Aisatsu in a Tokyo apartment: the 90-day stay rules

挨拶 (aisatsu — "greetings," the daily verbal acknowledgments between people who share a building, a street, or a workplace). In a Tokyo manshon, aisatsu is not friendliness. It is signaling. You are saying: I see you, I belong here, I will not cause trouble.

A 90-day tenant on a furnished lease has a shorter runway to learn this than a 2-year resident. The rules are the same. The carve-outs are real but small. Skip the rules and the building manager files you under "the foreigner in 402 who doesn't say hello." That label sticks for the rest of your stay.

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What aisatsu is and what it is not

Aisatsu is one of three short phrases delivered with a small head dip. おはようございます (ohayō gozaimasu — "good morning," used until about 10am). こんにちは (konnichiwa — "hello," used roughly 10am to 5pm). こんばんは (konbanwa — "good evening," used after dark). That is the entire surface vocabulary you need.

The bow is shallow. Five to ten degrees from the waist, eyes drop briefly, half a second. It is closer to a nod than a Japanese-tea-ceremony bow. Save the deep bow for the building manager on day one and for the kanrinin's office.

You do not stop and chat. You do not introduce yourself in the elevator. You do not apologize for not speaking Japanese. The phrase, the nod, the keep-walking — that is the whole sequence.

The arrival greeting: skip it on a 90-day lease

The 引っ越しの挨拶 (hikkoshi no aisatsu — "moving-in greeting") is a 2-year-resident move. You knock on the three units around yours (両隣 / ryōdonari — both sides, plus the unit above and below) on day one with a small wrapped towel or 500-yen pack of senbei rice crackers. You say はじめまして、◯号室に引っ越してきました (hajimemashite, ◯-gōshitsu ni hikkoshite kimashita — "nice to meet you, I just moved into unit ◯"). They take the towel; you leave.

For a 90-day furnished tenant, skip this. The building manager has already told the neighbors that the unit is a 短期 (tanki — short-term) operator-managed flat. Your knock is more confusing than welcome. The neighbors are calibrated to a rotating cast in that unit; arriving with senbei resets a clock that nobody is keeping.

The carve-out is narrow. If your operator hands you a 挨拶状 (aisatsu-jō — printed introduction card) with your name and check-out date, slip one under each adjacent door. The card does the introduction without the doorbell. Most halfkey-style operators do this for you; some do not. Ask before you knock.

Elevator rules

The elevator is the densest aisatsu surface in the building. You will run it ten times a week. Most encounters last under 30 seconds. The protocol is the same every time.

The doors open and someone is already inside. You step in, face the doors, and say a single phrase. Morning: ohayō gozaimasu. Daytime: konnichiwa. Evening: konbanwa. Volume is conversational, not loud. Eyes glance toward them once, then forward.

You do not make small talk. You do not comment on the weather even when the weather is the entire conversation in the rest of Tokyo. The elevator is too small a box to start something neither of you can exit gracefully.

If you are already inside and the doors open, you do not have to greet first. The newcomer initiates. You return the phrase. If they say nothing, you say nothing. Silence is a valid response in a Tokyo elevator and not a snub.

When you reach your floor, you say 失礼します (shitsurei shimasu — "excuse me, I am stepping out") as you exit. It is half a syllable above a whisper. The phrase functions as a goodbye and as a small apology for moving through the shared space. Drop it once you are out the door; do not turn back.

The 開ボタン rule: if someone is hurrying toward the elevator as the doors close, hold the open button (the door-icon with arrows pointing apart) and wait. They will say すみません (sumimasen — "sorry / thank you") on entering. You return ありがとうございます (arigatō gozaimasu — "thank you") or just nod. This is the only elevator interaction with two phrases.

The trash-room nod

The 集積所 (shūsekisho — building trash room or collection point) is a different register. You are usually carrying a bag, hands occupied, eyes on the bins. The greeting is shorter than the elevator's.

If someone is already at the bins, dip the head, half-second eye contact, and say a low ohayō or konnichiwa as you walk in. Sort your bag into the right bin. Walk out. No goodbye phrase needed.

If you cross paths with the same person twice in a week, you may shorten further. A nod with no phrase is acceptable on the second encounter once they recognize you. This is the only Tokyo register where word-free aisatsu is normal between adults who have met.

The trap: do not apologize loudly when you sort the wrong bag. You will sometimes drop a PET bottle into the burnables bin by mistake. The next person sees it and does not care. If the kanrinin sees it, they re-sort it and post a building-wide note in the elevator. They do not name you. Do not write a sorry note and tape it to the bin; this escalates rather than resolves.

What the kanrinin actually expects

The 管理人 (kanrinin — building manager, sometimes called 管理員 / kanri-in) is the on-site or near-site staff who handles trash, building cleaning, package questions, and complaint routing. In a manshon they are usually present 9am to 6pm, three to five days a week, in a small ground-floor office. In a smaller apaato they may visit twice a week.

On day one, walk past the office once. If the kanrinin is in, step in and bow. Say the introduction phrase: はじめまして、◯号室の◯◯です。3か月の予定で滞在します。よろしくお願いします. The romaji reads hajimemashite, ◯-gōshitsu no ◯◯ desu. san-kagetsu no yotei de taizai shimasu. yoroshiku onegai shimasu. The literal meaning: "nice to meet you, I am ◯ in unit ◯, I plan to stay three months, I will be in your care." They will say よろしくお願いします back. The whole exchange is under 90 seconds.

The kanrinin already has your name from the operator's notification, but the live introduction puts a face on the unit. They want this for one reason. When the upstairs neighbor calls about footsteps at 11:30pm, they want to know which unit, which face, which language. A 90-second introduction shortens every later conversation.

If the office is closed on day one, try once more the next morning. After two failed attempts, leave it. Do not slip a card under the office door — the operator already filed your paperwork.

You see the kanrinin in the lobby across the rest of your stay. The greeting drops to one word: ohayō gozaimasu in the morning, otsukaresama desu (お疲れ様です — "thank you for your work") in the afternoon. The latter is the standard greeting between people who share a workplace and works for staff in any building.

When you have made noise

The most common 90-day-tenant mistake comes in three shapes. Feet hitting the floor at 1am after a late dinner. Suitcase wheels at 6am on a check-out day. A video call at full volume after 10pm. The downstairs neighbor hears it. They do not knock. They tell the kanrinin. The kanrinin tapes a generic 騒音についてのお願い (sōon ni tsuite no onegai — "request regarding noise") notice in the elevator the next morning.

The notice does not name you. It does not have to.

You do not need to confess to the kanrinin. You do need to stop the behavior. If the noise was a one-time event (a dinner party at the unit), wait three days, walk past the kanrinin's office, bow slightly, and say 先日はうるさくしてしまい、すみませんでした (senjitsu wa urusaku shite shimai, sumimasen deshita — "I made noise the other day, I'm sorry"). They nod once. The conversation ends. Do not over-explain. Do not bring a gift.

If you cannot identify the source of the noise the notice referenced, leave it. The notice is doing its job — it makes everyone in the building quieter for a week, including the actual culprit who is not you.

The 90-day carve-out, summarized

A 90-day tenant has three relaxations from the resident playbook.

Skip the doorbell-knock 引っ越しの挨拶 unless your operator gave you cards to slip under doors. Skip the 出発の挨拶 (shuppatsu no aisatsu — "departure greeting") on your last day too, for the same reason. Treat the kanrinin's day-one introduction as the one face-to-face contact required for the whole stay.

Everything else stays at the resident standard. The elevator phrase. The trash-room nod. The shitsurei shimasu on the way out. These are not 2-year-resident moves. They are baseline Tokyo manshon hygiene that a 30-day stay also follows.

The set of phrases, condensed

Use these in order of how often you will need them.

• Elevator entry: ohayō gozaimasu / konnichiwa / konbanwa
• Elevator exit: shitsurei shimasu
• Holding the door: arigatō gozaimasu (response only)
• Trash-room pass-through: head dip + low ohayō / konnichiwa
• Kanrinin daily: ohayō gozaimasu or otsukaresama desu
• Kanrinin day-one: hajimemashite + name + length-of-stay + yoroshiku onegai shimasu
• After a noise complaint: senjitsu wa urusaku shite shimai, sumimasen deshita

Print this list, fold it once, and slip it inside the move-in handbook the operator gives you on arrival. After two weeks, you will not need the paper. The phrases are six syllables each and they sit on muscle memory the way the elevator buttons do.