I an my wife went on two days trip to Nikko. For one night we stayed at local family run
hotel. I selected the property based on high score of reviews.
While to property is not definitely new, what really surprised me is that in our room there was a kerosene space heater which after turning on produced such an awful smell that we had to open room windows to 8C temp outside to let the smell get out. We had to climb under thick blanket because it was freezing in the room to the rest of the evening and night.
While this experience added to my due diligence list one more question to ask/research, more broader question is - are such space heaters still common in Japan? Why they are not phased out?