Want to live in a former Hokkaido love hotel?

A former love hotel in Hokkaido is available to rent for the princely sum of ¥29,000 a month.

Apartment Odaiba, as the hotel is now branded, was recently spotted by retro locale fan Hopigon, whose posts about it went viral.

While the owners require a month’s deposit and key month up front, you can move in right away.

Though we expect the property is pretty basic and remote by Tokyo standards, you can essentially live permanently in a love hotel for a fee that’s not much higher than the short-term stay fee at an urban love hotel (in other words, a month here costs only a bit more than a single afternoon at a love hotel in central Tokyo). That said, Apartment Odaiba is relatively pricy for the location, Asahikawa, where rent can be as little as ¥15,000 a month.

This is not unique. We occasionally hear about old love hotels coming up for sale, though this is almost always in rural parts of Japan. If a love hotel becomes available in an urban or suburban area, it will immediately be snapped up by another operator (or a developer who wants to do something else with the land).

With declining populations and changing tastes, provincial love hotels struggle these days. They are also often family businesses and may close after the owner retires or passes away, with other relatives reluctant to continue the business that has few prospects.

We’re not sure exactly when but it seems that someone made the smart choice to convert the hotel in Asahikawa into apartments. The building dates back to 1980 and doesn’t have much in the way of surrounding facilities (rural hotels tend to be somewhat tucked away so as to be discreet — and Asahikawa is a small city anyway), though the nearby area has a couple of convenience stores, a gas station, and even an elementary school (in case you make any babies in that hotel room).

Since love hotels tend to have good soundproofing (for obvious reasons), living in a former hotel might solve one of the perennial issues related to renting an apartment in a major city: dealing with noisy neighbors. Apartment Odaiba also comes with free parking (rural love hotels always offer good options for drivers, typically with the rooms on the second floor above the parking lot).

It looks like the overall building is in decent condition, though the grounds may be pretty basic and lonely (perhaps the same for most apartment buildings in Asahikawa). The property listing does not provide details about the interiors. We expect the room layout are the same as they were in the building’s former life but the customary garish colors might be gone.

It is common to encounter abandoned and rundown hotels in rural Japan. Hopigon recently found a similar hotel near the Apartment Odaiba that is pretty rusty and lugubrious (this hotel is a pretty famous example of a haikyo — we even wrote about it five years ago).