Renovating Our $22,000 Abandoned House in Japan | Tatami Floors, Rot, Wasps & Real Rural Life

Name: Renovating Our $22,000 Abandoned House in Japan | Tatami Floors, Rot, Wasps & Real Rural Life
Uploaded: 2026-09-30T12:09:03+00:00
Duration: 42 min 12 s
Channel: Lloyd & Mandy

00:00We're Lloyd and Mandy and after four and a half years traveling the world

00:04searching for summer to call our forever home we finally found it. A $22,000

00:10abandoned farmhouse in rural Japan. It's now week four and after realizing that

00:16trying to live in the house while renovating was actually holding us back

00:20we made the decision to move out last week and now the real renovation can

00:25finally begin. This week we get to work transforming this abandoned farmhouse

00:32into the home we've been dreaming about. This space is so big I can just picture

00:37what it's gonna look like I know no one can see our vision right now but trust

00:41me if we can pull it off it's gonna be amazing. But as we start tearing the place

00:46apart we're quickly learning that with the house this old you never really know

00:50what you're going to find. Why do you think there's newspaper? Sort of weird.

00:56There's just this one section here that the wood has just completely rotted.

01:01Okay we've just discovered something underneath all the tatami mats. I just had to

01:06retreat in so I got stung or something. Sucks. That's all coming up right now on

01:13Lloyd and Mandy.

01:17Losing faith in my family had driven me out of my damn mind

01:25But on the south side of heaven won't you take me home

01:36All right guys welcome back to another video. Today it is week four of renovating our abandoned

01:43house in Japan which we purchased for 22,000 US dollars. If you are new to the

01:48channel go back and watch our previous videos because we purchased this house

01:53after looking at it only once very briefly. We had no idea what we were getting into

01:58and in the first couple of weeks we moved in luckily we had power the water

02:03hooked up everything working but we spent the last couple of weeks really

02:07trying to figure out what needed to be done in this house to make it a home and

02:13it's been a hectic couple of weeks. We've had a lot of things go wrong a lot of

02:18things take a lot more time than we would have liked but I'm very excited

02:22because this week we're getting started on some demolition and some actual

02:26renovations. We're going to start ripping up the floors and seeing what's

02:29going on underneath them because there's a couple of patches that don't look very

02:33good. We're ripping out the entire bathroom we're doing a whole new

02:36bathroom the one we have right now is pretty much unusable there's no hot water

02:40there's a tiny little bath it's ancient everything's really old and we're

02:45going to be cleaning up this absolute mess of a garden here that hasn't been

02:48touched for basically six months or more who knows how long. There's spiders and

02:54insects everywhere. This week is the week we really start going and start

02:58turning this old abandoned house in the Japanese Alps into a home.

03:08Okay so we got this section of the flooring here in this tatami room I mean

03:13all these tatami mats. Look at that, so many bugs here. All these tatami mats are very old

03:25very saggy ruined so they need to be replaced but there's just this one

03:30section here that the wood has just completely I don't know rotted so I'd like

03:35to get in and see what's actually going on with this wood if we can just replace

03:41this section or if there's more going on and maybe we have to get in there I

03:44don't know I don't want to get in there but I might have to

03:52whoa that is just like paper paper and concrete

04:07all this wood is just paper thin. And it used to look like this. That doesn't look great either.

04:30And here you've got sand. But as I said it only appears to be this one section

04:36everywhere else seems pretty okay. Probably got to pull more of these mats up

05:02I know the rest of these look pretty okay but when you actually stand on them like this one

05:11it is a little bit soft. So I think the right thing to do is probably going to be

05:20removing all these mats. We're going to get new ones anyway. And laying new floor down,

05:26ripping up all these floorboards and probably seeing where we need to redo everything. Because these big

05:33logs that are on top of the foundation obviously you've got a couple of them here that have just

05:40completely eroded away. And there's probably more damage as well. I'd say it's probably

05:46I think it's probably from water damage. I think in a photo we saw

05:50of this room they had like a I don't know what it's called but an indoor

05:56like barbecue that they have here in Japan and it was sitting right here. So that's obviously over

06:02time just caused these timbers to erode away. It may have just been the heat honestly that it was

06:08generating or maybe there was some liquid leaking down into it. I don't know. Who knows? We've got

06:14some work to do. Oh another cockroach All right I think we're going to do all new flooring. These are

06:43just floorboards that have er I think just weakened over time. Once we figure out what sort of floors we

06:47want to do we can rip these up and just replace them. That shouldn't be too hard. So many areas

06:55that are just like sinking. Yeah I guess you get that with an old house. All right just figured out

07:03a life

07:03pack. If you've been to Japan you'd probably know about Family Mart and uh the Famichiki. That sounds

07:13weird but it's basically the Family Mart fried chicken. It is the best. I've had the fried chicken

07:20at Lawson's 7-Eleven and Family Mart does the best honestly and I can't really go in there without

07:27getting one. But I just bought one this time and I noticed they've got this which is Famichiki buns.

07:36For an extra dollar you can get this bun which is like a burger bun. It's already got mayo spread

07:41on it and you chuck your Famichiki in here and now you've got a Famichikin burger.

07:50I love it. The convenience store food here is just next level.

07:57Wow. I think we should take everything outside. All these tatami mats and the doors and everything.

08:12So the living room is ready to be redone floors. Yep. And then after we do that we could just

08:18start

08:19doing some of the garden stuff. I saw there's someone on Facebook that's looking for free beds

08:26at the moment so we could probably get them to come pick that up. So get rid of all this.

08:32Let's take

08:33the shelves off the wall. Yeah get rid of these railings. Um all this stuff that needs to go to

08:39the tip.

08:40All the curtains and stuff and then let's pull all the doors and stuff out.

08:46I want to figure out what to do with the old tatami mats. Do people buy them or are you

08:50just

08:52like to get recycled? Okay I had seen um someone had put up in one of the Facebook groups that

08:58they

08:58were looking for beds and bases. I know that mattress has stains and stuff on it but they

09:02didn't seem to be too fussed by it so I'm going to see if they want it and maybe they

09:06will come pick

09:07it up. It still is quite like it's a very firm like good quality mattress but it just hasn't been

09:12taken

09:12care of very well. So see if they want that. And the bed base is like very sturdy as well

09:16too. It

09:17just has like a few broken pieces off of it but we'll see if we can recycle it. There's all

09:21these

09:21other cushions and things in here. I just don't like the idea of things that have just been like

09:26sitting and collecting dust. I will never feel comfortable using them. I don't think no matter how

09:31much I clean them it just doesn't feel good to me so we're going to get rid of this stuff.

09:36But on the south side of hell won't you take me home

09:44cause I've been gone for so long and lord it's getting cold

09:52but on the south side of hell won't you take me home

09:59it's getting cold. Wow it's feeling so much bigger in here. See this is like old shoji paper.

10:08Very brittle. Dirty.

10:19Wow. This space is so big I can just picture what it's going to look like. I know no one

10:25can see our

10:26vision right now but trust me if we can pull it off it's going to be amazing. The space is

10:32so much

10:32bigger and how much extra height that we've gotten by just pulling up the floors I can see we've got

10:39like an extra like very big like two inches that it's going to give us for the roof which is

10:45just

10:45amazing so that was one thing that was bothering me was just how low the ceilings were but it's actually

10:50that the flooring was super thick and high. You can see here how thick these are

10:59and even the planks that they've used underneath are very thick as well that need to be replaced so

11:04we should be able to gain quite a bit of height in here which is exciting. Now that we've got

11:09all that

11:10stuff out of here I can see what this sort of it's like a almost a paper that's over the

11:16top

11:19or plaster type thing and then is that that feels like concrete behind it

11:36it's like that sort of like natural paste that they've used I don't know I'm not going to be

11:41able to keep any of this though well it's all going to come off. I think that is just fine.

11:57Well isn't it heavy?

12:06Not sure I might have to like maybe someone will want them or oh that's very rotten under there yeah

12:28I don't know what I'm going to do with them all needs to be redone found some old newspapers

12:58under here that looks very old why do you think there's newspaper I don't know is it for moisture

13:08or it's sort of weird it is weird so they got the tatami mats and put newspaper down before they

13:14it's a tatami mat again it's not like from like that long ago doesn't look like no

13:33Are they termites? I don't know

13:41Uh oh okay we've just discovered something underneath all the

13:50tatami mats this back corner looks like something's maybe been like nesting in here or I'm not sure

13:58This newspaper is from around maybe 99? 2000

14:05Okay well

14:08Who's that?

14:10Vintage newspapers I don't know J-pop

14:14Cool I guess no it doesn't look like anything's nesting it's just like all that papers

14:20there it's a bit weird I guess we figured out why the owner piled all of their stuff in this

14:28room that

14:28they wanted to leave so we discover this last I guess

14:31kind of seems convenient that all the stuff was sitting on top of this but that's okay

14:37we were bound to find it at some point now we've got to get all this newspaper out of here

14:42but I'm just so excited about how big it feels in here now once this wood's replaced like it's

14:47gonna feel so fresh in here don't you think yeah we're just gonna have to redo this for all of

14:55it

14:55naturally was that more than you thought we were gonna have to do no don't think they're termites

15:01but maybe a wood boring beetle it looks like this is just wood that's rotted over time like it's pretty

15:09old

15:10and then yeah with those beetles as well but we'd probably get it fumigated before

15:18doing the new flooring we're also thinking we want to put insulation of some kind underneath

15:24the flooring because in here and in the hallway is there's definitely a lot of cold air that would

15:31be coming up or like causing it to be very cold in here without insulation underneath it because it's

15:36pretty much just cement and then the ground like there's no separation it's just like wood cement

15:43ground so not not very warm

16:19really high quality shelf in the living room should be in the shed or something yeah

16:41unfortunately a lot of the screws are stripped on these railings so we're having a really hard

16:46time getting them off we're trying pretty much anything to get them now one room one room stripped

16:55all right i'm going to try and get a chunk of this wall so we can see what it is

16:59is it just regular

17:00gyprock because that'll really change how we handle it we're planning on removing these walls we've got

17:07this wall here which we want to knock down

17:15if we can ah but again i need to see if this wall here is load bearing because if it

17:21is we're going

17:22to have to put a beam or something there but first we need to know how to attack this one

17:28so i'm going to

17:30make a hole somewhere hmm it all feels pretty solid jesus

18:13all right well that's good it looks like just a thin layer of plasterboard with some like mesh

18:18or something behind it and a little bit of like concrete or something so that's good news

18:30all right we finally got our new starlink dish arrived today it took about two weeks for this

18:39replacement dish to come which has been really annoying we've been just running our e-sims for

18:46the past two weeks and surprisingly they were able to keep up with everything we've done we've been

18:52uh streaming from them uh tethering our phones to our computers so we can watch stuff and upload youtube

19:00videos i'm actually really surprised at how reliable they've been we've been using aerolo e-sims which

19:06we've used throughout our travels for the past few months but this is the first time i've actually had to

19:11use it for like real work usually we have like wi-fi and everything that we can rely on so

19:16i'm going to

19:16install this new dish and see if that works and then we can go back to having high speed wi

19:22-fi but

19:23very impressed with how air low has been working i've just been buying data on like a weekly basis

19:28and it's been pretty good like it sends me a notification when it's down to like 20 percent

19:33and then it automatically tops up so it's topped up i think twice in the last two weeks

19:38i was worried i was going to be spending way too much money on data using e-sims but it's

19:43actually been

19:44really good uh if you guys want to check out air low we do have an affiliate code so you

19:49can either

19:50use the qr code that i put on screen here and scan it or use the link in the description

19:54and if you use

19:55code lloyd and mandy you will get 15 off your air load purchase okay i'm just going for a walk

20:08here

20:08in hakuba village uh it's about 15 20 minute drive from our place and uh i actually just read this

20:18article

20:20last night that came up on my instagram feed and it said that uh in all of japan

20:28the highest recorded property value increase was right here in hakuba village

20:35it was 30 percent in year 2025 which i guess means that if you owned a house that was worth

20:44a million dollars at the start of 2025 that house may have increased up to 1.3 million dollars so

20:5230 increase in just one year is absolutely insane as you can see like the property market in japan

20:58is really kind of in this weird dynamic where there's way more properties than there are people

21:06looking to buy that's why there's 8 million abandoned homes or akea homes but there's still

21:12a really strong property market in certain areas like here in hakuba village and like

21:17in the cities like tokyo and kyoto and osaka yeah it's really unique like this isn't

21:23i don't know if this is happening anywhere else in the world but that real yin and yang of so

21:31many

21:31abandoned properties little villages that are really just isolated and not very many people living in

21:38them and then places like here where it's absolutely booming what i love about it here in hakuba is uh

21:45well

21:46there's a couple of things obviously the big ski resort is amazing there's 10 different mountains

21:53i believe right in the village here for some reason i don't know what it is but anytime there's a

21:58world

21:59class ski resort whether it's in north america europe new zealand or here in japan you get so many

22:04australians i don't know why australians always flock to places with good surf or good snowboarding

22:13and hakuba is no different it's very local most of the people that are living here are japanese but

22:20there's quite a few aussies who have been here for like decades and they've built businesses and they've

22:27really settled into life here i've met quite a few of them uh in winter season though it's insane

22:32all the people working in the bars and restaurants are all australians so obviously there's that but also

22:38the village itself has a really unique feel i've never really seen this anywhere else but

22:44you walk around and there's all these amazing houses and these houses that look like they've been

22:50here for years and a lot of them they just look like regular houses but they're actually

22:56restaurants or cafes or bars which you don't really see a lot of other places and i think the

23:03reason is i could be wrong about this so let me know if you've got a better idea i don't

23:08think

23:08there's as much restrictions on running a business or even a food business out of your home like in

23:17australia and canada which is where we're from there's so many restrictions and red tape you have

23:21to jump through but here i believe from what i've read it's a lot easier so that's why you see

23:27so many

23:29places that just look like regular houses but then they got signage out the front and you go inside

23:34and it's like this epic ramen restaurant or an epic bar there's another one just here coming up i

23:39really like that vibe and that mixed with the culture here like it's very japanese but then it's also a

23:46ski town so you have like the international flavor yeah it's really cool look at this place

24:02that says cafe since 1979 so that's been there almost 50 years and it's just like

24:08i don't know if someone's living in there as well

24:15we must have checked that out

24:30okay we're on the way to the house this morning before we head there we're going to head to the

24:34village office to check if we're allowed to do a bit of burning around our house we've had a bit

24:38of conflicting information regarding whether we're allowed to or not we have seen our neighbors burning

24:44stuff but chat gbt reckons we're not allowed so we're kind of conflicted we're just going to go confirm

24:50what the truth is this morning before heading there would be really great if we could because there's

24:56just so much sticks and wood and like yeah things to burn around the house it would be really helpful

25:02to not have to take all of that to the tip and it'd be cool to be able to have

25:06a fire also so we'll go

25:08check that out the goal for today is just to get the rest of the stuff basically out of the

25:14house so

25:15we've got some old doors in the living room some stuff upstairs we still have some curtains hanging in

25:20one of the rooms and just like all that type of stuff out of the house and into the garage

25:24and then

25:25hopefully this week we're going to try and get our first run to the tip with all the big waste

25:31stuff

25:31we'll see how we go with putting that in the van we might have to rent a trailer i'm not

25:35sure but

25:37we're just figuring things out as we go

25:56okay just got done at the village office just a quick stop in they said that we are allowed to

26:01have

26:02a fire pit at our place and burn wood and branches from our property because of where we're located

26:09in like a rural area just as long as we keep it small not too smoky and it doesn't like

26:15disturb our

26:15neighbors so that's good news yeah we weren't sure that we were going to be allowed to do that so

26:20that's actually be really nice now that the temperatures are actually starting to drop

26:24and coming into autumn being able to have a fire outside that's so cool i'm really excited about that

26:35we're back another day work it's actually so exciting pulling in here you can see that the

26:41leaves are actually starting to change on some of the trees

26:45and autumn is coming which i couldn't be more excited for this heat to be done

27:18okay so we're going to

27:19use all the cinder blocks that are around the back of the property here to build

27:25a fire pit so we can slowly start burning some of this wood that's here

27:46that is like the fifth time someone has

27:50brought us fresh veggies from their farm which is so lovely another neighbor everyone's been so

27:55welcoming here it's been amazing oh my gosh she's bringing us even more

28:08here it's so happy

28:14I think she was trying to tell me that these were spicy maybe these ones we needed jalapenos in our

28:21dinner the other night

28:22yeah i couldn't find them in the shops they smell a bit spicy look at how amazing this is

28:29she even gave us a white eggplant i've never seen a white eggplant before so cool and so lovely

28:35i've never really noticed this little platform here it's so cool i think that's where all the

28:42chairlifting we've got yeah good idea yeah we've been seeing all these secondhand like chair lifts

28:53and gondolas on facebook marketplace and we're so tempted to buy one and this would be the perfect

28:58spot for it and then you can just look out here probably just put a little railing here so that's

29:05safe for kids yeah but even for the studio this would be such a good spot to give like a

29:12patio hey

29:13what is that oh that's a very active bees nest is it bees yeah wow oh my gosh look how

29:26big that is

29:28huge have fun with that one honey i have to get a sperm suit yeah do you think we can

29:36harvest them

29:36and then they'll make us honey no all right let's light this fire do you want to make it bigger

29:42keep it small to start i think i know this wall is really ugly right now but i have such

29:49a clear

29:49vision for what i want it to look like i'll be able to fill it in a lot more and

29:56get some of this ugly like rusty color off take all the weeds out i'll actually be able to make

30:02it a

30:02really nice feature wall back here it goes all the way across i'm excited about that so do you think

30:11the fire pit will stay down there and then where does the hot tub and sauna go that would be

30:20so cool

30:20wouldn't it i like the idea of the sauna kind of being like buried in i like when it's in

30:26greenery or

30:27like yeah a bit hidden and have like a cool like stone path to it and then i want to

30:34do probably new

30:35steps right here coming right out from the kitchen a nice like wide maybe i don't know cement or wooden

30:43steps that come right down i want to keep these this stone wall and redo it make it look nicer

30:49i have a

30:50idea of what i want to do with it

31:08i just had to retreat inside got stung by something i think it was a wasp i saw it land

31:13on me right here

31:15and then it just sting there's so much stuff in these bushes it sucks okay figured out why i got

31:23stung

31:25cut back quite a bit of this bush here and there's a uh looks like a wasp

31:31nest there's yeah there's wasps climbing in and out of it oh my god

31:40i might have to leave that alone probably gonna have to spray it before i start cutting anything

31:46again because they look like they're all going to swarm me if i cut that nest down luckily i didn't

31:53wow we're making quite a bit of progress and not a lot of time i thought this was going to

31:57take a lot

31:57longer well it's so funny with his whipper snipper he loves it so much he reminds me of michael scott

32:04on the

32:04office when he has his blue jeans i've never seen this before but i don't even think we have them

32:12in

32:12australia but this whipper snipper or brush cutter has this steel blade on it it can cut through like

32:19big tree branches so it's not just a brush cutter it's also a saw pretty awesome

32:31i had no idea the backyard was this big we keep getting like more and more space given to us

32:36every time we clear something out it's awesome excited to see what it's going to be like when

32:40it's finished but we're done for today we're going to go get something to eat from family mart

32:44and a drink because we're very thirsty and uh we'll be back again tomorrow

32:50i've got an atlas in my hands i'm gonna turn when i listen to the lessons i've learned

32:58i've got a plan i've got an atlas in my hands i'm gonna turn when i listen to the lessons

33:09i've learned

33:25okay there's obviously a lot to like about japan but this might be one of my favorite things

33:30i am just going for a nice casual walk in the morning as i always do and there's a row

33:38of

33:39vending machines where you can get really good coffee for like a dollar fifty look at this and

33:46these are everywhere and you can get like hot cold drinks water coffee tea electrolytes juice

33:53even smoothies there's even like vending machines that have instant ramen or dumplings and food and

34:01stuff like that you can find pretty much anything you want in these vending machines so convenient

34:23it's so good so cold

34:30honey did you want to get rid of all the spiders in the garage or you want me to do

34:33it

34:36can you do that you're the best at it i don't mind if you want to

34:54time for these spiders to find a new home sorry guys time to go

35:13so

35:16so

35:17so

35:18so

35:48I'll see you next time.

36:01Look at the size of that thing.

36:07What even is that?

36:10Okay, something that's been really hard driving around in Japan is having no music.

36:16So we bought this old Suzuki and it's got this like CD player and radio.

36:25I've tried going through the radio stations.

36:27They're all in Japanese.

36:28I haven't really heard anything like sort of Western in English with like our kind of music.

36:35So I've been driving around for three weeks or so.

36:39No music, which I don't love.

36:41So I just ordered this online, this head unit, and I'm going to see if I can put it in.

36:45I don't think there's much installation required.

36:49It's literally just this screen and it sits on top here, I believe, and plugs into the cigarette lighter for

36:58power.

36:58So it hooks up with Apple AirPlay so I can hook up my phone to it, which is going to

37:03be epic, especially for like even just getting directions.

37:05We've been driving around, one of us has been holding the phone while the other one drives, giving directions.

37:11Or if I'm on my own, like I have to look down at my phone for the map or have

37:16my Bluetooth headphones in, which I don't love doing.

37:19So hopefully I can figure this out and get it installed now so I can listen to some music on

37:26the way home today.

37:27Okay, I've got the screen, peel that off, and this suction cup thing, which I think screws into the back

37:37here.

37:40And then this goes on, hmm, which way?

37:47There we go.

37:50Screw that bit up so it doesn't come off.

37:55And stick it to a window, I guess, and it just hangs like, it's kind of like a rear-view

38:01mirror.

38:01Oh, that's a magnet.

38:04Yeah, right.

38:05Okay.

38:06And you can just turn it any way you want.

38:09See how strong this thing is.

38:13Okay, I think I got it.

38:14Just got to see if it works.

38:27Okay, I think I got it working.

38:31Let's test it out.

38:36Nice.

38:41Awesome.

38:43Got music.

38:45There ain't no way to explain or say how painful the hangover was today.

38:51In front of the toilet, hands and knees, trying to breathe in between the dry heaves.

38:56My baby made me some coffee, afraid that if I drink some, it's probably coming right back at me.

39:02Couple of Advil, relax and chill.

39:04At a standstill with how bad I feel.

39:07I think I need to smell fresh air, so I stepped out the back door and fell down the stairs.

39:12The sunlight hit me dead in the eye, like it's mad that I gave half the day to last night.

39:18My bad sight made me trip on my ass, right into that patch of grass, like that's life.

39:23All of a sudden, I realized something.

39:25The weather is amazing, even the birds are bumping.

39:28Stood up and took a look and a bird...

39:30What's going on?

39:31We just opened our mailbox and there's a new wasp nest in there.

39:35Oh.

39:37Woo!

39:40That must only be a few days old, because I was in there Tuesday.

39:44Yeah.

39:45Saturday to there.

39:47Alright, let's get out of here.

39:50Seriously, I don't know how I stayed three weeks in this house.

39:53The smell of it is not good.

39:55Just not fresh.

39:59Really, really just needs to be ripped apart.

40:02We're going to keep working on the backyard, though.

40:04We were making a lot of progress when we were here last, so...

40:09Took a day off yesterday just to hang out and enjoy the day, but today we're back to it.

40:15I think we should be able to get the backyard pretty well done today, don't you think?

40:21Yeah, except for some of the trees and the growth that's really high up and I don't know if I

40:26can reach at all.

40:27Just with our ladder and the tool that I have.

40:31We'll see.

40:32And there's a lot to burn into that.

40:34Yeah, that's true.

40:35I wouldn't mind figuring out how to get rid of all these wasps.

40:38Yeah, we've definitely got a wasp nest problem.

40:40We've got one that's kind of stopped the work in the front yard because it's very large.

40:45And it got stung a lot.

40:46Well, it got stung pretty badly.

40:48If anyone has advice for us, actually, for what to do with a large amount of wasps, that'd be really

40:54helpful because we actually don't know what to do.

40:57All right, Lloyd's saying they might actually be hornets, which isn't ideal either.

41:03No matter what, it's kind of not ideal, but I don't know.

41:08Yeah, we just don't want Lila getting bit or anything.

41:10I don't want to get bit either, but we definitely don't want her getting bit.

41:13So we're keeping her safe in the one room that doesn't stink and doesn't have bugs or anything.

41:21She's happy.

41:22She's all right.

41:41She's all right.

41:52She's all right.

41:55She's all right.

42:11We'll see you next time.

Renovating Our $22,000 Abandoned House in Japan | Tatami Floors, Rot, Wasps & Real Rural Life

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