Is your toilet in your kitchen-bedroom? Kuso Bukken 2018 is accepting entries soon.

By Kelsey Lark Nov 7, 2018 3 min read

Have you ever seen an apartment in Japan that made you think, “…huh?”

With the upcoming #クソ物件オブザイヤー, or “Crappiest Apartment of the Year” award being announced today, it could be your time to shine by sharing that design with Twitter. Kuso-Bukken, which politely translates to “Crappy Apartment,” is an awards started in 2014 to highlight the worst instances of urban real estate.

Over the past years, people have been submitting examples with the hashtag #クソ物件オブザイヤー , demonstrating that when it comes to building an apartment in Japan, necessity truly is the mother of invention — even if that means having to go through the toilet to get into the bedroom.

The Kuso Bukken award is saved for only the crappiest of Japan’s apartments, often located in Tokyo’s more crowded urban areas where “creativity” is necessary to capitalize on tight space. The hilarious official website claims that it’s “Japan’s leading award for real estate,” and, looking at the examples below, we can believe it.

Last year’s winner of the Crappiest Apartment award featured this bold apartment building design:

Author @55openman posted these bewildering before-and-after photos; first of a normal apartment complex with a reasonable parking lot, second with a new building placed squarely in said parking lot. This new apartment complex not only takes up valuable parking space, but also blocks half the tenants’ views.

A bizarre theme that arises often in these crappy designs is bathrooms in strange places, including this toilet room as a centerpiece of the apartment:

Not only is the bathroom in the middle of the apartment, it’s also the only point of access to any other room. Guess you’ll have to wait to move to the kitchen until your partner finishes their business.

Or maybe you’ll find what was marketed as a fancy “open-air bath” as being nothing more than a tub set up haphazardly on the balcony.

https://twitter.com/jcf825/status/930567172551688193

Or how about this; a toilet situated just next to the doorway?

https://twitter.com/mother2_mother3/status/930580289188798464

Another recurring theme for the Crappiest Apartment Awards is extremely long living spaces, including the winner of the Crappiest Apartment of the Year 2015:

If you don’t know what “LDK” means, it’s basically when your “Living, Dining, Kitchen” are all in the same room — or corridor in this case.

You can even combine the two themes for a fun mix of a very long apartment with an oddly-placed toilet at the very end!

Lastly, @TYudai considered this seemingly reasonable apartment only to discover an extra feature:

“Not too expensive, close to the train station, everything looks good… oh, except for the random gorilla on the roof!”

If you’ve come across some uniquely crappy apartment designs in Japan, whether from apartment searching or your own place, just tweet the picture or design using the hashtag #クソ物件オブザイヤー2018 between 7:30 am November 14 and 1 pm November 19. You’ll know your submission has been accepted if it gets retweeted by @kusobukken2018. Check their official website for more information.

If you are looking for an apartment, don’t forget to check out GaijinPot’s decidedly non-crappy nationwide listings, as well as our GaijinPot Housing Service which offers bilingual support for moving into and living in your new home.

Good luck!