Sophiearth Apartment

We left less than an hour after arriving because the place was dirty and the room was far too cramped for two people and our bags. Before we saw it, the manager had asked us to cancel our Booking.com booking and pay cash for a discount. When I handed over the money, he said I’d miscounted and owed another 10,000Y, and I took his word for it. Later, when we asked for a refund, he pointed to a no-cancellation policy, leaving us out about 45,000Y for a stay that was meant to last a few nights. This was the worst short-term stay I’ve had in Japan. An absolutely awful facility run by scam artists. Stay away.

The room was small, but the price was budget-friendly, even cheaper than a capsule hotel. Back in 2018, we were stranded on a cold night after an OTA couldn't verify our reservation at a hotel in shinjuku. We took a chance and booked anywhere we could find, and this hotel's owner helped us out properly. It was a lifesaver.

The room with the toilet was small, but it worked fine for me, and the beds were comfortable. We got to check in a little early for free. We also chose to sleep in and paid the expected late checkout fee of 2,000 yen per hour. The AC worked really well, and it wasn't too far from shinjuku station. I'd been a bit worried by the reviews, but our stay was great. We checked the mattresses for blood stains that might indicate bed bugs and didn't find any.

Please think twice before staying here, especially in room 5 or M5. The first room we were given, room 5, smelled strongly of bleach when we checked in an hour early. We left the window open, went sightseeing, then came back late on a cold night. With the heater on, the damp, mouldy smell was horrible. We found black mould in the shower silicone, and the cheap wallpaper over the shower walls buckled inward when touched. Around 11pm, I went to the desk hoping to move rooms. The staff member seemed surprised when I mentioned the mould, followed me to inspect it, pointed it out, and pulled at the silicone. Seeing the mould behind it made me leave the bathroom. He said he couldn't help and that we had to wait until 7am to speak with the manager of sophiearth. We closed the bathroom and had to spend the night there. I barely slept, worried about the health effects of mould. In the morning, the manager didn't look at the room and wasn't apologetic. He seemed annoyed that we asked to move, even though we'd paid for a week. He offered us M5, which had a standard pod bathroom without mould, so it seemed not every room he rented was as bad as the first two we saw. But M5 had a hole in the roof with water dripping constantly into an already quite full bucket. That room smelled damp and mouldy too, and the dripping would have kept us awake. We asked to stay at another hotel for two days and return when a room became free, with a refund for those nights. The manager raised his voice and kept saying, “not possible, not possible”. After a long discussion with a big language barrier, he showed us a clean, simple room he owned across the road. It would cost another 50,000 yen on top of what we'd paid, all in cash. We said we couldn't manage that without a refund, and he surprisingly agreed to approve one. By then it was lunchtime, we were fed up, and couldn't find other accommodation nearby at short notice. We heard there were places available on the other side of Tokyo, but we were over it, so we paid the full amount in cash and took the room across the road. At least we didn't have to deal with him for the rest of the trip. The rooms were terrible, and the customer service was terrible too. The smell was awful. No one should have to pay to sleep in those conditions. Please don't give this man any more money.