[Anchorman]

Japan is witnessing the rise of the jisageya -- people who deliberately devalue the property of land so it can be purchased at bargain basement prices, according to Spa! (5/1-8).

Jisageya swooped into prime spots as property prices plummeted when the economy bellyflopped following the burst of the bubble and have stayed there until things started picking up.

Unlike their close relatives, the jisageya - thugs who made money by strong-arming people into paying over-inflated prices for land - the jisageya make their quid by being such a nuisance they devalue not only the land they occupy, but also the other properties surrounding it.

Once an area has been suitably sullied, seedy types can then sweep in and pick up properties at prices much less than what their market value would suggest and profit by cleaning up the area and selling out for what the plots are really worth.

The notorious "**** Palace" in Tokyo's Nakano-ku has been cited as a typical case of an active jisageya.

This case involved a man who refused to dump his own bodily waste, instead burning them in an incinerator at his home. The practice continued for years and created a foul reek that wafted across the neighborhood, almost rendering in uninhabitable.

Spa! says blame for the smell was immediately placed on either organized crime or the real estate industry.

"There were rumors that some sort of cult or problem with relatives was involved, but we thought he was a jisageya for sure," a man identified only as U-san tells Spa! "We tried to find out which gang was responsible for him, but all the yakuza were looking for the same thing and in the end, none of them were involved. The guy doing it was just a weirdo, but it was still a perfect example of the way the jisageya act."

Jisageya or not, the man living in the "**** Palace" certainly had the effect of driving down land prices. Though he has long been arrested and the place cleaned up, real estate agents are still complaining that rents in the area had to be lowered and that nobody wants to go and live there.

Spa! says that anybody making trouble for their neighbors through excessive amounts of noise, stacking up years worth of trash without throwing it away, or doing anything else that could be constituted as a public nuisance could well be acting as a jisageya. (By Ryann Connell)