Some observations about the youth heim, my venerable home in the country of wonder and flying chopsticks.
- Correct pronunciation: YOU OU OU SUH. HI! MUH.
- Although no one has ever done it before, it has not been proven that building a swimming pool on the roof is not allowed.
- More than half of the rooms are dark in the evenings.
- At least two people in this building use deodorant that smells like dead rats. One of them is my neighbor.
- Besides the nasty smell of dead rat deodorant the distinct smell of something pot-like can sometimes be found at certain rooms in the second and/or third floor. Since it's highly unlikely that people are actually smoking pot here in Japan (as the punishment is way too high) I suspect they have some kind of pot substitute that only smells like pot but nothing more than that. I wonder if the people living here notice this smell and then go out and find more pot substitute, thereby increasing the fake pot smell in this building quadratically.
- Washing machines are never occupied on weekdays. Saturday and Sunday afternoon are the worst times to attempt to wash your clothes.
- For a total of five floors and about 25 rooms per floor, there is one dryer in the whole building that works.
- Said dryer is never busy, but always filled with clothes that are already dry. People leave their clothes in the dryer for hours and hours before picking them up. Especially on Saturdays and Sundays.
- I am not the only inhabitant who gets pissed off about this. Today I noticed three other people walking to the dryer and then back to their room, annoyed that it was already in use.
- A lot of the inhabitants of this building (more than three quarters I'd say) are single Japanese males.
- Single Japanese males living in the youth heim have no friends and no social life. This is demonstrated by the fact that they do their laundry in weekends and have time to check up on it several times an hour. (And let's not discuss the social life of the person that's observing aforementioned single Japanese males in the weekend...)
- The remainder are foreigners, mostly Indian, and some Americans. The gaijin ratio in this building is much higher than most other places. Might be related to half of the rooms being empty...
- Pets are not allowed, yet there are at least two couples in this building that have dogs. It's those tiny dogs that Japanese people like to put into handbags, not the big 'will-kill-you-by-sitting-on-you' kind of dog. Single people either have no pets, or else they never take them out of their room.
- A peculiar person lives opposite of me on the fifth floor. He goes out late at night in his minicar and comes back with two or more girls, who he then takes to his room. This person is also the only person to leave a dinner plate outside of his room every night. As far as I know this building has no dinner service. This person is widely known as 'The youth heim pimp' by no-one else but me.
- Some weekends, usually on Sunday morning, a salesmen may knock on people's door, trying to sell newspapers, rooms or other things. This annoys me greatly.
- My annoying smoking neighbor is still here. He usually comes home late at night, and then proceeds to move his furniture around loudly for several hours. Or at least that's what it sounds like. I counter-annoy him by showering after 1AM.
- During storms a great many sounds rattle the youth heim, most notably they are balcony doors that don't shut properly and kitchen fans that clapper due to the wind pressure and due to being of very piss-poor quality.
- The siren of an ambulance can be heard every Saturday night and every Sunday night. The ambulance often stops at an apartment just south of the youth heim. Either people there are dying one by one or there's just one guy who clings to life like a piece of gum to a table.
- Many older people working in my company used to live in the youth heim. Rumor has it their ghosts still wander the corridors.
- One such employee lived ~4 rooms away from me. This person always wore a suit and a face mask. He never spoke. In his room he had two closets. One of them contained ten suits, all exactly the same. The other closet contained the chopped up remnants of all the interns he killed with his butcher knife. [citation needed]
- Last fact: nobody in this building knows each other. Nobody will talk to each other or strike up a conversation. Ever.