Dying alone in Japan: the industry devoted to disposing of what's left behind

As the country’s population ages and shrinks, there is increasing demand for services that clean out and dispose of the property of the dead

Jeongja Han Han is director of Tail Project, a six-year-old company based near Tokyo that specialises in cleaning out and disposing of property accumulated by the deceased, a service that is increasingly in demand as Japan’s population ages and shrinks. For Han, today’s job is relatively simple. She and her crew of three started at 9am, and the small truck waiting on the street below will be full and gone by 1pm. Time permitting, Han plans to accompany it to a trading company that purchases used belongings, packs them in overseas shipping containers, and exports them to buyers in the Philippines.

Companies such as Tail Project are increasingly necessary in a country where each year more people die with no one to mourn them. The roots of the problem reach back to the country’s post-second-world-war boom, but that lifestyle burst with Japan’s asset bubble in the early 1990s leading young Japanese people to put off marriage and children – or skip them altogether. What’s left is one of the world’s oldest societies, millions of junk-filled homes and a dearth of heirs.

According to the Association of Cleanout Professionals, a Japanese trade group, its 8,000 member companies collectively bring in revenue of US$4.5 billion a year. Over the next five to 10 years, the group expects its membership will double.

Lonely deaths account for about 30 per cent of the clean-out market, according to Hideto Kone, vice-president of the Association of Cleanout Professionals. “Ghost houses,” abandoned by aged owners and left to rot, account for 20 per cent. The remaining half of clean-out jobs involve relatives; of these, some are “happy” occasions, Han says, where the family gathers to tell stories about the deceased. Then there are the sad ones. “The family comes just for the things of value,” she says. “Leave everything else behind.”

https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/long-reads/article/2164801/dying-alone-japan-industry-devoted-disposing