Apologies in advance for the text wall, but please give it a read if you have the time. If not I’ll tldr at the bottom, but I feel the context is decently important. To give a bit of backstory, my current roommate and I met freshman year of college and moved into an apartment together the next year. It is now our senior year and we live in a different apartment. For the most part he has been a pretty good roommate and is one of my only friends I have at school. My only is issue is he can be a bit defensive and when challenged on something he does or wants he can be kind of a dick. In the apartment we live in now there is an issue with the heating/AC unit. His room is directly next to the HAVC unit while mine is down the hall. The HVAC pumps very heavily into his room, but for some reason blows less air into mine. Due to this the temperature in different parts of our apartment varies. For example if the heat is set to 70, it will be 70 in the living area, 72-73 ish in his room, and 66-67 ish in my room. This would be fine if the heat were set to 70. But when it is cold outside my roommate gets too hot for his comfort and with go and turn the heat down to 66-67, which in turn makes my room incredibly cold. In response I’ll usually change it back. This has led to months of this incredibly counterproductive cycle of us changing the temperature around all the time and no one ever really being comfortable. I tried to bring this up once but he was not very receptive and angrily suggested I’d I had a problem with the cold to buy a space heater. I ignored it and we continued on our shitty routine of consistently changing the temp in our apartment. This was until last week when I got fed up. One night I left my room feeling incredibly cold to find he had set the temperature to 64. This meant probably around 61 in my room. I got annoyed, set the thermostat up to 68, and went to bed. The next day while talking I brought up the temperature and just politely asked if he could “chill with the temperature” cause it was set to 64 last night. I probably could’ve worded this slightly better but I was annoyed, though I maintained a good tone and tried my best to not come across as rude or sarcastic. He immediately got defensive saying “then don’t set it to 70 either”. While 70 isn’t exactly an outrageous temp to have a living space at, I do understand his room gets hotter so I get where he is coming from. I simply said “I set it to 68 at the highest yesterday, I think that’s a pretty fair temp.” To which he angrily. said “I already told you to just buy a space heater, I’m fine if it raises the electric bill a little bit.” Annoyed by his tone and immediate anger and refusal to have a calm conversation with me I said “why should I have to pay for a space heater and have both of us pay more for electric, when you can just open a damn window. If the heat is set to 70 and it’s 3 degrees hotter in your room and 3 degrees cooler in mine, and you open your window when it’s cold outside, it’ll be a comfortable 67 in my room, 70 in the apartment, and the window will help keep your room at around 70 as well.” He said that was stupid and something to do with that “not being how air temperature works”. When I began to respond he cut me off and said “fine I’ll open the fuckin window” and then slammed the door and went to go shower. For the past week the temp has been left at 67, which is still damn cold in my room, but it’s the highest I’ve gotten him to leave it alone at so I figure it’ll be fine for now. The problem is this week it is going to get warm, into the 80s. I have a pet chinchilla, and they do not do very well with heat and need to keep the temp around 72 at the highest. With the airflow issues my room already gets hotter than the rest of the apartment just as it gets colder in the winters and his room gets colder than the rest of the apartment just as it is warmer in the winters. We had one day of 80 degree weather already and I woke up to find he set the AC to 74 and it was already at or over that in my room. I immediately set the ac lower and he continued to move it up, with it eventually sitting at 69-70 for the day. We have a few days of 60 ish degree whether, which will be okay, but it is getting back to the 80s in the next week or so and I need to work something out with him before that. In the winter at worst I’m just uncomfortable and that’s fine, but I will not risk the health of my pet because he wants to be stubborn. On the other hand he is one of my only friends at school and I don’t want to anger him. I worry that having this conversation again will piss him off and texting him about is never how I want to go about it, and I feel will only make him mad as it comes across as I didn’t have the balls to have a conversation with him, when in reality I just can’t stand another unproductive conversation where he gets defensive and angry and we accomplish nothing. Any advice on whether or not to talk in person or text, and how to approach the conversation either way would be great. Thanks.
TL:DR- How do I approach an conversation about an agreeable point for the thermostat with a roommate who is incredibly stubborn about the issue?
6 comments
I’m currently living with two friends, they are quite receptive when I brought things up, but i start to realize it’s not a great idea to be living with friends for long term. I’d look for a new place if i were you, sounds like your friend is not open to negotiate for a middle ground.
Can he close the vent in his room?
This isn’t good advice and I only read your TL;DR, but I had a roommate like that.
After a few conversations that and no where, I closed all the vents in the apartment and turned the AC all the way down one night.
When I woke up I took a long hot shower. Used all the hot water.
I still got cold, he was pissed AF and yelled at me. We had a productive conversation that night about all of his selfish behavior like not washing dishes after himself and not taking out trash sometimes.
I think that’s what it took for him to listen to my side and take me seriously.
That said, he moved out a month or so later.
Bro, learn how to make paragraphs if you want people to read your post.
Can you guys switch bedrooms? If he feels consistently too hot and you too cold, that seems like a good solution without having to keep fighting with the thermostat.
I had the same issue sharing an apartment in college. My roommate had a mini-fridge in his room and kept his door closed. No wonder his room was hotter than everyone else’s! He constantly turned the AC down, and I’m a thin and lanky guy with not much insulation, so I was freezing cold all the time, and fought with him a few times when I turned it back up. One time he also had random strangers coming into our apartment and taking beer from the fridge, even though we were all under 21. I was so glad when the year was over and I moved out.
I mean, can he not get a fan? They’re effective at cooling a room, and your no one has to lose sensation in his hands & feet to make you comfortable.
I has roommates like this in college. They wanted to keep the room we shared at 60 (a ridiculous temp imo) & they seem to forget how cold works. I liked the room at 68-70 to sleep. When it’s cold, you need to dress stuffy & can’t move unless you want to shiver & can’t feel your appendages. Hot? Turn a fan on. It’s way safer & more comfortable than a space heater.