Hole in the floor

This morning there was a guy in my kitchen. Actually under my kitchen.

Can you see? We have a wonderful "man hole" in our floor that gives access to the space under the house.

Under the house.

Lid of the hole

This is the plastic storage container that is
suspended under our kitchen floor. It is actually a
pretty common storage item in many Japanese
houses, I believe.

It is actually very useful. Here we keep potatoes, onions,
rice, paper towels, emergency water etc.

The reason the man was "under" our kitchen is because there seems to be some sagging floor boards in the kitchen. You get used to Japanese houses moving as you move around in them (the floor in our lounge has dips in it too). In some places, if someone heavy walks past me, I can feel the floor dip under me. 

But this little spot in the kitchen is looking worse than the others and the lino has now begun to split too. So we asked him to have a look at it (or the real estate agent did). He also checked out a few other little repairs around the house.

I had to laugh, though. Japan's repair men are high tech. He was snapping photos on his digital camera and when he started to look under the floor I offered him a torch. He declined and promptly turned his iPhone into a torch. At least he did his measuring with a good old fashioned metal tape measure!

The biggest challenge for me is understanding what he said after his investigations (although this guy was younger than many repairmen I've met and his Japanese wasn't too difficult, he even used "kitchen" and "owner-san"). I think I've guessed most of it, but as for the discussion about the floor. I mostly agreed that it would be difficult if the whole floor needed to be replaced. But as to how they are going to fix that sagging board, I've no idea. He has to contact the real estate agent who will contact the owner and we'll see what they decide to do. Wait and see is our motto!