Signese

I had to look up the answer to (4). Surprisingly, it's

2800元。

http://zhidao.baidu.com/question/1323800

(And yes, the landlord's miswritten that second 押.)

1) A bungalow/single-story house

2) Drum Tower (just found out about this one)

3) Some sort of electrical heater, although I can't make out what the 改電 (transformer?) and that character before it that looks like 火 and the right side of 蝶, although that doesn't seem to exist.

Looks like #4 was a trick question.

It's 煤(coal/gas)改電.

Q4 is not a trick question.

Oh, 煤. Heh, it seems fairly clear now that you've pointed it out to me.

Is "transformer" good for 改電, then? It's a heater that works by turning gas/coal into electricity?

Maybe it wasn't a trick question, but I still don't quite get it, aside from 700*3+700=2800. It seems the answer is in 付三押一/押一付三. Looks like I'll have to do some digging into that.

For 3, a one-word answer will be fine. Anyone who wants extra credit can look into it a bit further. No trick for the final one, that I'm aware of.

The house is small.

And there is not heating during day time?

Alright, it seems that it's

electric. But it was converted from a coal/gas heater to an electric one, and it builds up heat from 10 pm to 6 am, and then releases it throughout the day, so the night electric bill ends up paying for the usage throughout the day. That's what I've found out about it from a precursory search on Google, anyway. All of a sudden 煤改電 makes so much sense now. haha

Really? I'm seriously considering 煤改电 for my apartment now.

Thanks for posting that one, Roddy, I was starting to get cocky but that one kicked my butt and put me back in my place.

After some work, I still can't get the middle part, "度电0。30元， 都 ？家 ？，下水10？？." What are the missing characters? And what is 下水 here, does it mean sewage?

[i think the "trick question" part comes from the way it is phrased. It seems strange to me that you would say the deposit is 700 yuan ("押金：700元"), and then add "times three!" ("押一付三"). At least here, you would say "rent is 700 yuan, deposit is 2100 yuan", or "rent is 700 yuan, deposit is three months rent".]

The "missing characters" are

部分家具.

(The landlord's a bit challenged when it comes to writing characters correctly.)

And 2100RMB isn't a deposit, it's three months' rent paid in advance. There's a difference between a deposit and rent paid in advance. The tenant in that post a few days ago didn't realize that, and thought he could automatically use his deposit to offset the rent he didn't pay.

OK, so "租金：700元, 押金：700元, 押一付三" means "rent: 700 yuan, deposit: 700 yuan, three months rent in advance"? That makes a lot more sense, thanks.

Does "部分家具" mean unfurnished?

What about the "下水10？？." part?

It looks like it actually says 家俱 to me. I thought it was a mistake until a second ago, when I checked the dictionary, and saw this for 家具: 家中所用的器具。如沙發、桌椅、櫥櫃等類。亦作「家什」、「傢俱」。Either way, the meaning should be "partially furnished," I would imagine.

I have no idea what comes after 下水10.

[Edit] I guess it is a mistake, actually, since it mixes 家具 and 傢俱. Or maybe it doesn't matter.

Good to see people getting their teeth into this one. With your permission I'll leave this over the weekend and come back on Monday to see how you're all getting on - you're generally on the right track.

I have no idea what comes after 下水10.

It's a distance.

一度電0.30元，部分家俱，下水10米遠

the first part is about how electricity is charged;

the middle part means that the place is partly furnished;

the last part I guess means that the bathroom/toilet is 10 meters down the hall (I think 下水 comes from 下水道，but not sure what it exactly means here).

Ha! I had kind of thought I was seeing 遠 (techincally 远, I suppose), but just couldn't make any sense out of it, and I don't think I ever would have gotten 米. I thought it was 手 + something that I couldn't make out. haha

I still can't make out 8平？简(?)装, right before 煤改电电暖器 and what's immediately after that: 22-6总(?)1度. Other than that I'm pretty sure I'm good with the characters, at least.

家俱 - "variant of 家具" [from MDBG] [Later edit: fixed error in link found by Glenn.]

I'm a bit confused about this bathroom thing. It's a single story house, right? It is separate? But the bathroom is far away?

what's immediately after that: 22-6总(?)1度.

22-6总 . 度電0.30元 - 1 kWH is 0.30 yuan. [That seems really cheap, it's about 10-12 US cents / kWH here.]

I don't know what happened with the link, but it took me to an entry for 俱全. I know it can be iffy sometimes trying to link directly to pages in online dictionaries, so maybe something happened there. At any rate, it seems legal to mix and match any combination of the non-human and human characters (for lack of a better descriptor), as long as the jia1ju4 reading remains in order.

So 总 was right, and what I thought was a 1 was actually a .? I don't get how it all goes together, especially with the 22-6.

You've got a bit of a misreading in there. Thing about what the 22-6 could refer to.

Ha! It's 点! As in o'clock! Man, I even wrote that whole explanation about it and it didn't occur to me. haha

Ok, you all seemed to enjoy that. Lets take a look at the answers.

1) It's a 平房 - ie, single-story place, and at 8平米 - 8 square meters - you're only getting one room (and not a very big one at that）. It'll be some kind of shared yard arrangement with a single entrance to the street.

2) It's near the Drum Tower - 鼓楼附近.

3) Simple answer is that there's an electric heater - 电暖器. Longer answer is that this is a heater provided as part of the 煤改电 project, a government scheme to get people off coal (煤) and onto electricity. Electricity is 0.3Y per kWH (度) from 10pm to 6am (22-6), and I'd assume these are storage heaters.

4) 2800Y. It's normal to write that monthly rent will be XXXY and then payment terms as 押一付三 or something similar to mean you pay a deposit equivalent to a month's rent and pay the actual rent quarterly. The landlord here has confused things a little by listing the deposit separately, even though it's the same as the monthly rent. Hope that's clear. You might also see 押二付三, or reference to 季付，年付, etc.

Other notes - 下水10米远 I take to mean that you're ten meters away from the toilet, and its probably a public one. I'd also assume there are no washing or cooking facilities, as if there are it would be specified.

Question for you lot - what on earth is the character before 简装?

It isn't 米? That's what you wrote above, and the writing style is fairly consistent with the one below.

Don't think so, and wouldn't make any sense in context. I think it might be 新 - ie, newly (simply) decorated.

I think it might be 新 - ie, newly (simply) decorated.

It is. Is it common to use 下水 this way in BJ?

Actually I'm not sure, which is why I didn't make a question out ofi t. I guess it could mean that you're 10 meters from a drain, but if that's the case you're presumably also 10 meters from a toilet, which to me would be the most pertinent issue.

When I search housing ads on ganji.com I can't find another example of this kind of usage.

Could this be 下 used in the sense of 去, as in 下车间 or 下馆子, to use a couple examples from my dictionary.