Dead Heat

~ Clarissa

Not just more. Almost four times more.

Hot weather is the absolute worst.

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Published by Clarissa

25 thoughts on “Dead Heat”

      1. Safety feature I’m thinking. Imagine having an infrastructure not built for AC and then not being able to open your windows.

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        1. I grew up in FL without AC. It was not comfortable, but it was OK, because we had an old house (pre A/C), and lived in a neighborhood safe enough to have the windows open all summer. We had these magic things called window-screens, heavy-duty metal mesh that mostly kept bugs out, mostly kept kids and pets in, and allowed a box fan to be mounted in the window to ventilate the place.

          This… belongs to some special kafka-type hell. No screens, just leashes on the windows that keep you from using a fan the way fans are supposed to be used?

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          1. “I grew up in FL without AC. It was not comfortable, but it was OK”

            So did I and I actually have more memories of being too cold than too hot (our wall ‘heater’ was essentially useless….).

            But being on the coast there were always breezes (at least) and windows could be left open when nobody was at home. I don’t even remember much in the way of fans tbh….

            Gainesville on the other hand was a whole ‘nother critter and without AC it would have been unbearable. A window fan would have worked but it was not really possible to leave windows open….

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            1. True. At least if it was Jax, you’d probably have bars on the windows anyway 😉 I wouldn’t’ve left windows open in G’ville either. But I was always blocking vents there, because I was not accustomed to A/C and it was freezing.

              I do remember the house being cold in the winter– we relied on an open-front gas heater that was in the hallway, and of course no insulation and drafty old windows. We’d tack up our tattiest old blankets in strategic doorways so we weren’t heating the front of the house, just the bedrooms and plumbing.

              I think the coastal breeze did help, but our house wasn’t oriented to catch it, so the box fans were absolutely necessary and we had several of them. What did help a lot was that our neighborhood was old, so while it had been clearcut when built, the live-oak + magnolia ecosystem had largely grown back and it was very shady. Our roof was entirely shaded. Tended to let the azaleas obscure our windows on the west side…

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            2. I wouldn’t be able to live in the St Louis area without AC. This climate is incompatible with life in my case. I spent two hours by the swimming pool last week and then was bedridden for 3 days with heatstroke.

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            3. We actually have European tourists complain about the indoor winter cold. All our building are designed to reduce summer heat. In winter it is just wear more clothes.

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        2. People deserve whatever happens to them, honestly. During COVID, I would rip off yellow tape from playgrounds and roll away the large boulder that halted entrance into the Gardens. Other people in the meantime we’re moaning that their kids were going nuts indoors. If you’d rather die than take out the window latch, then I guess it’s what you want.

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          1. “I would rip off yellow tape from playgrounds and roll away the large boulder”

            Say what you want about the many downsides… growing up in Eastern Europe does give a person life skills that always come in handy.

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            1. I’m very grateful to life that I grew up in the USSR. I hated the experience but it gave me some personal qualities that I treasure.

              I’m also grateful that I lived through the arrival of wild neoliberalism in 1991. I’m now very prepared for the wild neoliberalism stage we are eagerly ushering in here in the West. I don’t want it to come. It’s terrible. But I already figured it out once, and I will do it again. That’s why I keep warning people to think hard whether they really want it. Because I know what it’s like, and it’s not pretty.

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      2. Yes, I heard about the window locks. But honestly, what kind of a bizarre person doesn’t simply remove them? I’m sure there are no door to door police raids to check window locks.

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        2. “I heard about the window locks. … simply remove them?”

          Supposedly they come with keys but hotels or Air BnB’s don’t necessariy advertise that.

          Also.. years ago I knew an Australian guy who’d lived in Britain for years (very unimpressed) who said “Poms don’t open windows” (explaining a mutual British acquaintance who would bake inside in summer (on the sunny side of the building) rather than open a window.

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    2. When my mother and I visited London, I supposed hotels had window restrictors for safety reasons, but never thought they were used in private flats, especially in a way that prevented owners from removing them.

      They can be easily removed, right? So a flat owner can do that.

      Is it a problem when people rent so cannot remove those things since a flat owner forbids that?

      In Ukraine, we could open only “форточка” / “a small pane within a multi-paned window that is designed to open for ventilation or other purposes” since the entire window was sealed (? not quite the right words) with something for heat-keeping in winter.

      Yet, I don’t remember suffering from heat in summer. May be, those window restrictors let in less air than our “форточки”

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      1. We removed the sealant every spring and then put it back in when it became cold. Of course, it wasn’t actual sealant but strips of cloth with cotton wool under it that we would manufacture.

        Loved with the open windows all summer and suffered terribly from mosquitoes because there were no mesh inserts available. Nobody knew that was something that even existed.

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      1. “Hot weather sucks.”

        You haters of hot weather should be grateful that you don’t live in southern Arizona.

        It’s been well over 110 degrees today, and it’s going to be that hot EVERY DAY for the next three months, with NO rainfall at all during the summer.

        And I LOVE the desert climate here. (Eat your heart out!)

        Dreidel

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