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Renting in China, and who is responsible for what
Almost everything in this dialogue is procedural, and the procedure is worth knowing because it differs from what a visitor will assume. First, the cast. 房东 is the landlord, who owns the flat and holds the contract with you. 中介 is the agency that found it, who takes a fee — commonly half a month's to a month's rent — and then largely disappears. 物业 is the management company for the whole compound, paid by owners through a service charge, and it is who you call about water, power, lifts, corridors, security and anything structural. A leak from the flat above is not your landlord's problem to fix, it is 物业's problem to fix and the upstairs owner's problem to pay for — which is exactly what 王阿姨 sorts out by ringing 物业 rather than a plumber. Second, the money. Deposits are normally one to three months' rent, and the standard phrase you will see is 押一付三 — one month's deposit, three months' rent paid in advance — which is a large sum on arrival. Rent is usually quarterly rather than monthly. Getting the deposit back at the end depends on the check-out inspection, so the single most useful thing you can do on the day you move in is what Alex does here: photograph everything, including things that are already damaged, and date it. 发票 from lesson 54 matters here too. Third, the contract. A Chinese tenancy contract is short and mostly about money, dates and notice, and it will have a clause on 维修责任 — who pays for what kind of repair. The usual division is that wear and tear on fittings is the landlord's and damage you caused is yours, with appliances a grey area worth reading before signing. Registering the tenancy at the local police station is also a legal requirement for a foreign resident, and it is the landlord's cooperation you need for it. A note on how the conversation goes, since the language is the point. Chinese disputes of this kind are usually settled by establishing 责任 — whose responsibility — before anybody discusses money, and by keeping the tone practical rather than aggrieved. 这个不是你的责任 is 王阿姨 doing you a favour in five words: she has assigned fault upstairs, which means you are not paying. The useful phrases are 这是谁的责任？, 我已经报修了, 合同上怎么写的？ and, if you get nowhere, 我要投诉. Raising your voice works less well than having photographs.