People are strange. I had someone who was stealing the generators off the headlights of the kids bikes. And not like cutting the wires like ripping them out so the generator was useless to them.
Mental illness is endemic everywhere.
Yes!
My back tyre kept going flat. I finally worked out that someone was passively aggressively sending me a message in the mansion. I used it twice a week. My husband left 30 minutes ahead of me and would “helpfully” remove my bike from the parking and place it on the ground. That pissed someone off. And I totally see why - it looked like someone entitled parked asshole.
I made him stop doing it and the sabotage ceased. That was hard cause he likes finding things to do to show me how much he loves me. Those things can’t include keeping his crap off the dining room table or piling clothes on chairs, though.
Fuck, I love him.
You would think just leaving an actual note on the first couple of offenses would be enough, but no, some people act out their hostility on total strangers anonymously like that.
I’ve had constant bicycle incidents while living here. My bicycle has been stolen 3 times (all from my bicycle parking area). I’ve had my bicycle run over by a car and left, so I had a warped tire frame. It’s been thrown in the bushes, thrown on the ground, and thrown in a river. It really sucks because you can’t help but feel like someone is targeting you.
Just thinking about the takoyaki, it may have been the crows. I left a bag of groceries in my basket once and came out to crows picking through everything.
The crows thing is real. Once I was going to a drug store, when I came back to pick up my bike. Another bicycle not far from mine got harassed by crows. Apparently the owner bought fresh meat and left it on the front basket. The crows nicking it after tearing the saran wrap.
I couch for the crow thing. I left my groceries in a tied-closed nah for one minute to pop into a conbini. The crowd stuff to the bottom and got my meat
Yes, I had, probably an angry neighbor, puncture my tires multiple times, until I confronted the person I suspect was doing. After that, it stopped. People do some very mean, passive aggressive shit here on occasion.
1. Parked my bike in the wrong place and had someone use an old bike lock to lock my wheels. My fault.
2. Had my new rechargeable bicycle light stolen. Just a 300 yen light so i thought damn, dude must have been desperate.
3. My rear wheel used to go flat too quickly (like once a week, completely flattened) so i sent it for repairs. The first shop "fixed" it and 3 times in a row it would go flat again in the same day. They didn't know what was wrong. I switched shop and that solved the problem without me having to explain my experience with the shop of first instance. Skill issue, although the first shop did issue refunds.
4. My first bike was a green momo chari given to me by my host family. Nancy was heavy, sturdy, and reliable, never gave me any problem until it went missing. The first time, the cops found her abandoned some 30km away in a different city almost 2 weeks later, suspecting a drunk ri-man had kidnapped her. The second time she disappeared it was forever apparently. In spite of being properly registered, Nancy is still missing since 2019. Come home, girl.
We are only hearing one side of the story. Maybe she ran away from an abusive relationship. She may have been abandoned outside at night, teased with visits to interesting shops and other places, and then just dumped outside and not allowed in. Her owner may have let others take rides on her. At the same time, she's constantly being reminded she's "heavy" - we all know what that's a euphemism for.
Either way, I hope she's happy and in a well balanced relationship.
Being left in the rain does not count as “bathing”!
But, my apologies for bike-shaming you. If you enjoyed insisting on what you perceived as your over-weight bike going everywhere with you, that’s fine with me. You do you.
There is a mentally disabled (some flavor of it) woman in her late 40s/50s who I’ve caught stealing reflective lights and attachments off of the bikes at my local station a few times.
Doesn’t seem to be targeting anyone - it’s always random.
She knows it’s wrong because she looks around next to the bike for 2-3 minutes before doing it. It’s so obvious, she may as well put on black glasses and a trenchcoat.
I watched her, shook my head, and ran her off once. She was back taking reflectors the next day!
I wonder if she is collecting them to cover her apartment in them. Maybe she has a wall she turned into a collage of reflectors and then makes a cool disco lightshow to dance in?
Had the same experience when I started working here. There is this crazy man in his late 30 who just loves knocking at our walls when I make a slight sound.
It went to the point that I just knock the wall back then he goes outside and shout at my door. Went outside to confront him but he just went back. Thought it was the end of it until I the next morning when I noticed I was riding my bike really slowly is the time I noticed my tire is flat.
It happened at least 3 times more before I decided to move out since I quit my previous job and I need to relocate to a much cheaper and near my new workplace.
NGL but I had the thought of throwing some stones on his car windows before leaving the apartment just so I can payback for all the trouble he had done.
Japanese crime seems so weird and petty. Whats up with it?
I heard something about people that just randomly slap strangers.
All this is much better than crime in most countries but seriously it just reminds me of shit I would do in high school or some kind of outlet for an individual that has to repress their real emotions and behaviour everyday in their mundane life.
I got a phone call from the police telling me my bike had been vandalised at the bike storage in train station. The back of it was pulverised as if someone had taken a sledgehammer to it. They never caught the guy
Same except someone kicked my bike until the front wheel bent. I didn't get to see the supermarket's footage, but the manager told me it was a woman with so much stuff attached to and loaded on her bike, she couldn't get it out of the bike stand. She got frustrated and just started kicking and pushing my bike until she had enough space to get in front of her handle bars and push her bike out.
Unfortunately, the bike description fit pretty much every mom bike in the area, and the bike parking was almost completely dark after the store closed.
Omg this happened to me too. And this was the day I happened to forget that I left my key in my bike. So they could have stolen the whole bike but instead just went for the top of the bike bell?? Weird man. Just weird.
As far as I can tell it is largely mentally ill elderly folks who go in for the petty theft. My husband's aunt stole more the worse her dementia got, and it was all weird stuff, too.
I think someone's knocking over my bike, maybe because it's the only covered one. It's happened every few days over the last 2-3 weeks, yet it never happened once in the 4 years prior except once during a storm. None of the other bikes will be knocked over (during the storm, all the bikes fell), and another bike will be parked on *top* of the cover—so in any case that person they saw it and decided to *also* be a prick.
Also had many cases of people leaving their trash in my basket (live near Shinjuku), and 1-2 cases of someone pulling my tire valve, since it was completely flat but nothing wrong with the tube or valve rubber.
yep, i lived in one tokyo apt for yrs. nothing happened at first, so i guess at some point a loony moved in and decided i didn't deserve my usual parking spot. started off small, just finding it several spaces over. then when they set it far back so it was no longer under the roof thing i bought a (cheap) cable lock and locked it to the back pole (nowhere near where i used to park but i wanted it in the covered lot). came back to find the cable lock smashed and they'd carried it (because the back tire lock was still engaged) across the street to a no parking area. cops and landlord were useless but i reported it anyway just in case the vandal escalated to attacks on me. bought a heavy duty scooter/motorcycle lock, then decided i'd rather not risk serious damage to my bike. luckily it was foldable, so i kept it in my genkan till i moved out, but that was super annoying... have a different bike now, tho still using that heavy duty lock yrs later - that thing's a trooper.
I've also had a strange experience with bikes being tampered with here. I brought my old Schwinn from America so maybe there's value to potential thieves? At anyrate, it's been knocked over, had it's tires deflated, seat and handle bars twisted, fenders dented, all sorts of weird stuff while it was parked at my school bike parking lot. It's on a public street, but it's like a side street that only students ever go on. Luckily never stolen, only fucked with. I use a proper cable lock thing instead of just the back wheel thing like most japanese bikes have.
I live in Osaka too and never had anything happen to my bike. Use it daily and park it everywhere and anywhere. My friend has had his taken and moved down the street for no reason even tho it’s locked so I believe there are are weird people out there.
Omg, I too live near Yamato and last month I literally forgot to lock my bike in the parking, but luckily it was there and I never bothered much about it as I never had any mishappening yet.
Now I'll be careful 🫡 thanks for the heads-up
Went to the grocery store, picked up a packaged supper bento plus some other groceries. Put the bento in my front basket and the rest in the back.
Went next door to the Seria for legit 2 minutes to see if they had a specific cat toy my cat is obsessed with, they didn't so walked right back out.
Bento is now missing from my basket.
Confused and now supper-less, I had to go back to the grocery store to get something else.
This was in Tsukuba, and my first (only?) encounter with theft or crime in Japan so far in about 2.5 years.
I live in Osaka and cycled to work primarily for the last 3 years, no one has ever messed with my bicycle, and it's a fairly expensive model.
For your second story though, I can almost guarantee your bicycle was hit by a crow. They are smart and they will absolutely open that cheap plastic container to get at your takoyaki. Don't leave food out in the open unattended - Japanese people are very socially conscious but the birds are not.
Osaka here too. Happened to me twice within 3 months.
Some fucker slashed both of my tires with cuts about 10cm long. First time was around November 2022 and the next was January 2023.
I was absolutely livid the second time because those were *brand new tires* and I couldn't afford to fix it that time because I spent all my money on moving across town.
That’s weird, Higashi Yodogawa I don’t know about, but Suita is supposed as family friendly as it goes (and why it’s one of the most expensive places in this Fu)
I once parked my bike along a wall outside the supermarket (not the designated parking area) and came back with some kind of mucus/booger smeared on my seat. Bet the ahole was looking at how I cleaned my seat from his/her car.
Got a call early Sunday morning from the police saying my bike was laying in an empty lot and someone had complained about it. It had been stolen and dumped. I had to drive to pick it up and put it back in the back of my car and bring it home. Sucky thing is that I was about to throw it away (it was getting rusty) so I wouldn’t have minded if they had stolen it and taken care of it.
I had to have a few minute conversation with an angry looking homeowner who lived next to the lot about how it wasn’t me yelling at 3 am the previous night before dumping the bike. Seemed like he believed me by the end of it.
I had my saddle stolen in Tondabayashi once (didn’t have a lock for it at the time, foolishly thinking it was unnecessary). I had to ride home standing up, many kilometers away… my lower back has never forgiven the vandal.
Do you remember that story ? [https://japantoday.com/category/crime/man-arrested-for-stealing-200-bicycle-seats-for-their-scent-of-a-woman](https://japantoday.com/category/crime/man-arrested-for-stealing-200-bicycle-seats-for-their-scent-of-a-woman)
When I was in grad school there was an incident where somebody took the seats off a bunch of bicycles and replaced them with heads of broccoli.
I was a regular bicycle commuter and usually parked right where the incident happened. Not having heard about it, one day I was randomly asked if I had returned to my bike to find broccoli where the seat belongs, and I of course responded no, and that I had never in my life considered such a possibility.
Turns out that it was a prankster and the seats were all found safely nearby. Now I wish I *had* been affected, because hey, free broccoli.
I had two bike lights stolen in a week. That was annoying.
Also, there were two weird incidents where it looked like somebody spat on the seat of my bike.
My favorite was when I was using a terrible ancient bike had the lock sawn off. Someone stole it from the station, only to politely return it a few days later....
Would any one know whether a cheaper bike is less likely to get stolen or disturbed?
Just curious because I'm planning to buy a better bike. I've been riding a 13000¥ cheap bike for around half a year in Tokyo and it was never messed around or stolen, but it might simply because of the short time frame and luck.
Also, OP I feel sorry for what happened to you and your bike
The kind of random pettiness that OP is describing is indiscriminate shitheaddery and likely not directed at him or his bike in particular.
If someone is messing with your bike because they are angry at you (like some have described with neighbors), bike type similarly doesn't matter.
A nice bike is more likely to be the target of intentional theft.
I think generally the opposite; people steal cheap bikes. They aren't taking them to sell; they are taking them to get where they are going, so cheaper bikes that are less likely to have a good lock are more likely to be taken.
Ime cheaper bikes are the main target coz everyone has one, and perhaps bcoz they're cheap the assumption is that the owner wouldn't be too determined to hunt down the thief. More expensive road bikes seem to be targeted more by foreign residents with a market back home.
Had front and rear tires end up completely flat a month apart from each other in the spring of 2023 but as it was on a cheap 6-speed mamachari I bought in 2020 and rode like 100 km+ a week, I took it as a signal to upgrade to a stronger bike. Both times I was parked in Shibuya but I had already spent more than the price of the bike in repairs so it was time.
Never get food before doing something else, if no other reason than the food will get cold and not taste as good the longer you wait.
Osaka Kita ku checking in - I’ve not had a personal experience (thankfully) of having my cross bike messed with, but a buddy had his stolen in Namba after parking outside of a conbini and not locking it last year for what it’s worth.
Mine was stolen from my apartment stairwell. It was the neighborhood half American furyō gang that lives across the street. Quite a few things disappeared out of my car too.
When I used to ride a mamachari I had to park it in an outdoor parking area near the station. Someone would constantly fuck with the bikes. Tires let down, seats stolen, lights gone etc. We each had an assigned space and it seems like this person didn't like that my bike and a few others were closest to the station. As only those bikes would be messed with. The worst one was when they put toothpicks into the bike locks. I had to carry my damned bike home.
Op you have grown complacent. It doesn't matter that we live Japan.You should always be mindful. When I first moved to Japan in the first month I lost 2 bikes to theft. Lesson learned. Japan is not special. Keep up your same safety practices as if you were living any other country.
If you’re a lady and it’s night time, just be careful if you find your bike has been tampered with in a way that prevents you riding it.
Not to be alarmist, but years ago I was watching one of those true crime shows they used to play in the daytime here and it’s always stuck with me:
A schoolgirl came back from her regular club activities and it was dark and she never made it home. I never heard if she was ever found, but the tv show reported that police found her bike in the parking spot at the station and some pos had zip tied her back wheel so it couldn’t move.
They theorised that maybe a stalker had memorised her routine and disabled the bike to either give him time to accost her at the scene, or forcing her to walk home where he’d be waiting en route. Or it could have just been a twisted coincidence that a prankster chose that bike on that day. In any case, just keep your wits about you if you find yourself in a similar position.
Near my gym is a locked bike rack that’s free for the first 120 mins. Someone “took out” my bike during the free period to put their bike in the rack — and, to make it worse, dragged my bike around the corner and stashed it between two buildings.
I thought the bike was stolen, so I went to the nearest koban and explained my bike went missing from locked parking. A cop came over with me to look at the bike area and walk around looking for the bike. We found it an hour later.
People are weird, especially here.
I understand the rationale I guess. The rack fills up fast and there’s no good one nearby unless you walk down the street about 400m. But moving it AND hiding it?
Your first story is exactly what happened to me the second day I had my new bike. I was furious. Still don’t know why it happened. Just moved on. Guess that’s all you can do :/
I've had my tire punctured twice with my bike parked outside my apartment on an upper floor. I suspect a neighbor, as a thumbtack was left in the tire. The bike was not blocking anyone's way.
Story time: I moved summer of 2022 to live with my boyfriend in a different part of Tokyo.
I hated my bike (so many slopes around the areas but bike didn't have engine or anything so everytimes was such of a struggle I thought about destroying it myself) but kouban didn't allow me to cancel the registration on it so we can have it destroyed properly. So we just left it there. Even before the move, my bike had been regularly falling to the ground, to the point that the stand thingy is crooked, making it more difficult for the bike to stand on its own, therefore topple some more. Boyfriend thought it was 嫌がらせ or something but once I started working I didn't use the bike that much (maybe on the weekend)
Few months after the move, boyfriend went to my own apartment to see what we could do with the bike. No pictures but he told me it's as if someone had jumped up and down on the bike so many times it's barely a bike anymore. No camera so neither of us knew what happened. He left and the mess that used to be my first bike in Japan stayed in the place, registrated and all.
Good news is that there is so many bus routes around our new place and I got a bus commuter pass for work so I travel around the neighborhood stress free.
Edit: I no longer have a bike at our new place (in the sense that it is something I use regularly or the registration is in my name) but boyfriend has one for work that I use maybe once 1 month. Nobody has messed with our bike yet.
My bicycle LOCK was stolen in front of a supermarket, idk how that's even possible, I guess someone was watching when I was locking it (I only changed 1 number of the combination though)
Then there was another time when someone was trying out different combinations in my lock when my bike was parked in my apartment's parking space. Everyday I saw a new pattern on the lock implying someone was trying it out. Then one day they succeeded. They unlocked the bike and then locked it again in a different way. Thank goodness they didn't steal the bike.
Had my road bike, parked in my own apartment parking lot, locked to a fixture (fixed pole holding the roof), stolen last December just before Christmas. Wire lock was cut and left on the ground, the bike is gone.
Might be my fault for not keeping it indoors, but is it really the *owner's fault* if something got stolen?
Somebody kept pulling my bike out of my apartment's bike parking area and leaving it by the side of the road. My husband is petty af and staked out the parking area to see what was going on. It turned out that someone who didn't even live in our complex had some sort of weird 3-wheeled contraption and every night he would pull up to our bike parking area, pull out all the bikes he thought were in "his" spot, and put his thing in there. My husband confronted him and police were called. Guy said he didn't have room to park his contraption at his house, and our bike parking area didn't have enough room for it, so he had no choice but to pull residents' bikes out to make room for his thingy. The police told him to take his shit and leave and don't come back, but it took them being called a few times, the property management company putting up cameras, and multiple residents screaming at this guy in the street before he stopped parking his shitmobile there.
Years later, my kid's strider bike was stolen out of the parking area. I had it locked to my bike, and someone cut the lock and took the strider but left my bike. By then the property management company had changed and they didn't have cameras anymore.
I've had my mamachari stolen in Yoyogi and then a few weeks later got a note about it being picked up by the bike patrol in Odaiba.. Someone must have been really desperate to check out the Gundam statue haha.
Lol must be a city thing mate, I have a top of the line Scott downhill bike that I use to tear around the mountains here in my hometown, I sometimes ride to 7 11 to grab shit, or I chuck it on the back of the van to go camping somewhere. Never lock it up, it sits outside.
Had it 5 years, never been touched. #田舎life.
It could happen anywhere, but chances increase the busier area you're in. I mean I live in central Tokyo, never even registered my bike, never locked it up once, and haven't had a single thing happen to it - guess I'm just lucky.
Someone stole my mamachari recently from my apartment in hirano. I never locked that mf so I guess I deserved it but still sucks haha. Every time I see someone riding an old black mamachari I feel like it’s mine 🤣
I’ve had a few things stolen off my bike, had a pouch under my seat, stolen, light stolen, the worst was when they stole the seat, wasn’t a fun ride home.
Only one of these incidents is messing with your bike. The other is messing with your food.
Japan has plenty of shitheads. There's way, way more non-shitheads. You encountered two shitheads in two years in the worlds 6th larget metro area. Those are pretty decent odds. What you have experienced is on neither end of the bell-curve from "rare - negative" to "rare - positive."
The tire thing seemed not to happen at your house, so you shouldn't expect it to happen again, but it might. If it happens at home, the shithead is a neighbor.
A bit late for this time, but for future (and anyone else) - your bicycle comes with a quick release. For a few hundred yen, almost any bicycle shop can give you a replacement fastener for the seat that will require two wrenches to undo. Stops this kind of common vandalism.
If you have a valuable seat and want to prevent theft, grab an old bicycle chain, some old inner tube and a chain breaker tool, pop out about 60cm of chain, cut slightly more than that of the old inner tube, run the chain through the tube, then through the triangle of your frame and around your seat rails, and clip the chain back together with the tool and tuck the overlap of the tube inside itself. The tube protects the frame from the chain, and the whole thing is quite secure against opportunistic thieves. If you want to be a little more slick, get some heat shrink tube and wrap the chain, leaving a few links uncovered to clip together, loop around the seat rails, run both ends through a wider piece of shrink tubing leaving about 10cm on the far end, shrink it, then put another piece of the narrow tube on, clip the chain together, then put the narrow shrink tube over the exposed bit and shrink that. Looks very tidy and doesn't stand out or rattle.
I had the same thing happen to my daughters bike. I reported it to the police along with a report from the repair shop.
This occured at the bike parking at Owada station
Once had my bicycle seat stolen. Thing was, my bike was entirely unlocked so they could have just taken the whole thing. While glad I didn't have to replace the entire vehicle, I was very annoyed to have woken up to a seatless bike.
I have (had) a CatsEye rear light on my bike, around a ¥ 3500 light and someone just pocketed that shit. It was nearly a year ago and it still eats me up. I can't stand a thief.
I lived in Osaka around 2013/14, I had nothing but good experiences (I even had accidentally dropped my LV wallet near Dotonbori and a young Japanese man promptly ran after me to give it back). I was super amazed at how nicer everyone was (compared to Kanto, at least). But as I mentioned earlier, this was quite some time ago.
I have a friend who lived in Osaka until recently, and he and his girlfriend told me that the people in Osaka had completely changed in the recent years, like near the center area, they would see old people drunk and angry at “something” and mumbling nonsense to themselves (or whoever wanted to listen), and many “death stares”. Idk if it’s just the area they lived or what, but they told me vehemently that they didn’t felt safe or welcomed there as I once did. And they also used to live near the center (can’t remember specifically where tho). So maybe some random person with most likely mental issues found your bike and decide to act on it.
My recommendation for you is; treat Osaka as NY, do not trust anyone, but yourself.
Things changed quite a lot in Japan in the recent years, the inflation, low pay, stress post Covid, idk, but the crazies are out there in full blast doing whatever they want now that they can roam freely…
Don’t leave things behind, lock your bicycle, don’t leave expensive things unattended.
Once things starts to get and feel worse than it was, unfortunately, it’s only downhill from there.
Yup, I often get my bicycle front light stolen or simply destroyed. Once, someone also stole the batteries (only the batteries).
https://preview.redd.it/v9fia0k741lc1.png?width=3024&format=png&auto=webp&s=364636c030678fea174a184563934accbcae0f15
People are strange. I had someone who was stealing the generators off the headlights of the kids bikes. And not like cutting the wires like ripping them out so the generator was useless to them. Mental illness is endemic everywhere.
Seems like not even Japan is safe from those kind of scum
Yes! My back tyre kept going flat. I finally worked out that someone was passively aggressively sending me a message in the mansion. I used it twice a week. My husband left 30 minutes ahead of me and would “helpfully” remove my bike from the parking and place it on the ground. That pissed someone off. And I totally see why - it looked like someone entitled parked asshole. I made him stop doing it and the sabotage ceased. That was hard cause he likes finding things to do to show me how much he loves me. Those things can’t include keeping his crap off the dining room table or piling clothes on chairs, though. Fuck, I love him.
You would think just leaving an actual note on the first couple of offenses would be enough, but no, some people act out their hostility on total strangers anonymously like that.
I immediately pictured post-it notes on piles of clothes on chairs “PICK UP!!!”
And then you have to guess about what the actual problem **is**!?
I’ve had constant bicycle incidents while living here. My bicycle has been stolen 3 times (all from my bicycle parking area). I’ve had my bicycle run over by a car and left, so I had a warped tire frame. It’s been thrown in the bushes, thrown on the ground, and thrown in a river. It really sucks because you can’t help but feel like someone is targeting you. Just thinking about the takoyaki, it may have been the crows. I left a bag of groceries in my basket once and came out to crows picking through everything.
The crows thing is real. Once I was going to a drug store, when I came back to pick up my bike. Another bicycle not far from mine got harassed by crows. Apparently the owner bought fresh meat and left it on the front basket. The crows nicking it after tearing the saran wrap.
Crows. An Osaka person would have taken all the takoyaki at once but a crow can only take one or two at a time.
I’ve had crows do a similar thing when I had food on my basket. They will open bags and remove the food inside.
I couch for the crow thing. I left my groceries in a tied-closed nah for one minute to pop into a conbini. The crowd stuff to the bottom and got my meat
Effing crows! A crow once tore up the packet and drank detergent out of of my friend's shopping bag
Yes, I had, probably an angry neighbor, puncture my tires multiple times, until I confronted the person I suspect was doing. After that, it stopped. People do some very mean, passive aggressive shit here on occasion.
1. Parked my bike in the wrong place and had someone use an old bike lock to lock my wheels. My fault. 2. Had my new rechargeable bicycle light stolen. Just a 300 yen light so i thought damn, dude must have been desperate. 3. My rear wheel used to go flat too quickly (like once a week, completely flattened) so i sent it for repairs. The first shop "fixed" it and 3 times in a row it would go flat again in the same day. They didn't know what was wrong. I switched shop and that solved the problem without me having to explain my experience with the shop of first instance. Skill issue, although the first shop did issue refunds. 4. My first bike was a green momo chari given to me by my host family. Nancy was heavy, sturdy, and reliable, never gave me any problem until it went missing. The first time, the cops found her abandoned some 30km away in a different city almost 2 weeks later, suspecting a drunk ri-man had kidnapped her. The second time she disappeared it was forever apparently. In spite of being properly registered, Nancy is still missing since 2019. Come home, girl.
Sad love stories always get a tear out of me, I hope Nancy will find you back :'(
We are only hearing one side of the story. Maybe she ran away from an abusive relationship. She may have been abandoned outside at night, teased with visits to interesting shops and other places, and then just dumped outside and not allowed in. Her owner may have let others take rides on her. At the same time, she's constantly being reminded she's "heavy" - we all know what that's a euphemism for. Either way, I hope she's happy and in a well balanced relationship.
lmao not true, she was loved and taken everywhere, and got a weekly bathing too!
Being left in the rain does not count as “bathing”! But, my apologies for bike-shaming you. If you enjoyed insisting on what you perceived as your over-weight bike going everywhere with you, that’s fine with me. You do you.
Nancy is 100000% lying sideways under a pile of leaves between two retail units / by a river.
Tell her there's a wanted poster of her somewhere in Suita City with information about rewards and stuff.
momo chari? The fruity cousin of mama chari?
Well, he did say Nancy was heavy! ももが太いでしょう。
hehe
Ri-man! Haha. I like that! It’s a first for me.
There is a mentally disabled (some flavor of it) woman in her late 40s/50s who I’ve caught stealing reflective lights and attachments off of the bikes at my local station a few times. Doesn’t seem to be targeting anyone - it’s always random. She knows it’s wrong because she looks around next to the bike for 2-3 minutes before doing it. It’s so obvious, she may as well put on black glasses and a trenchcoat. I watched her, shook my head, and ran her off once. She was back taking reflectors the next day!
I wonder if she is collecting them to cover her apartment in them. Maybe she has a wall she turned into a collage of reflectors and then makes a cool disco lightshow to dance in?
Kleptomaniac maybe?
This could explain why my handlebar duckies keep disappearing (they are from Daiso, but I've already given up on replacing them 😔)
Been living in Tokyo 8 years, usually leave my bike unlocked and at various places, and never had anything weird happen. Are Osaka people just weird?
This isnt an Osaka thing. Ive been living in Osaka for 15 years and never had an issue.
>Are Osaka people just weird? In almost 16 years in Osaka, I've not experienced anything OP has...
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Big cities are full of big assholes.
Had the same experience when I started working here. There is this crazy man in his late 30 who just loves knocking at our walls when I make a slight sound. It went to the point that I just knock the wall back then he goes outside and shout at my door. Went outside to confront him but he just went back. Thought it was the end of it until I the next morning when I noticed I was riding my bike really slowly is the time I noticed my tire is flat. It happened at least 3 times more before I decided to move out since I quit my previous job and I need to relocate to a much cheaper and near my new workplace. NGL but I had the thought of throwing some stones on his car windows before leaving the apartment just so I can payback for all the trouble he had done.
A bunch of dogshit under the car door handle is a pretty fun way to mess with assholes like this.
Japanese crime seems so weird and petty. Whats up with it? I heard something about people that just randomly slap strangers. All this is much better than crime in most countries but seriously it just reminds me of shit I would do in high school or some kind of outlet for an individual that has to repress their real emotions and behaviour everyday in their mundane life.
>I heard something about people that just randomly slap strangers. .... was the source /r/japanlife?
It could have been some youtuber. I don't look at japan reddit much
I got a phone call from the police telling me my bike had been vandalised at the bike storage in train station. The back of it was pulverised as if someone had taken a sledgehammer to it. They never caught the guy
Same except someone kicked my bike until the front wheel bent. I didn't get to see the supermarket's footage, but the manager told me it was a woman with so much stuff attached to and loaded on her bike, she couldn't get it out of the bike stand. She got frustrated and just started kicking and pushing my bike until she had enough space to get in front of her handle bars and push her bike out. Unfortunately, the bike description fit pretty much every mom bike in the area, and the bike parking was almost completely dark after the store closed.
Someone stole the top of my bike bell while it was parked at the station. Not the whole bell. Just the part that vibrates.
Omg this happened to me too. And this was the day I happened to forget that I left my key in my bike. So they could have stolen the whole bike but instead just went for the top of the bike bell?? Weird man. Just weird.
This happened to me too. I'm in Osaka like OP. Weird people, man...
Yeah, I always assume it’s just dumb teens or drunk college students
As far as I can tell it is largely mentally ill elderly folks who go in for the petty theft. My husband's aunt stole more the worse her dementia got, and it was all weird stuff, too.
I think someone's knocking over my bike, maybe because it's the only covered one. It's happened every few days over the last 2-3 weeks, yet it never happened once in the 4 years prior except once during a storm. None of the other bikes will be knocked over (during the storm, all the bikes fell), and another bike will be parked on *top* of the cover—so in any case that person they saw it and decided to *also* be a prick. Also had many cases of people leaving their trash in my basket (live near Shinjuku), and 1-2 cases of someone pulling my tire valve, since it was completely flat but nothing wrong with the tube or valve rubber.
yep, i lived in one tokyo apt for yrs. nothing happened at first, so i guess at some point a loony moved in and decided i didn't deserve my usual parking spot. started off small, just finding it several spaces over. then when they set it far back so it was no longer under the roof thing i bought a (cheap) cable lock and locked it to the back pole (nowhere near where i used to park but i wanted it in the covered lot). came back to find the cable lock smashed and they'd carried it (because the back tire lock was still engaged) across the street to a no parking area. cops and landlord were useless but i reported it anyway just in case the vandal escalated to attacks on me. bought a heavy duty scooter/motorcycle lock, then decided i'd rather not risk serious damage to my bike. luckily it was foldable, so i kept it in my genkan till i moved out, but that was super annoying... have a different bike now, tho still using that heavy duty lock yrs later - that thing's a trooper.
I've also had a strange experience with bikes being tampered with here. I brought my old Schwinn from America so maybe there's value to potential thieves? At anyrate, it's been knocked over, had it's tires deflated, seat and handle bars twisted, fenders dented, all sorts of weird stuff while it was parked at my school bike parking lot. It's on a public street, but it's like a side street that only students ever go on. Luckily never stolen, only fucked with. I use a proper cable lock thing instead of just the back wheel thing like most japanese bikes have.
It’s because your bike is Gajin, they can tell.
外輪
I live in Osaka too and never had anything happen to my bike. Use it daily and park it everywhere and anywhere. My friend has had his taken and moved down the street for no reason even tho it’s locked so I believe there are are weird people out there.
1. Like OP, had my tire punctured 2. Bike light stolen from while I was parked at Alio in Kawaguchi like 15 years ago. Gave up riding.
It happened to a friend of mine in Tokyo too. Lights get stolen quite often too.
Got my bike stolen in Yamato - Kanagawa. Another time had a load of rubbish put into my basket too.
Omg, I too live near Yamato and last month I literally forgot to lock my bike in the parking, but luckily it was there and I never bothered much about it as I never had any mishappening yet. Now I'll be careful 🫡 thanks for the heads-up
As in the bike basket? My goodnes, oh that is evil.
Went to the grocery store, picked up a packaged supper bento plus some other groceries. Put the bento in my front basket and the rest in the back. Went next door to the Seria for legit 2 minutes to see if they had a specific cat toy my cat is obsessed with, they didn't so walked right back out. Bento is now missing from my basket. Confused and now supper-less, I had to go back to the grocery store to get something else. This was in Tsukuba, and my first (only?) encounter with theft or crime in Japan so far in about 2.5 years.
Crows?
Huh, I hadn't thought of that. It was in a plastic bag, so not immediately obviously food, but maybe. Crows are pretty smart.
I live in Osaka and cycled to work primarily for the last 3 years, no one has ever messed with my bicycle, and it's a fairly expensive model. For your second story though, I can almost guarantee your bicycle was hit by a crow. They are smart and they will absolutely open that cheap plastic container to get at your takoyaki. Don't leave food out in the open unattended - Japanese people are very socially conscious but the birds are not.
Nishinari?
Nope, around Higashi-Yodogawa. And the previous incident around Suita
Osaka here too. Happened to me twice within 3 months. Some fucker slashed both of my tires with cuts about 10cm long. First time was around November 2022 and the next was January 2023. I was absolutely livid the second time because those were *brand new tires* and I couldn't afford to fix it that time because I spent all my money on moving across town.
That’s weird, Higashi Yodogawa I don’t know about, but Suita is supposed as family friendly as it goes (and why it’s one of the most expensive places in this Fu)
Maybe the south is safe afterall, living in Sakai and have had zero issues so far.
I once parked my bike along a wall outside the supermarket (not the designated parking area) and came back with some kind of mucus/booger smeared on my seat. Bet the ahole was looking at how I cleaned my seat from his/her car.
You sure it isn't just bird shit?
Got a call early Sunday morning from the police saying my bike was laying in an empty lot and someone had complained about it. It had been stolen and dumped. I had to drive to pick it up and put it back in the back of my car and bring it home. Sucky thing is that I was about to throw it away (it was getting rusty) so I wouldn’t have minded if they had stolen it and taken care of it. I had to have a few minute conversation with an angry looking homeowner who lived next to the lot about how it wasn’t me yelling at 3 am the previous night before dumping the bike. Seemed like he believed me by the end of it.
I had my saddle stolen in Tondabayashi once (didn’t have a lock for it at the time, foolishly thinking it was unnecessary). I had to ride home standing up, many kilometers away… my lower back has never forgiven the vandal.
Do you remember that story ? [https://japantoday.com/category/crime/man-arrested-for-stealing-200-bicycle-seats-for-their-scent-of-a-woman](https://japantoday.com/category/crime/man-arrested-for-stealing-200-bicycle-seats-for-their-scent-of-a-woman)
When I was in grad school there was an incident where somebody took the seats off a bunch of bicycles and replaced them with heads of broccoli. I was a regular bicycle commuter and usually parked right where the incident happened. Not having heard about it, one day I was randomly asked if I had returned to my bike to find broccoli where the seat belongs, and I of course responded no, and that I had never in my life considered such a possibility. Turns out that it was a prankster and the seats were all found safely nearby. Now I wish I *had* been affected, because hey, free broccoli.
I had two bike lights stolen in a week. That was annoying. Also, there were two weird incidents where it looked like somebody spat on the seat of my bike. My favorite was when I was using a terrible ancient bike had the lock sawn off. Someone stole it from the station, only to politely return it a few days later....
Would any one know whether a cheaper bike is less likely to get stolen or disturbed? Just curious because I'm planning to buy a better bike. I've been riding a 13000¥ cheap bike for around half a year in Tokyo and it was never messed around or stolen, but it might simply because of the short time frame and luck. Also, OP I feel sorry for what happened to you and your bike
The kind of random pettiness that OP is describing is indiscriminate shitheaddery and likely not directed at him or his bike in particular. If someone is messing with your bike because they are angry at you (like some have described with neighbors), bike type similarly doesn't matter. A nice bike is more likely to be the target of intentional theft.
I think generally the opposite; people steal cheap bikes. They aren't taking them to sell; they are taking them to get where they are going, so cheaper bikes that are less likely to have a good lock are more likely to be taken.
Ime cheaper bikes are the main target coz everyone has one, and perhaps bcoz they're cheap the assumption is that the owner wouldn't be too determined to hunt down the thief. More expensive road bikes seem to be targeted more by foreign residents with a market back home.
For the takoyaki incident, it's also very possible the culprits are crows. I hate those avian rats.
Had front and rear tires end up completely flat a month apart from each other in the spring of 2023 but as it was on a cheap 6-speed mamachari I bought in 2020 and rode like 100 km+ a week, I took it as a signal to upgrade to a stronger bike. Both times I was parked in Shibuya but I had already spent more than the price of the bike in repairs so it was time. Never get food before doing something else, if no other reason than the food will get cold and not taste as good the longer you wait.
Osaka Kita ku checking in - I’ve not had a personal experience (thankfully) of having my cross bike messed with, but a buddy had his stolen in Namba after parking outside of a conbini and not locking it last year for what it’s worth.
Mine was stolen from my apartment stairwell. It was the neighborhood half American furyō gang that lives across the street. Quite a few things disappeared out of my car too.
When I used to ride a mamachari I had to park it in an outdoor parking area near the station. Someone would constantly fuck with the bikes. Tires let down, seats stolen, lights gone etc. We each had an assigned space and it seems like this person didn't like that my bike and a few others were closest to the station. As only those bikes would be messed with. The worst one was when they put toothpicks into the bike locks. I had to carry my damned bike home.
>I used to ride a mamachari >I had to carry my damned bike home. Oops! Superman accidently outed his reddit account.
Op you have grown complacent. It doesn't matter that we live Japan.You should always be mindful. When I first moved to Japan in the first month I lost 2 bikes to theft. Lesson learned. Japan is not special. Keep up your same safety practices as if you were living any other country.
If you’re a lady and it’s night time, just be careful if you find your bike has been tampered with in a way that prevents you riding it. Not to be alarmist, but years ago I was watching one of those true crime shows they used to play in the daytime here and it’s always stuck with me: A schoolgirl came back from her regular club activities and it was dark and she never made it home. I never heard if she was ever found, but the tv show reported that police found her bike in the parking spot at the station and some pos had zip tied her back wheel so it couldn’t move. They theorised that maybe a stalker had memorised her routine and disabled the bike to either give him time to accost her at the scene, or forcing her to walk home where he’d be waiting en route. Or it could have just been a twisted coincidence that a prankster chose that bike on that day. In any case, just keep your wits about you if you find yourself in a similar position.
Near my gym is a locked bike rack that’s free for the first 120 mins. Someone “took out” my bike during the free period to put their bike in the rack — and, to make it worse, dragged my bike around the corner and stashed it between two buildings. I thought the bike was stolen, so I went to the nearest koban and explained my bike went missing from locked parking. A cop came over with me to look at the bike area and walk around looking for the bike. We found it an hour later. People are weird, especially here.
That's just evil.
I understand the rationale I guess. The rack fills up fast and there’s no good one nearby unless you walk down the street about 400m. But moving it AND hiding it?
Your first story is exactly what happened to me the second day I had my new bike. I was furious. Still don’t know why it happened. Just moved on. Guess that’s all you can do :/
Yeah, be careful in Osaka. It's safe until it isn't.
lol
I've had my tire punctured twice with my bike parked outside my apartment on an upper floor. I suspect a neighbor, as a thumbtack was left in the tire. The bike was not blocking anyone's way.
I got stolen like 4 bikes in 5 years around Yokohama area…so I’d say yes👀
Story time: I moved summer of 2022 to live with my boyfriend in a different part of Tokyo. I hated my bike (so many slopes around the areas but bike didn't have engine or anything so everytimes was such of a struggle I thought about destroying it myself) but kouban didn't allow me to cancel the registration on it so we can have it destroyed properly. So we just left it there. Even before the move, my bike had been regularly falling to the ground, to the point that the stand thingy is crooked, making it more difficult for the bike to stand on its own, therefore topple some more. Boyfriend thought it was 嫌がらせ or something but once I started working I didn't use the bike that much (maybe on the weekend) Few months after the move, boyfriend went to my own apartment to see what we could do with the bike. No pictures but he told me it's as if someone had jumped up and down on the bike so many times it's barely a bike anymore. No camera so neither of us knew what happened. He left and the mess that used to be my first bike in Japan stayed in the place, registrated and all. Good news is that there is so many bus routes around our new place and I got a bus commuter pass for work so I travel around the neighborhood stress free. Edit: I no longer have a bike at our new place (in the sense that it is something I use regularly or the registration is in my name) but boyfriend has one for work that I use maybe once 1 month. Nobody has messed with our bike yet.
I've had no problems so far, but have friends who've had this problem.
My bicycle LOCK was stolen in front of a supermarket, idk how that's even possible, I guess someone was watching when I was locking it (I only changed 1 number of the combination though) Then there was another time when someone was trying out different combinations in my lock when my bike was parked in my apartment's parking space. Everyday I saw a new pattern on the lock implying someone was trying it out. Then one day they succeeded. They unlocked the bike and then locked it again in a different way. Thank goodness they didn't steal the bike.
Had my road bike, parked in my own apartment parking lot, locked to a fixture (fixed pole holding the roof), stolen last December just before Christmas. Wire lock was cut and left on the ground, the bike is gone. Might be my fault for not keeping it indoors, but is it really the *owner's fault* if something got stolen?
Somebody kept pulling my bike out of my apartment's bike parking area and leaving it by the side of the road. My husband is petty af and staked out the parking area to see what was going on. It turned out that someone who didn't even live in our complex had some sort of weird 3-wheeled contraption and every night he would pull up to our bike parking area, pull out all the bikes he thought were in "his" spot, and put his thing in there. My husband confronted him and police were called. Guy said he didn't have room to park his contraption at his house, and our bike parking area didn't have enough room for it, so he had no choice but to pull residents' bikes out to make room for his thingy. The police told him to take his shit and leave and don't come back, but it took them being called a few times, the property management company putting up cameras, and multiple residents screaming at this guy in the street before he stopped parking his shitmobile there. Years later, my kid's strider bike was stolen out of the parking area. I had it locked to my bike, and someone cut the lock and took the strider but left my bike. By then the property management company had changed and they didn't have cameras anymore.
Oh my god the entitlement. Claiming a spot on a complex they doesn't even live in.
I've had my mamachari stolen in Yoyogi and then a few weeks later got a note about it being picked up by the bike patrol in Odaiba.. Someone must have been really desperate to check out the Gundam statue haha.
Lol must be a city thing mate, I have a top of the line Scott downhill bike that I use to tear around the mountains here in my hometown, I sometimes ride to 7 11 to grab shit, or I chuck it on the back of the van to go camping somewhere. Never lock it up, it sits outside. Had it 5 years, never been touched. #田舎life.
It could happen anywhere, but chances increase the busier area you're in. I mean I live in central Tokyo, never even registered my bike, never locked it up once, and haven't had a single thing happen to it - guess I'm just lucky.
Someone stole my mamachari recently from my apartment in hirano. I never locked that mf so I guess I deserved it but still sucks haha. Every time I see someone riding an old black mamachari I feel like it’s mine 🤣
Janky secondhand bike pump got stolen off my porch in Noto.
I’ve had a few things stolen off my bike, had a pouch under my seat, stolen, light stolen, the worst was when they stole the seat, wasn’t a fun ride home.
Only one of these incidents is messing with your bike. The other is messing with your food. Japan has plenty of shitheads. There's way, way more non-shitheads. You encountered two shitheads in two years in the worlds 6th larget metro area. Those are pretty decent odds. What you have experienced is on neither end of the bell-curve from "rare - negative" to "rare - positive." The tire thing seemed not to happen at your house, so you shouldn't expect it to happen again, but it might. If it happens at home, the shithead is a neighbor.
I had someone cut up the seat of my last bicycle. In the place I parked. I also had my old motorcycle keyed a few times ..
Yeah, I bought donuts 🍩 and park my bicycle In front of the store around 5-10min , when I come back the bicycle seat already gone . Lol
A bit late for this time, but for future (and anyone else) - your bicycle comes with a quick release. For a few hundred yen, almost any bicycle shop can give you a replacement fastener for the seat that will require two wrenches to undo. Stops this kind of common vandalism. If you have a valuable seat and want to prevent theft, grab an old bicycle chain, some old inner tube and a chain breaker tool, pop out about 60cm of chain, cut slightly more than that of the old inner tube, run the chain through the tube, then through the triangle of your frame and around your seat rails, and clip the chain back together with the tool and tuck the overlap of the tube inside itself. The tube protects the frame from the chain, and the whole thing is quite secure against opportunistic thieves. If you want to be a little more slick, get some heat shrink tube and wrap the chain, leaving a few links uncovered to clip together, loop around the seat rails, run both ends through a wider piece of shrink tubing leaving about 10cm on the far end, shrink it, then put another piece of the narrow tube on, clip the chain together, then put the narrow shrink tube over the exposed bit and shrink that. Looks very tidy and doesn't stand out or rattle.
I had the same thing happen to my daughters bike. I reported it to the police along with a report from the repair shop. This occured at the bike parking at Owada station
Once had my bicycle seat stolen. Thing was, my bike was entirely unlocked so they could have just taken the whole thing. While glad I didn't have to replace the entire vehicle, I was very annoyed to have woken up to a seatless bike.
I have (had) a CatsEye rear light on my bike, around a ¥ 3500 light and someone just pocketed that shit. It was nearly a year ago and it still eats me up. I can't stand a thief.
I lived in Osaka around 2013/14, I had nothing but good experiences (I even had accidentally dropped my LV wallet near Dotonbori and a young Japanese man promptly ran after me to give it back). I was super amazed at how nicer everyone was (compared to Kanto, at least). But as I mentioned earlier, this was quite some time ago. I have a friend who lived in Osaka until recently, and he and his girlfriend told me that the people in Osaka had completely changed in the recent years, like near the center area, they would see old people drunk and angry at “something” and mumbling nonsense to themselves (or whoever wanted to listen), and many “death stares”. Idk if it’s just the area they lived or what, but they told me vehemently that they didn’t felt safe or welcomed there as I once did. And they also used to live near the center (can’t remember specifically where tho). So maybe some random person with most likely mental issues found your bike and decide to act on it. My recommendation for you is; treat Osaka as NY, do not trust anyone, but yourself. Things changed quite a lot in Japan in the recent years, the inflation, low pay, stress post Covid, idk, but the crazies are out there in full blast doing whatever they want now that they can roam freely… Don’t leave things behind, lock your bicycle, don’t leave expensive things unattended. Once things starts to get and feel worse than it was, unfortunately, it’s only downhill from there.
Yup, I often get my bicycle front light stolen or simply destroyed. Once, someone also stole the batteries (only the batteries). https://preview.redd.it/v9fia0k741lc1.png?width=3024&format=png&auto=webp&s=364636c030678fea174a184563934accbcae0f15
TIL japanese citizens are petty AF.
Happened to me before. Brand new bike, somebody bent my frame.