I do, I do think it was a positive thing, but I did spend a lot of money. Um, so I also want to clarify that this is like the housing provided by the university.

So when you go to this university, like the university tells you, oh, okay, good job on making it in. And, you know, we're going to send you some information on how to enroll in classes and then also how to handle your housing stuff. And then, so for the housing stuff, you kind of have two options.

You can say, sure, I will take the college housing and then you accept whatever they give you. And then they're like, okay, you're going to stay in a double or you're going to stay in a triple. Um, and the other option is you say, nope, I do not do not accept.

So I don't want to pay you for housing and I'm going to find my own, but then finding your own is like kind of hard. Cause you know, it's something that you have to do as an adult and you'd have to go like find the apartment online. You'd have to like sign a contract and it's like, I think for most college students, like if they're just starting college, they haven't done like that much stuff in life yet.

Like maybe they sign up for a credit card, but they definitely didn't sign like a housing lease yet. 

Um, so anyways, that was the first place that I stayed at and it costs like 1500 a month. So, uh, let's take a short little break and then I'm going to come back and tell you about like the next place that I stayed at in college.

And it ended up being cheaper, but as always, we take that short little music break. 

Okay. So I told you about, I guess like the housing that I stayed at and, uh, I am sorry if it sounds like I'm bitter.

So this is probably a good phrase to talk about, but bitter, um, you know, bitter is like the opposite of sweet, right? So if you eat like a nice fruit and it's sweet, uh, but then afterwards, let's say you eat like some really nasty vegetables and it tastes very bitter. Um, so it's not just the taste bitter, but you can also use bitter to describe someone who's kind of like, Oh, I have lots of complaints about this. Like, Hmm, I'm not happy about this.

So I guess you could say the way that I talked about that first campus housing that I stayed at, I was a little bit bitter. Um, but now let's talk about something a little bit better. So the opposite of bitter, something sweeter.

And that is the place that I stayed at, uh, in my second year of college. So in the first year of college, I stayed again, this is just review, but I stayed in the college housing. And then in the college housing, I paid a bunch of money and I had to share like this, like kitchen.

I basically never went to the kitchen, but, um, I was also surrounded by other people who are all paying like the same amount. And then like, you maybe have like a roommate that's loud or something, but then after that, then we upgrade, we upgrade to the second year in my second year of college. You also call it a sophomore year of college.

I moved to an off-campus housing. So to explain what off-campus housing is, as an example, um, like my first year, I stayed in the dorms, right? That's provided by the college. So you call that on-campus housing.

Um, and it's like on the campus campus is like the grounds that the college is, there's like a, a big rectangle, which includes all the school buildings. And that's what you call on-campus and then off-campus means it's like, well, it's a little bit further away, but it's actually not that bad. And, um, it's not provided by the university.

So you would have to find it yourself. You would maybe have to find it online or you'd have to find it through a friend or something, but the university doesn't give it to you. And that also means it's a lot cheaper.

So the new place that I stayed at instead of $1,500 a month of paying, like from me, I paid about half of that. So it was about $800 a month. Uh, and the room that I got again, it was a double.

It was actually, uh, it was called a two bedroom. So the way that you like, I guess, describe housing is usually about like number of bedrooms and number of bathrooms. And that's how it is in the US. It's different in Japan, in Japan, you have like a system of like, you know, one LDK, like two LDK it's different, in Japan versus the US but in, in the US you would say, uh, I stayed in a two bedroom, one bathroom.

Um, and that means there's two bedrooms and one bathroom. It's like really easy to understand. And the room was actually a little bit bigger than the old room.

So like, you know, the, the piece of crap room that I stayed at my freshman year, that one was pretty small. It was like, I think it was like 12 square meters. So if you've ever stayed in like a really small business hotel, for example, in Japan, there's like this really famous chain called the Apa hotel, which is like, you know, cheap and very straightforward and you don't get anything extra and you get this small room and it's probably like, you know, 13 square meters or something like that.

And then, uh, my old room was kind of that big, but then the second year it kind of upgraded and, uh, I don't know, maybe it was like 20 square meters in the room. And then not only that, not only that, but the whole apartment, there's two bedrooms plus a living room. And so I guess, um, when I said it's a two bedroom, one bathroom, uhh, there's nowhere in the name that says that there's a living room, so that's not nice.

Uh, but I'm telling you, I'm explaining it to you. There was a living room. And then, so, you know, we put like the piano there, like the dining table there.

And then, uh, one guy also put his bike like there, like kind of in the back of the place. And, uh, so we got like basically more stuff for less money and, uh, I was happy about that. So, um, that was like the one place that we stayed at.

And, uh, I guess, um, you know, instead of talking about housing, I do want to mention this other side story, but it's a really random story and I'm not going to mention any like real names of people just, just because, but, uh, so we stayed in that place. Right. And this place, it was on like the corner of the campus.

So if, if you're looking at the campus map of like the school map, then we lived in like the very like top left corner. That's that's our apartment. And then also at that top left corner was like this intersection.

And then, uh, oh man, I haven't told the story before. So it's actually, I think it's the first time I'm like telling the story. I'll probably end up keeping this recording too.

Cause I don't really want to have to do another one. But, um, in that corner, there was a, like a traffic intersection. So traffic intersection, meaning there's like a, you know, a traffic light, you know, green, yellow, red, and then maybe there are people crossing the street, like walking, maybe there are people biking and stuff.

And then, uh, I had a roommate who I guess liked to look at the intersection, you know, just like from our apartment. So he's sitting there, he's got his like arms crossed and he's like, Hmm, I like looking at other people. I really like him.

He's a nice guy. And, uh, one day, like he was looking at the intersection and then I was also like, what are you looking at? And he's like, I'm just looking at the intersection. And I was like, oh, okay.

And then, so we were looking at the intersection and then, uh, a guy, a guy, like he was trying to cross the street with his bike and then something happened where a car like almost hit him. And then like the car, like slowed down a lot and the car hit his bike a little bit. And then the guy like fell over, but so the guy was like kind of fine.

Uh, he didn't, he didn't actually like get that hurt or anything. He just kind of fell off the bike. The car didn't touch him, but you know, he still fell off the bike and falling off your bike, even if nothing hits you, like feels pretty bad.

So that guy was, was fine, but he was kind of shooken up. He was shaken up, meaning he was kind of like, oh, a little bit surprised. And then, uh, my roommate, like, uh, he kind of went out there and he was like, Hey, uh, are, are you okay? And then, uh, the guy, um, was kind of like, hmm, I don't know.

And then he like looked at himself and then he just like walked away. So he like left his bike there and the bike, since it already got hit, like, uh, there was a wheel that already got hit. Um, the wheel is supposed to be round cause on a bicycle wheel, it's supposed to be round to continue, but it was like bent.

So I guess the bike, you can't really ride it. And then, uh, that was it. Like the guy just left and the bike was just left alone right there.

And so my roommate was like, what the heck? So, so then what he did was my roommate was very nice. He like got a little note that says, Hey, for your bike, like call me. And he like put that on a note on a little post-it and he like pasted it to the, to the pole.

There's the traffic light pole. And then, so if that guy like ever came back looking for his bike, then he would know, oh, he would see the post-it and it's written of course in English. And then he would read it and be like, oh, okay.

I'll just like text my roommate or call my roommate for the bike. And so he left that there. And then he took the bike inside.

And then like, so my other roommate again, now in my, in my house, there were four people, right? So there's me, my roommate, and then another guy. And then the other guy was like, what are you doing? Like, where'd you get this broken bike? And the guy was like, oh, someone got hit by a bike. Someone got hit by a car.

And then he left. So I took his bike and people were like, what the heck, what, what, what do you mean? You, you just, you stole a bike. And he's like, no, I didn't steal it.

I put a post-it note that said, if you want it back, I'll, I'll give it back to you. And, uh, like I saw this and I was thinking, okay, this all makes sense, but it's just the way that he's describing it. It's so hard to like, like answer questions and describe it in a way that sounds pretty normal.

Cause this is like a pretty rare thing. And then, so fast forward, fast forward, meaning like eventually after some more time passed, nobody like texted or called my roommate. And I think it had been like a month or so.

And then we just had this like broken bike, like kind of in the back of the back of the apartment. And then at some point, like one of my roommates was like, you know what, let's just go ahead and like fix this wheel. And then maybe I can use it.

So then one of my housemates like went and like had his dad like help fix the bike. I don't know how he did it, but I don't even know how you like make a wheel like perfectly circular again. You probably just buy a new wheel with my guess.

But anyways, like he fixed the bike. And then, so now this bike was like working, but anytime people ask like, Hey dude, like how'd you get that bike? Like, like the truth is, Oh, a guy got hit by a car. And then I just like picked it up.

And it sounds like you stole like a bike from a, from like a, like a traffic accident victim. But it's not actually true because, you know, he left a little note there and I know was there for like over a month. And then the guy never came back and the bike wasn't even really like that fancy of a bike.

So that guy probably didn't care. In my theory, my theory, like my guess for why that guy didn't come back, is that guy probably stole the bike in the first place is my guess. And then like you stole the bike and then he was running away and then he got hit by the car and he's like, Oh, well I'm just going to leave.

And I'm not even going to take this bike. Like, that's my guess. Although I don't really know for sure.

So that's a short little story about like, that's one of the memories that I have from like my second apartment at Berkeley. So as always, let's take a short little music break and then I'll come back and I'm going to tell you more about housing stuff.

Okay, so before we continue, I want to take a short little pause here and talk about, I guess just housing for when you travel. So I think it's actually really hard to find good housing if you're trying to find housing in a place that's like not where you grew up. So for me, I grew up in the US.

So if you're like looking for housing in the US, like, I think I know how to do it. I would like look online and then like, what do I look for online? I would search on Google for like, you know, the apartment or something like that. And after I find some candidates, after I find some options that seem like they're pretty good, I would go ahead and, you know, like look it up on Google maps or I would look up like reviews or something.

And so, you know, these are specific websites. Like I said, Google maps, but if you've never used Google maps before, then, you know, how are you supposed to know to do it? And I think the answer is like, you just don't know. You have to like learn from somewhere.

You have to like see someone else doing it, or you have to ask someone else and you have to have your friend teach you or something like that, but it's pretty hard. So, um, I guess in the US, um, there are a couple of websites that I would recommend that you look at in particular for travel. So if you're looking to like travel and you're not looking for like a, you know, apartment to live at forever, then you probably shouldn't be looking at like you should be looking at like temporary stays and there are many options.

So I'm just going to list a couple and I'm going to mention them slowly. This might sound like advertising, but I'm not being paid anything to talk about it. These are just my personal recommendations in case you want to travel.

And as always, you should look at multiple options. So don't just look at one and then be like, Oh, this is great. And then click, and then you buy it because there might be better options on other websites.

And another thing is don't look at too many options because if you look at too many options, then you're going to feel like overwhelmed, you're going to feel like, Oh, there's too many choices. Uh, so like, you know, pick, uh, look, look at a more than one option, but not more than like 10 options in my opinion. Anyways.

So, uh, I think a really common one, uh, is like hotels.com or something like that, um, and that'll just help you find hotels. And when you find hotels, you could also search for hotels on like Google maps, but basically hotels are very straightforward. Like, um, you kind of know what to expect.

You'll get like a, you're supposed to get like a clean room and it's supposed to have like, you know, a bathroom and stuff like that. Um, but then, uh, if you're willing to try like a different experience or maybe you want to save money, uh, you can also do something called Airbnb. And so if you don't know what Airbnb is, it's like, uh, I guess it's like an app for room sharing and I say room sharing, but usually you don't share the room at all.

And usually it's just like somebody imagine like a rich person has like a house and then they are so rich that they bought two houses and then the first house, they just rent it out. They want to make money. So they try to find tourists and then have the tourist stay there for like a week or something, and then, you know, take their money and then afterwards they like pay some people to clean it up and get it ready for the next tourist.

So it's basically like, uh, it's called room sharing, but what it really means is just like, um, I guess small businesses that do like these renting things. Um, and I've stayed at a lot of different Airbnbs in my life. Uh, probably more than like, you know, probably more than 15 or 20 is my guess.

And it's not just in the US but also in other countries as well. And, uh, Airbnb, I guess it's very straightforward. Like the website will tell you, you know, is this, do you get your own room? Is it your own room in like a shared house? Or is it like, do you get the whole house? And then I think most people who use it, maybe they want to like have their own space, so they make sure that they have their own room or they make sure that the whole place is like theirs, or if you're like a couple and you're going on a vacation, then, you know, probably you don't want to like share your room with like some other people.

Um, but I guess, you know, if you really are okay with sharing the room, that could be some way to like save money, but, um, so that's Airbnb and the thing with like, uh, Airbnb and hotels and stuff like that, um, you know, some people really prefer hotels because hotels are kind of like very consistent. Like, it's not like, Oh, each one it's you really got to look into it. And, uh, you got to double check. You got to communicate with the host and stuff like that. So the hotels, you, there's none of that. You just like go to the front desk and then you check in and they're like, okay, here's your key and then you go and that's it.

It's like that simple, but Airbnb, it's a little bit different because it's run by like individual people. So for example, if I was a super rich guy and I had like four houses and then you were staying at my Airbnb, then, you know, I would send you like a message that says like, Oh, Hey, like, welcome, I'm going to have you stay at this address and I'm going to need like you to send me a picture of your ID. And then I also need you to, I don't know, like when you arrive in this place, make sure you like turn on the heater and the heater is like this button over here or something like that.

Like, it's like a house that someone else, stayed at and a house that someone else has set up. So like, you might not necessarily know where everything is and maybe there's like, you know, junk in the closet or something like, uh, when you stay at Airbnb's, I guess, because usually what happens is before and after you stay, like people hire professional cleaners and then the cleaners like clean stuff, they clean the floor, like clean the bathtub, they clean the kitchen and then, uh, they, they hide all their like cleaning supplies, like in the closet, so like if you want to use the closet and store your things, like you might not be able to, because there might be a bunch of like paper towels and like, I don't know, alcohol cleaners or something like that. And I I'm okay with that, but you know, that does take away from your experience.

For example, if you want to travel and, and you want to put a lot of stuff in the closet, then I don't know, like it depends, maybe some Airbnbs, they don't have closets or maybe some of them, the closets are, are too full of cleaning supplies. Uh, so yeah, I did take a little bit of time to talk about Airbnb's and stuff like that, but there are other options too. There are like hostels.

So a hostel basically is kind of like a hotel, but, um, it's in like a shared place, like a lot of the beds are like in like bunk beds. So maybe there's like a room for the guys and a room for the girls. And then in the guy's room, there's like, I don't know, four beds or something like that.

And you, you probably don't even know the other people that are sleeping there. Um, but hostels are also a great way to meet people too. Um, so it, it depends on your style of traveling, but again, I guess if you weren't really listening, let me summarize if you're going to stay in the US I would recommend you check out a couple of different websites.

So, you know, look things up on Google, look things up on Airbnb, look things up on like hotels.com. Uh, there are plenty of other websites as well. So, um, I think that was pretty good. Uh, let me go ahead and move on and talk a little bit about the next apartment that I stayed at.

So as a short little review, um, I stayed, um, in Berkeley, right. And then like the very first room was like a pretty expensive double and I paid 1500 a month. And then the next year I upgraded to like a better double.

And then I like stay with friends and this was in like a shared apartment and this ended up being about half the price. So I paid about $800 a month. And then, um, after I guess after college, then I graduated, right? So then I did my 4 years of college and then I went to go work.

And then, uh, you know, in between like finding, uh, an apartment, to like stay in like long-term and also graduating, like I stayed in some other different places, I'm not really going to talk about that, but, I do want to give an example of like how much you pay if you like live in the area, where I worked, which is like in the Sunnyvale mountain view area. Um, sorry, those are, those are city names in California that you probably don't know. But, if you were like staying in, uh, the area where, where Google is, um, that area is pretty expensive.

And to give some comparison, um, I first stayed in like this house and I shared a house with like four people total. And so everyone has their own room. This was a, this was a three, a four bedroom, three bathroom house.

Uh, that's how you describe it in like the US terms. And then I didn't mention if there's a living room, but yes, there's a living room and yes, there's a kitchen. And yes, there's like a backyard too, but I guess you don't mention that in the name, uh, in this place, depending on which room that you had, so there's four rooms and there's like the smallest room and then there's like the master which is the biggest, the master bedroom is what you call like the biggest bedroom.

And it usually has its own bathroom that's like attached to the room. And so I guess the smallest room, uh, it's probably somewhere around like a thousand, a thousand dollars a month. And then the master bedroom, that one was probably like $1,500 a month.

Um, and then, so this is like, you should, you should remember that this is like the same price as what I paid like in my first year of college to have like a really crappy double with like almost nothing with like a shared bathroom and like, I have to walk like half naked to the shower and back to my room every night and then boy, have we upgraded. Okay. So this place, like, now I have my own room.

Wow. My own room. So I can like sleep and I don't have to listen to my roommate snoring or anything like that.

And then also the bathrooms, like, uh, they're only shared by like two people maximum, so it's not like you have to share a bathroom with like 49 other people. Oh man. I can't believe I lived in that place.

Um, but anyways, uh, so there was that. And then, uh, so that was a really good deal, right? It was like 1000 to $1,500 a month. That was a really good deal.

And then eventually I moved to like a pretty good place. Um, and that was a place where I stayed by myself. And, uh, this one was actually much more expensive.

It was about $3,000 a month. So this is like for me staying in an apartment by myself, but it was like a pretty big apartment. Uh, I think, uh, it was in square feet.

Let me talk about it in square meters. It was like, I think 80 square meters. Uh, yeah, yeah.

80 square meters or so. And I paid about $3,000 a month and it's a little bit more expensive because I'm not sharing with four people. I'm just like myself.

And then, so like, I have like my own like bedroom and it has like a living room, which I set up like a TV and like a dining table, and then also it has like a small little upstairs area. I don't really know if you can call it an upstairs, but it's like this upstairs area, a really small area. And that's where I set up like my computer and like my desk.

And that's where I would do like work and then also play games and stuff like that. Uh, so that place, it was pretty expensive. It was $3,000 a month, by the way, $3,000 a month.

If you're going to convert that to Japanese yen, uh, I think it's like 45 man yen gurai, and by the way, I think, um, when you talk about money and you're trying to like explain it to, uh, I guess the Japanese people, I feel like the easiest ways you talk about it in yen, you can say in USD, but then in their mind, they have to convert. You have to be like, okay, how much is that in yen? So if you can just say in Japanese, it's probably a little bit easier.

Um, so anyways, that was the place that I stayed at and, um, I, uh, let's take one last little break and then I'm going to tell you about, I guess like the difficulties of moving out of that last apartment. So I had some trouble moving out of that last department because the management was like mean to me. And so I'm basically going to turn this into a complaining session, but as always, we take a short little music break.

All right. So I hope you are very excited for complaining session. So we're going to go back to, to me complaining about stuff.

Um, and, uh, this is, I'm going to be talking about, I guess, when I moved out of that apartment, so again, just a little review, I've kind of talked about it before, but it's probably good to talk about it again. But, um, this time I was staying in an apartment in Sunnyvale and Sunnyvale is like close to Mountain View. This is where the Google headquarters is.

Um, and there are other like tech companies too, like a lot of other tech companies are all in this area, like Amazon, LinkedIn, Apple. So most of the people that like live in this general area, they all work in some kind of like software engineering, something, or like some kind of tech related job, usually not everybody, but usually, and so in this, in this apartment, um, you know, I stayed, I think like maybe two and a half years or maybe two years, I kind of forgot. And, uh, there was, it was like fine.

There were, there were no issues, I guess. Um, but, but when I was about to move out and that's because I was like moving out in preparation to come to Japan. Right.

So I was like, you know, taking all my stuff and putting them into boxes. I have these like really big boxes and then the really big boxes. I like put them at my friend's house and I put it in my friend's garage.

And then like each, each box has like a note that says like, you know, what's inside, like, oh, this is, this has all like my clothes. Oh, this has like a bunch of keyboards. Oh, this has a bunch of like cables or something like that.

And then, um, so I like moved everything out and then, uh, like I sold a ton of stuff, so that the TV, like, oh, that was a nice TV, but I sold it and then I sold like the table, I sold my like little vacuum cleaner thing. I sold like a ton of stuff, not for very much money. Like I didn't make much money off of it.

But, so when you move out, you usually have to let your landlord know, landlord is like, I guess the owner or like whoever it's like handling the rental to you. I have to let them know that I'm going to be moving out. So then I let them know, I emailed them.

I said, I just wanted to let you know, I'm going to be moving out in like two months or something like that. And then they were like, okay, sure. Whatever.

That's fine. And then, uh, what happened was, um, when I moved out, they told me, they said, Hey, uh, so, you know, thank you, but you need to pay a lot of money. You need to pay us like another, what is it? $3,000 in additional fees because we have to like clean your apartment because it's very messy.

And then I was like, what are you talking about? I, I like, I already cleaned it and like, there are no issues. Like the walls are like, like clean and stuff like that. And they were like, yeah, but, um, we, we like did some special inspection and we found like pet, like basically pet pee on your carpet.

And by the way, this is impossible. Okay. Because I never had a pet, like when I stayed there, uh, and like no pets even ever came over and they definitely didn't go up to like the carpet, like people would like kind of hold their pets in the living room, which was not carpet.

Um, so then I basically emailed back saying like, like, are you sure? Because like, I didn't have a pet and, and also like, I don't, I don't drink wine or like I didn't drink wine back then. So then they were like, okay, so either you had like, you know, pet pee or you had wine and you spilled it on the carpet and we have to replace the carpet, so you got to pay like an extra like $1,000 and then I didn't want to pay that, okay, because I don't, I'm okay with like paying stuff if it's something that I have to pay for, but this one felt like they were kind of like tricking me and actually, if you look at this like apartment on Google maps, like there are a lot of reviews of people like complaining because they stayed like, oh, like, you know, I stayed here for one or two years and then when I try to move out, like they just try to charge me a ton of money for like tons of stuff and then I was like, oh my God, they're doing that to me. And then I, I don't like this.

So I'm like willing to spend a lot of time and effort to like fight this. So then like I, I told them, I'm like, no, I don't have a pet. And also I took videos and like pictures of everything, like when I moved in.

And I also took videos and pictures of everything when I moved out. And that's because you guys have this terrible Google maps review that says you guys like trick people into paying you money and then, uh, so that person basically like didn't care. That person's like, I don't care.

You have to pay. I don't care. You have to pay.

And then they said, okay, so we're going to like go to like another place and they're going to like, it's going to be their job to collect money from you. If you don't pay. And then I told them like, I'm not going to pay you.

And, uh, if you want to like talk about this more, we can talk about it, but I'm not going to pay you. And I also, I want you to like, say sorry for like wasting my time and like charging me money and stuff like that. And then, uh, and then, so the emails didn't really like make more progress.

So this is like a bad state. Like I'm like fighting them. I'm saying like grr, and then they're fighting me and they're saying like grr, and then.

And eventually what happened was, uh, I actually, I mailed them a letter. Like I mailed a letter to the headquarters and I explained this and I said, I didn't have a pet, I don't know why you think I have a pet and like, you have no proof that I've ever had a pet because I know for sure I've never had a pet. And then also there's all these reviews of you guys trying to trick people.

So what I'm going to do is I'm going to like take you to court. So court court is like when you sue somebody, like you sue somebody. Uh, that's like to legally say like, Hey, like you need to do this or else like I'm going to report you basically.

And then, so I did that. And then like the really messed up thing, I guess it was a good thing, but it's also kind of messed up. I'll explain that in a little bit, but they basically got that letter and then they contacted like the, the person in charge and the person in charge, like called me and was like, Hey, I, I, I'm sorry, but, um, can we talk about like, you know, how much you're going to pay, how much do you think you want to pay? And then I was like, I guess I could pay you like, you know, a hundred dollars.

And then the guy was like, okay, then let's change it. So $3,000, let's change it to $100. Is that okay? And then I was like, okay.

And then I paid them a hundred dollars and then that was the end. And then I was thinking like, that's, that's kind of messed up. Uh, so I, uh, I don't really remember if I ever wrote them like a review, but, um, I feel really bad for the people who, this company, this is a really big housing company.

So what they do is everyone who stays in their apartment, uh, like there, and then tries to move out. And they say like, ah, you got to pay a ton of money for this and that and this and that, and they end up charging them like a ton of money. So that's actually, I think that's pretty messed up.

And what's even more messed up is like, if I say no, and then I say you're wrong, then they say, yeah, oh, sorry, we're wrong. And then they don't charge me money, but it's kind of like then you knew you were wrong. You shouldn't have tried to do it.

You shouldn't have, you shouldn't have tried to do that in the first place, but then I guess they do that. And, you know, realistically it's like in the end, that's, that's a business. So the people who want to make money, I guess it doesn't really matter what's like, you know, right or wrong, if you just guess if you can make more money.

So that's a, it's a pretty sad truth to life. Uh, so that was like the story about the Sunnyvale apartment and, Oh man, that, that was a, that was a really nasty end there I was kind of stressed out and kind of angry about that for quite some time, but you know, it's, it's all in the past now and it's, it's whatever. So, uh, by the way, um, I also want to give a couple different references for like the amount of money.

So as a short little review, if you stay, um, well, not if you, but like the apartment that I stayed at, uh, in Berkeley, so that was like 15. Uh, no, no, no. The, the good one was like $800 a month, right? 800, $900 that can probably buy you like a new iPhone.

And then, uh, now let's talk about the amount of rent that I paid, like my very first year of Berkeley. So that was about 1500 a month. So that's about like 1500 a month, which is like a really nice TV.

So like a really, really nice TV, like a 65 inch OLED TV. That's probably about like $1,500 a month. And then now let's upgrade.

So now let's talk about the Sunnyvale apartment. Uh, so it just $3,000 a month and also $3,000 is the amount that they wanted me to pay at the end, uh, to like pay for some carpet replacement, which I am still kind of upset about. Like I didn't do anything to the carpet.

I just like walked on it with my feet. I didn't pee there. Why would I pee on the carpet? Uh, but anyways, for $3,000, you can buy like, um, like a really, really nice guitar.

Uh, so maybe like one of the best guitars you've ever played. Uh, I can't come up with another good example. And then, um, so, uh, then, then, uh, let's talk about just one more little point of reference, but the average rent in Tokyo is probably something around, I don't know, maybe 10 man yen, 12 man yen, like 120,000 yen is probably a decent guess, maybe a hundred thousand yen.

So that's probably about 600 US dollars a month. Uh, so 600 US dollars a month could bribe, could buy you, uh, um, it could buy you the Taylor Academy, which is, it's the, it's the type of a very, very, very high quality beginner guitar. So if you're like starting guitar and you think you like it and you're okay to spend $600, I would recommend the Taylor Academy, which is like, it, it sounds and plays really well, but it's, it's like less than a thousand dollars, it's about $600.

Uh, so anyways, I think that's probably been enough. Uh, we've talked about housing. I've complained to you about like when people try to make me pay money.

And, uh, I've also told you about like some information for, I guess like the amount that I've paid for, for housing. And so hopefully it was fun. Uh, if it's not fun, well, sorry, but as always, we'll have new episodes on Tuesday, so if you want to give it a try, you can try listening to another different episode on Tuesday.

So with that, I'd like to wrap it up. So thank you so much for listening until the end of this episode. This has been Kuli English podcast, and I'm your host, Chris.

And again, as always, we have new episodes on Tuesday. So with that, thank you so much.