Oct 19, 2025
What is your least favorite household chore in Japan?
Today is "Enjoy Laundry Day". I personally don't mind doing laundry that much, but there are things I don't enjoy so much. There are also chores I don't mind too much, such as hoovering and dusting, BUT I find them more taxing in Japan because they have to be done way more often in Japan than in my home country, because Japan has an inexplicable amount of dust! What household chores do you really dislike? And / or are there any household chores you don't mind doing too much in your home country, but find them more time consuming in Japan?
Former nickname was "Saitama". Changed it to save confusion on place review posts! Irish, 20+ years in Japan! I also write on my personal website: insaitama.com
Best Answer
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on Oct 19
I find laundry a lot more difficult here than my home country. A big part of that is the summer months where the humidity makes it so much harder to get things dry. In Australia, our summers are so dry that oftentimes you can hang out laundry on the clothesline outside, come back in 15-20 minutes, and it's already bone dry. I miss that! Also, back home we have rubbish bins that get collected by a truck weekly or every two weeks depending on the type of rubbish it is. When I lived there, there were three main bins: regular trash, recyclables, and plant matter (e.g. garden clippings). Here I feel like the trash situation is a lot more strict, and having to walk it down to our designated trash collection area can be annoying. Certain chores we have here are "only in Japan" ones that I never had to deal with in my home country, like snow-related ones!
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on Oct 19
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on Oct 20
@genkidesu I'm baffled by the proliferation of dust in my home and at the institution in which I work. I feel like we're snowed under by dust! I don't recall this being such an issue in lived spaces in my home country. It's weird. Has the endless supply of dust got something to do with the environment? Am I shedding dander more due to the climate conditions?
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on Oct 21
@TonetoEdo this whole dust topic got me thinking, so I did a bit of Googling. Some people online are saying it's sand related, others saying it's a population density thing, since a big portion of dust is things like dead skin cells and the like. Then there's people saying that since houses here are typically not carpeted that there's really nowhere for the dust to go other than to settle on surfaces. I personally wonder if it's because houses here are a bit more draughty than my home country, so there are just more gaps for dust to get in.
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on Oct 21
@genkidesu I think you have a good point there - draughty houses. It's much harder to keep airborne dust out of our homes because of the construction and ventilation to counteract munge.
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on Oct 21
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on Oct 29
Hahaha the dust! Okay, I thought I was the only one who felt like it's so much dustier here in Japan. I have dust allergies and have read that the dust mites proliferate in humid climates. My guess was the awful summer humidity here harbors an environment for them to thrive. I dislike cleaning the floors the most. (Wiping them with a wet towel.) I don't mind sweeping or even vacuuming although I need to move so many things off of the floors first. I just rarely wipe them.
7 Answers