The riddle of the 쓰레기 캐비닛

When do 3 worn out, useless cabinets go from furniture to trash?


Allow me to present my conundrum:

I recently had a rental contract drawn up at a 부동산 after viewing an apartment which appealed to me.  At the time of the viewing, the former tenants were still living in it and so naturally I assumed all possessions were theirs and would be removed before we moved in.  A few days ago I went to check out the condition of our new place before we started dragging all our crap there and was surprised to find two old, worn out cabinets stacked on top of each other, almost completely filling our one and only closet.  As well, there was another identical worn out cabinet on the balcony.  If you're counting, that makes 3 fairly large and mostly useless cabinets taking up a fair amount of room in a modestly sized apartment. 

A couple of hours later our new landlady came by to go over the place with us and negotiate on any items that may need replacement.  She agreed that the bathroom plumbing, while still functional, could use replacing and seemed pretty happy to do so.  So far, so good.  In fact, she seemed quite friendly up to this point.  Next up; the cabinets.


I showed her the cabinet on the balcony and assumed it was left over junk from the former tenants and asked her to kindly remove it as we had more than enough junk of our own and could use the space.  "아니" was her reply. 아니 what? I tried to explain again to her that we didn't want nor need these pieces of crap but she became increasingly more rigid in her refusals and was definitely losing her friendly demeanor .  Eventually, she told us that she would speak to the security아저씨about getting it out.  Problem solved, or so I thought.  Instead, we get a call from the previously very kind, now irate 부동산 아저씨 who's yelling at my wife as to just what the hell kind of crazy request did we think we were making to our landlady and that there was no way that those cabinets were going anywhere. 

This is now getting ridiculous.  There's three large pieces of garbage in our new place and not only won't the landlady get rid of them, we were told if we do it ourselves, the cost of replacing them would come out of our key money.  I realized now that there was no getting around this so I figured, what the hell, I'll just take them apart and find somewhere to hide them away until we move next.  Unfortunately, these are very well made pieces of garbage that have been glued together and I would have to destroy them to pull them apart.

So here we are now, stuck with these 3 cabinets that aren't going anywhere.  Forever curious about the logic that drives people here, I inquired as to why it should be that a place which we are paying money to occupy should have in it someone else's garbage.  It turns out that these 3 pieces of crap were actually cabinets builder provided from when the building first got occupancy 15+ years before.  Thus, they seem (from what I can figure) to consider them actually part of the apartment and so when we rent the space within the concrete walls, we also rent them.  In keeping with this line of reasoning, I found it strange that  we didn't need to keep the old bathroom fixtures after they were replaced.

I really felt that I was on the side of right here and was prepared to keep waging my losing battle, but was told by my wife that that will likely make future dealings with the landlady less than pleasant and besides, after hearing our arguments, my wife's family sided with management too.  If I can't win them over, I suppose it's time to let be.




Sorry to say this, but you're

Sorry to say this, but you're obviously wrong. You have tried to employ your rational faculties and have questioned the unquestionable wisdom of your betters. Don't you know that your elders are your superiors and are never wrong regardless of however selfish, fickle or arbitrary their may seem?  Perhaps you will grasp their infinite wisdom when you reach the golden age of 60, and are able to perpetuate the cycle of abuse which is required for social order.

They most likely don't want

They most likely don't want to pay for the recycle fee. Let me see three cabinets would be anywhere from 15-30,000w depending how big they are. If you wish to do this go to the guard shack and inquire. There are certain days where a truck will come around and get this sort of stuff. Our complex is monday morning for paid furniture and appliances, sunday night people bring down the stuff, make sure to attach the little paid sticker you will get from the guard shack or it won't be picked up.

I am going to side with the

I am going to side with the landlady here, since she is right. They are part of the current property, although I am a sure that if you wanted to get rid of them, and provided you foot the cost, she wouldn't object.

I moved into exactly the same situation. I had this humongous monstrosity as high as the ceiling taking up an entire wall. And also a bookshelf  sized cabined in the kitchen.

Fortunately I was able to remove the entire top part of the big cabinet and the bottom now acts as a rather convenient computer desk / TV stand  in my front living room. The  rest provides some very  useful, all be it a bit ugly storage space in the spare room.

hmm, the landlady does look

hmm, the landlady does look about that age.  Perhaps with it comes the wisdom to see the true value of the garbage cabinets, so subtle that words cannot convey their worth to one as ignorant as me. 

Wise is the ajuma

damn cabinets

Yeah, you are not alone in having this problem.

I have had similar situations in the past when renting older one rooms and apartments. Same result, too. Cannot toss the old junk without paying for it. And it always seems to be large cabinets that are old and dirty. Generally unused by the previous tenants. Perhaps the real owners imagine a slippery slope of things disappearing from the place if the cabinets disappear.... I don't get it either.