DISCLAIMER: My in-laws are two of the nicest people I have ever met. They let my wife and I stay with them rent-free, and even pay for our groceries. I am very, very grateful to them. I LOVE THEM! BUT IMMA STILL VENT THE ANNOYING STUFF
So things have gotten, much, much MUCH better around here, but I have been living with my in-laws. It's been about a month and a half now.
Let me get in-depth about my situation. I used to be an assistant English teacher on the JET program, helping to teach English to junior high school kids in Japan. Did it for three years, it ended, and my wife and I decided to stay in the area, move in with her folks, and continue with my job hunt for something pretty much anywhere in the entire country. We didn't think we'd be here this long, but I have been unable to find work; don't want to work Eikaiwa schools, so that cuts down jobs for me by like 95%. Long story short, I have one potential job that I have applied for and am awaiting a response to (they contacted me on a recommendation from the coolest guy ever!), but meanwhile I have started the process of getting my wife a visa; the plan is to apply and if I can't find anything good before it's ready, we are going to go to the States and I am going to go back to school. But that's me. Let me get to the in-laws.
My in-laws live in a small town in "north Bumblefuck, Japan." It's total (Japanese) hick-country out here. There is nothing to do in the immediate area, but it IS nice and quiet out here, and more open-spaced. Their house is pretty big, so big in fact that I was able to claim a room just for all my gaming crap. My wife and I sleep in the room adjacent to it, and those two rooms alone are about the size of our previous apartment! So what's the problem? Here we go:
-They don't talk about anything but food. Why is this annoying? Let me give you an example of a typical dinner "conversation." The food is on the table, everything is ready. Everyone sits down. First thing that happens is that my father-in-law gets three-four large bottles of beer, minimum (every single day) and gets plastered depending on how many bottles he finishes. He will explain everything that he is eating or drinking to you, and/or ask you to eat/drink it. So it goes something like this:
"OTOUSAN GA BIRU NOMU. BIRU DA. OISHII YO. OISHII. OISHII. NONDE? NONDE? (Food name here)- UMAI YO. OISHII. TABETE TABETE TABETE TABETE TABETE TABETE TABETE TABETE TABETE TABETE TABETE UMAI TABETE HAHAHAHAHHAHAHA."
In English, that's:
"I'M GONNA DRINK BEER. BEER! IT'S GOOD! GOOD! GOOD! YA WANT SOME? DRINK SOME? (Food name here)- THIS IS TASTY! GOOD! EAT IT EAT EAT IT EAT EAT IT EAT IT EAT IT WHY DON'T YOU EAT SOME EAT IT EAT IT EAT IT EAT EAT IT EAT EAT EAT HAHAHAHAHHAHAHAH!"
FOR. EVERYTHING. EVERY. DAY. EVERY. MEAL.
And if he goes for seconds (or thirds, or fourths)- "OKAWARI OTOUSAN OKAWARI UMAI UMAI TABETE TABETE TABETE TABETE TABETE OISHII YO TABETE OISHI" or "(Food name)! OTOUSAN (food name) (food name) DA YO! OTOUSAN SUKI YO HAHAHAHAHAHAHA"
This has unfortunately not gotten better. My mother-in-law is not as bad, but she will often join in and say the same kind of thing if I don't feel like eating something or if I'm full. I'd also like to mention that I hate mayo. Can't stand it; the smell and taste make me sick. Everyone knows this. So what happens one night when everyone is eating salad? My father-in-law gets a big bottle of mayo and slathers his greens with it. Okay, sure...I'm not going to let my dislike of it stop someone else from eating it. It's when he shoves the bowl in my face and says "MAYO DA MAYO UMAI YO OTOUSAN MAYO SUKI MAYO DA OISHII YO TABETE TABETE HAHAHAHAH (repeat)" that I am unable to stand it, stop eating, and leave the room. Everyone is somehow clueless as to why. There is some hope to this, though-- yesterday my father-in-law proclaimed his love for the ginger rose dish we eating and rice -20 times- and my mother-in-law finally snapped and told him to shut the hell up. Progress?
-They have FIVE DOGS. Five noisy little dachshunds. They'd be pretty cute if they didn't stink like shit. The main problem is that they were never properly trained, so they will just shit and piss everywhere without giving you any kind of sign that they need to go. Two of them (the father and the oldest puppy) will also fight; it's VICIOUS and blood is always drawn. One of them always ends up going to the vet when it happens. Previously, four of the dogs stayed in the kitchen (with "bad son" on a leash), while the father was put into the outside hall area by himself. My in-laws would leave them in the kitchen ALL DAY LONG, so of course when they came home, the kitchen floor would always be covered in a flood of doggy urine and poop. Hey, dogs do this, sure. The thing that got to me was that the in-laws would clean it all up with the same nasty, unwashed old rag and just water. No chemicals. And keep in mind that this is Japan-- they sit on the same floor when they eat and watch TV. They even sleep there sometimes. YUCK YUCK YUCK.
So my mother-in-law got tired of cleaning up after them. The solution? Lock them in cages all day. Now they have NO free space to roam around in. When we first moved in, they would shit and piss in their cages all the time, and the kitchen STUNK. On top of that, since my in-laws never bother walking them, they would get rowdy at night and WHINE AND HOWL FOR HOURS ON END. There was no way to shut them up. None. My wife and I started walking them every day, and that has done the trick; now they are quiet at night and they get to get out and shit and piss all over the neighborhood, so there's much less of it at home. They still stink and need to be bathed more, though. I am afraid to think about how nasty it's going to get again when my wife and I move out.
-My mother-in-law is a packrat. I didn't know this before we moved in, because I never really went around the house before, but mom-in-law has taken over the entire upstairs area with tons and tons and tons and tons AND TONS AND TONS of old clothes. They are all over the upstairs hallway, all over her bedroom, all over the attic, and her closet is so full that you can't even go inside it. The bedroom pretty much just looks like a bed floating amidst a sea of cloth. You can't see the floor. I am told this is due to my sister-in-law. (she can be a real bitch; I mean downright Yakuza movie-style scary gangster bitch but that's a whole 'nother story) In her fits of rage, she would go upstairs looking for clothes to steal, and just throw everything all over the place. My mother-in-law got tired of cleaning it up. Thing is, I think the last time this happened was at least two years ago. Downstairs isn't so bad, -but- there are some old chairs, a sofa, and a nasty broken-down old bed frame that need to go. I was told these were present from my mother-in-laws parents -35 years ago- that she won't part with. Despite how run-down they have become. I offered to see about getting them repaired (they really just need new cushions) but she wasn't having any of it. I can understand the sentimental value, but they are just wasting space.
-They have little-to-no furniture. I'm sorry; I just don't find sitting and sleeping on the floor every day to be very comfortable. In the kitchen there is a dinner table and chairs, but no one eats on it. No, instead it has been pushed to a corner and tons of junk sits on top of it. They eat at a sitting-level table on the floor. I pull up an old, uncomfortable chair and tower over them as they eat (because of the doggy situation and my legs tend to fall asleep if I sit on the floor too long) There are no beds to use and the futons are not very comfortable. They are all too old and worn out. I feel lucky I brought my nice thick futon with me from my old place. I feel even better that I brought my awesome office chair with me; if I didn't have that I'd be going insane from lack of comfort.
-They don't clean anything but the floors. Look up in the main hall ad you will see masses of cobwebs. They are even in the toilet room, ick. I mention floors" because that's all they ever clean, and that's only if company comes over on the rare occasion. They know how nasty shit is here and will just shuffle people into their living room, which is essentially a bare room with a table and small family shrine. My father-in-law also sleeps in this room, but let me get to that. It's the kitchen that's the worst. Unwashed vegetables are all around the sink area (and tons of small insects), and they often leave food out, uncovered all day long instead of putting it in the fridge, so it's no wonder that they have an insect problem. Roaches in particular. One of the first nights here, I killed FIVE HUGE ROACHES IN A ROW. I didn't stand for this and went and got trap that I put everywhere, did my part to cover the food, and thankfully this issue has gone away. I did see one roach the other night, but one in a period of several weeks is better than 3-5 a day.
When I was setting up my "game room," I asked about using some of the stuff around the house. There was a huge bookcase and wooden A/V rack not being used, so I took them and brought them in here. My father-in-law said "Oh, you don't need to clean that rack; just put your TV on there and go!" The rack actually did look clean, but I knew better. The instant I put a cloth to it with some cleaning solution, the cloth turned BLACK. Some sort of ancient insect....parts were also caked up inside. It took about an hour to clean it out. The bookcase was the same. I removed the doors and all the books inside. Most of the books had tons of dead insects on them. It took two hours of hard cleaning to get it back into usable condition.
-The toilet room. This relates to the dogs. In Japan, many houses have separate bath/shower and toilet rooms. The toilet room here is pretty big; it's like a public toilet, with tiled floors /walls, a squat toilet, a western-style toilet (in separate stalls) and a urinal. There's also half the side of a dog cage blanketed with white paper, or should I say, "blanketed with white paper caked with old, dry urine stains" Instead of taking the dogs outside to do their business at night every day, they bring them into the toilet and let them piss and shit on the paper. They don't clean this up immediately either, so it's not uncommon to walk into the toilet and be met with the siight -and smell- of doggy doo all over the floor. It makes me happy that the toilet is in a stall and the door is always closed-- it's at least very clean in there.
-My in-laws don't sleep together. My mother-in-law sleeps upstairs in the ocean of clothing, and my father-in-law sleeps in the living room -right next to our room- every night. I used to think maybe they didn't get along so well, but that's not it. My father-in-law is one of those sleepers who thrashes around and makes unpleasant noises (there's been 5 fart sessions in the course of time it took me to write this far). I think he gets up to go to the toilet at least three times a night. He also leaves the windows open in that room, and all kinds of bugs come in. I even caught a lizard scurrying up the door a few days ago. There are two huge beehives right outside the windows, so during the summer it wasn't uncommon to go into that room and find tons of bees swarming around. And of course this also meant nightly sessions of my father-in-law looking confused as to why he just got stung several times.
Fun times, these are.
