30-06-2025
- General
- South China Morning Post
In Japan, ‘haunted' homes with dark histories start to attract new buyers
The house that property consultant and ghost investigator Kazutoshi Kodama regularly surveys has a grim history: seven years ago, an elderly woman hanged herself in the bathroom and last year her son died alone, his body undiscovered for roughly 10 days.
Kodama says he has stayed in the house – located in a quiet residential area in Chiba near Tokyo – from 10pm to 6am nearly 20 times, monitoring with four video cameras, a thermal camera, an electromagnetic field meter, an air pressure gauge, a thermometer and a sound recorder. He takes notes of the readings every hour.
When he is satisfied there are no paranormal phenomena such as unexplained electromagnetic disturbances, he will issue a certificate deeming the property free of ghosts.
In
Japan , homes where murders or suicides have occurred are classified as jiko bukken or 'misfortunate properties' that may provoke psychological distress for new owners or tenants. So are homes with 'socially isolated' deaths – the most common type of jiko bukken where bodies are not found for some time and sufficient decay has set in to warrant special cleaning services or even the replacement of floors and wallpaper.
A Buddhist monk performs a ceremony for lost souls at a property classified as a 'jiko bukken' in Kawasaki, near Tokyo, earlier this year. Photo: Reuters
Modern thinking around jiko bukken has been shaped by Japan's ancient Shinto religion, which holds that when a person dies with regrets, their spirit lingers on Earth, often at the site of their death, bearing grudges or overwhelmed by grief.
