About twelve animators lived there, stacked up in bunk beds in every room. Smith was given a walk-in closet to live in, and there he spend his second winter in Japan—in an unheated room of 8 m2, working off of a shelf on a scavenged IBM Selectric (which eventually broke down and caught fire while he was working on it). Yasuhiro Takeda of Gainax mentions Smith in his 2002 autobiography, "The Notenki Memoirs":  "Not too long after the move, we became acquainted with another otaku who had come from North America (Canada, actually). His name was Toren Smith, and his love of manga had brought him all the way across the ocean to Japan. He'd run out of money somewhere along the way, however, and was having a hard time of it. Apparently, Okada had met Smith during our Osaka days. The Canadian had visited the General Products store in Momodani with sci-fi author J.P. Hogan, who was in Japan for the Sci-Fi Convention. Naturally, after hearing his foreign friend was down on his luck, Okada suggested we put him up at GAINAX House. Toren went on to be a success in his own right, later returning to North America and becoming president of a publishing company in the U.S. He is one shrewd fellow—not only did he make plenty of manga-related connections while he was here, but he snagged himself a beautiful Japanese wife to boot. I still remember one morning, shortly after we all woke up; the door to Toren's room opened and out walked a young lady we'd never seen before!" Smith's time at GAINAX House was challenging, not least of all because the other occupants of the house had very loose ideas about hygiene. Once again, Takeda comments: "Make no mistake, GAINAX House was a den of rabid bachelors. Nobody cleaned or even straightened up—ever. When we received a visit from Hiroe Suga (who for a time was staying at a boarding house in Tokyo and working as an author), she was literally sickened by the smell. The color drained from her face and she beat a very hasty retreat. Ultimately, we elected to move out of GAINAX House. When the landlord came by to give the place a once-over and release us from our contract, he was stricken speechless. Almost immediately after we vacated, the house was demolished."