December 2025
The Tokyo University Graduate Living in a Hoarder House
Part 1 of 2 — Inside the Daily Meals and Streaming Life of Mizuki, 29
By Yu Taguchi / 田口ゆう
Originally published in Bunshun Online (Japanese), 2025. Original Japanese article. English translation by the author.
Mizuki, 29, has appeared in Japanese media as “the Tokyo University graduate who lives in a hoarder house.”
They currently live alone in a roughly eight-square-meter studio apartment, paying ¥38,000 (about $260) in rent each month. Open the front door, and empty cup-noodle containers tumble out into the corridor. Inside, the room is buried in clothing. Fruit flies hover in the air. Mizuki moved into this apartment about six years ago, after being kicked out of the family home by a mother with whom they had had a difficult relationship since early childhood.
Born the eldest son into an elite household — both parents are graduates of the University of Tokyo — Mizuki went on to attend the same university themselves. It was there, during their undergraduate years, that they began wearing women’s clothes and makeup. Today, viewers of their streams leave comments like “It suits you” and “the cute girl who lives in a hoarder house.” We asked Mizuki about life inside the apartment.
(Part 1 of 2. Part 2 to follow.)
[Photograph: Mizuki, who graduated from the University of Tokyo, withdrew from graduate school, and worked at two companies before settling into life as a full-time streamer. Photo: Keiji Ishikawa © Bungeishunjū. Not reproduced here due to copyright.]
— Tell us about your current home.
Mizuki: I live in a one-room studio that’s about eight square meters, including the shower and toilet. The rent is ¥38,000 a month. I moved in in January 2020, so it’ll be six years next January.
— You moved in at twenty-four, after living with your family. What prompted you to start living alone?
Mizuki: My relationship with my mother had reached a breaking point. My parents were divorced, and at the time my mother had already remarried — at least, I think she had. She was living with her new husband, and I was living alone in a house she owned.
Around that time, she was telling me to sit the civil service exam. But I’d originally gone to the University of Tokyo because I wanted to become a researcher, and I had no interest in a public-sector job. So I let the application deadline pass without doing anything. Afterwards, my mother told me, “If you’re not going to become a civil servant, I can’t take care of you anymore. Get out of the house.” I was already exhausted from constantly reading her moods just to keep a place there. I wanted somewhere safe — somewhere I wouldn’t be at the mercy of someone else’s temper. So I made the leap and decided to live on my own.
“I Don’t Really Think of It as a Hoarder House”
— How did you find this apartment?
Mizuki: Given the circumstances, I just told the real-estate agent, “Even if it’s small, I want a place as cheap as possible. I’d like a private shower and toilet, not shared.” Cheaper was better. That was about it.
— The world calls this a “hoarder house.” How do you see it yourself?
Mizuki: Hmm… there’s a lot of stuff, sure, but I don’t really think of any of it as “trash.” Of course, some of it is. But that’s only a small part. Most of what fills the room is clothes.
[Photograph © Keiji Ishikawa / Bungeishunjū. Not reproduced here.]
— How did the room come to have so much in it?
Mizuki: A lot of it came with me from my family home, so it was already crowded the day I moved in. After that, more accumulated — mostly clothes, again. There was also a theater club I’d belonged to since university that ended up disbanding, and I brought back about three boxes of stuff from the clubroom. Recently I cancelled a storage unit and brought all of that here too. So in nearly six years, it has never been more packed than it is right now.
— What was your room like back at your family’s house?
Mizuki: My room there was already overstuffed. My mother would say, “Clean it yourself,” and she never tidied it for me. This apartment is basically that room, scaled up.
— Where do you draw the line between throwing something away and keeping it?
Mizuki: First, “Can it still be used?” Second, “Is there sentimental value?” So things like food packaging and actual food waste, I throw out fairly regularly. Lately I’ve been slacking, though — maybe once a month.
Living Inside the “Hoarder House”
— Surprisingly — and forgive me for putting it that way — there isn’t much smell.
Mizuki: In summer there are flies, and occasionally a cockroach, but I deal with them when I find them. Sometimes one hides and I never see it again, though.
— There’s rice in a pot. Do you cook quite a bit?
Mizuki: I do. The kitchen has more or less become a storage space, so I cook things like meat on a hot plate. I do my eating on stream, which means I eat at home a lot.
— You stream as well.
Mizuki: Yes — fans send me things like Shine Muscat grapes and bluefin tuna. They really do help me out. Some of my viewers are still in elementary school.
[Photograph © Keiji Ishikawa / Bungeishunjū. Not reproduced here.]
— Have you ever had friends over to this apartment?
Mizuki: Not lately, but back when there was still space for someone to sit, I’d have people over fairly often. They never came over to “hang out,” though — it was always more like they were arriving on a “mission” to clean. I’m fine in here myself, but visitors sometimes get sick. They’ll spend a few hours and leave with a sore throat.
— What’s difficult about daily life here?
Mizuki: Looking for things is the worst. The other day I couldn’t find my foundation anywhere, gave up, and bought a new one. Where on earth did it go?
More than anything to do with the trash, though, it’s just narrow. I’m getting by, and the rent is cheap, so I tell myself it’s fine — but the truth is, the room is unmistakably small.
From Apparel to IT — Past Lives Before the Stream
— You used to work in apparel, I understand.
Mizuki: That’s right. When I was at university, a friend told me, “Mizuki, you’d probably like Axes Femme,” and took me to the store. I fell for the brand, and through that connection I ended up working there. It was mostly women’s clothing, and since I genuinely loved the brand, the job was fun.
— Why did you leave?
Mizuki: I worked there about two and a half years, but eventually showing up at the same time every morning got hard for me. So I switched to an IT company, hoping for something more flexible. I lasted about a year, but in the end that didn’t work out either, and I left.
— How do you make a living now?
Mizuki: I earned a decent income while I was working, so I’m mostly living off savings from those years. Of course, that won’t last forever — and my lease is up for renewal next January, so I’m thinking about moving. When I was looking for this place, I was determined to avoid shared bathrooms, but now I think I could probably handle one. I might look for somewhere even cheaper.
[Photograph © Keiji Ishikawa / Bungeishunjū. Not reproduced here.]
— A bit more space, perhaps?
Mizuki: Honestly, I think what happened at my family’s house would happen here too — regardless of how big the room is, it would just fill up with stuff again. A social worker introduced to me through a fan came over to help with cleaning, but even after that, things start piling up again pretty quickly. For now, I’m healthy and getting by, and I think that’s enough.
Continued in Part 2: “From a Boys’ School to Women’s Clothes — How a Tokyo University Graduate Awakened to a New Way of Being Seen.”