So, what's the home inspection really like?
The 家庭訪問 (home inspection) is required for most applicants who are not 特別永住者 (special permanent residents). Although you will occasionally hear of someone who did not have to go through it, you should be prepared to have your home and neighborhood inspected at some point after submitting the paperwork.
I have no doubt that the process is different for everyone. Some people may not have to deal with a home inspection at all, and whoever reported having their refrigerator evaluated was probably telling the truth as well, but in my case the home inspection was quick and painless, and much easier than I had feared.
My case worker scheduled my home inspection for the same day as my interview. I knew this in advance, and had plenty of time to prepare. The interview was in the morning, and my husband took a half-day off in order to be interviewed as well. We took a break for lunch and in the afternoon, after my husband had gone to work, my case worker came over to take a look at our home.
My house is fairly typical for our situation — a couple in our late twenties living in northern Saitama, within commuting distance of Shinjuku but far enough away that we could afford a place with a little yard and a place to park the car. It's a 4LDK (four bedrooms with one large living-dining-kitchen) with two toilets and a Japanese-style bathroom on three stories. All of the rooms are Western-style with hardwood floors, but the bathroom and 玄関 (entranceway) are Japanese style. I had cleaned the entire house from top to bottom and, just to be safe, arranged the kids' books so that the Japanese books were featured more prominently than the English ones. Since my son was really into Anpanman at the time, I didn't have to do a lot of work to emphasize what a "Japanese" childhood he was getting, but I checked over that kind of thing anyway. And I made sure I had miso in the refrigerator.
The whole "inspection" probably took about fifteen minutes. The case worker came in, looked around the living room (the only room on the first floor), said something to the effect of "Looks like you really live here," and then asked which of my immediate neighbors I knew the best. I suggested two families he could talk to, and since the first wasn't home, he talked to the mother of the second family I'd mentioned and then came back to my house, announced that she had confirmed that our kids played together sometimes and that we got along with the rest of the neighborhood, and that was it.
I don't think he ever called the person I had listed on my application as a friend in the neighborhood, and since my son wouldn't start preschool until the following year, I didn't have to worry about anyone contacting teachers or principals. I had freelance contracts with two companies at the time, and one of the office staff from one of the companies sent me a text message to let me know that she had talked to my case worker and told him nice things about me. The other company didn't contact me about it, so I'm not sure if they were contacted or not.
In my case, that was it. I got the impression that he was really just confirming that the information on my application was correct, rather than scrutinizing the "Japanese-ness" of my daily life. He never went upstairs at all, never opened any doors or drawers or did anything that made me uncomfortable. Of course, I can't guarantee that everyone's experience will be the same. In my case, my case worker had plenty of chances to see how "Japanese" I was raising my kids to be, as I took my son with me to every appointment and he always had Anpanman or 新幹線 (bullet train) books and toys with him, so it may just be that he felt that he had already confirmed those things and didn't need to look into it further. Maybe he just liked me. Or maybe the refrigerator inspections are the exception and not the rule.
I can't say for sure, but after all of the worrying I did about the home inspection, the inspection itself seemed like a piece of cake.
