Temperature Wars

Everyone has them. You know, the stereotypical the man is hot, the woman is cold and they keep turning the thermostat back and forth and back and forth. Part of me wishes for that temperature war, at least I would have a thermostat to deal with.

Instead I'm in a temperature war with my landlord, and according to her, some of the other tenants in our building. In the spirit of full disclosure, I don't pay directly for my heat. I'm very thankful for this most of the time because it means my rent is the same every month and I don't have to move my budget around to deal with the gas bill. However, I think (or at least for the sake of everyone else in the building I hope) that my unit is the hottest unit in the building. I keep my window open 90% of the time in the winter and that gets me on average around 70 degrees in the apartment, give or take a few degrees. I don't particularly like this arrangement, but I'm willing to compromise seeing as there are about 30 units in the building and the Landlord claims that she has to buy space heaters for some of the units because they are just that cold. I dream about being in one of those units.

This weekend Santa must have had his fans on or something because it's been frigid. Last night it got down to -18 and at 11:00, I'm not sure we've made it above zero yet. I didn't have the windows open yesterday afternoon and it was perfect - quiet and comfortable. So when I left to go out with some friends I didn't open the window. BIG mistake. I was gone less than four hours and when I got home it was a tropical 79 degrees in my apartment. So I slept with the window open as long as I could stand it, but as you'll imagine with -18 outside, it really cooled off in there. I closed the window around 1:00 and when I got up at 6:30 it was once again tropical - this time only 77 degrees though.

If this keeps up I think I'll have to move before the end of winter. I can't remember the last time I got a full night's sleep. I alternate between waking up in a sweat, even with almost no covers, or being startled awake by someone being loud outside. I've asked my landlord again to turn down the heat. We'll see what happens.