One of the drawbacks of renting in Japan is the extra money you have to pay just to move into a residence.

So-called key money, (reikin), a nonrefundable gratuity for the landlord, is the main sticking point, but even cleaning and security deposits have a slightly different meaning here, as I found out when I first arrived in the mid-1980s.

I was working for a company in Nagoya whose manager was a soft-spoken but blunt American man. In what I would call typical American fashion, he was candid about his mistrust of Japanese, especially Nagoyans, who he told me were particularly mercenary.

I eventually found a suitable place to live. It was one of a pair of apartments attached to a large house in the upscale Ikeshita district.

In the United States, this sort of setup would have been called a townhouse. It consisted of two floors with access to a private garden in the back, but it was much smaller than any townhouse you would find in the States.

Later, a friend told me that it and the adjoining apartment were likely once a single apartment built for the landlord's son or daughter, who probably decided not to live there.

Because of the garden, the large windows, and the relative quiet, I felt lucky. All the other apartments I'd seen, though much newer, were cramped and dark. The company paid my key money (equivalent to two months' rent) and security deposit (also two months' rent) for me and deducted it from my pay in installments.

My company manager asked me in passing about the apartment the day before I was to move in. I explained the layout and the garden and the location. He listened impassively and nodded at the end.

``So it's not a new place,'' he said.

I answered no, but couldn't place an age on the structure.

``Then you should take pictures,'' he said.

I wasn't sure what he meant.

``Just take pictures of everything,'' he said. ``The landlord won't want to return your security deposit when you leave and will find any excuse to keep it.''

I didn't think the apartment was in need of repair, but the next day after I moved in I started looking around and indeed found flaws: a small stain on the ceiling in the bedroom, a missing tile in the bathroom, discoloration of the wallpaper in the kitchen, et cetera. I bought film and took photos of every little thing. Then I took the film to a photo shop and had the clerk date and stamp each print.

A year later, I transferred to the company's main office in Tokyo. I asked the office accountant about my security deposit. She said I had to go to the landlord personally to retrieve it, and accompanied me to the big house.

It was my first meeting with the landlord. She was a small, elderly woman, heavily made up and ostentatiously dressed.

She graciously greeted us in her large foyer and invited us into her drawing room for tea, which was served in beautiful antique cups.

We chatted about this and that and finally got around to the deposit. She took out an envelope containing the full amount and put it on the table. She thanked me for taking good care of the apartment, but said there was a small matter of the kurosu in the bedroom, meaning the sandy wallpaper. Some of it had flaked off during the year and would have to be repaired. She reckoned it would cost 100,000 yen. My interpreter implied that I was to take this amount from the envelope and hand it back.

I looked at the landlord blankly. The apartment was made of concrete, and the kurosu was applied directly to the concrete, which ``sweats'' in winter, causing the sandy surface to flake off. I said I didn't think I needed to pay.

She maintained her gracious demeanor and said if I had kept the heater in the room on, then the wall wouldn't have sweated. I said that would have been very expensive and wasteful.

This went on for a few minutes during which the landlord reduced the price of repair considerably. I didn't budge. She just wanted me to acknowledge her position, and I wanted her to admit that the kurosu problem wasn't my fault. Eventually, I took out the photos I had taken a year earlier.

Though none of the pictures were of the kurosu in the bedroom, they had the desired effect. The woman's smile vanished. I had crossed a line that was considered beyond the pale.

She told me in a voice as cold as ice to take the money. I'm sure she's never rented to a foreigner again.

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E-mail your comments to < expat@asahi.com >.(IHT/Asahi: January 24,2005)