‘My patience is wearing thin’: Roommate considers locking other roommate out of shared thermostat after a long-standing feud regarding apartment temperature during the winter

Author image for Lana DeGaetano
Lana DeGaetano • "Show me to me please."
Feb 17, 2025 9:00 AM EST

Sharing a small space with someone might seem like a great idea at first—you get to save money on a one-bedroom (because for some reason, they're more expensive,) and split the cost of utilities such as gas, water, and electricity. The issue with splitting bills down the middle is that someone might use 70 percent of the water that month while another might use only 30 percent. That's not fair, and some individuals try to take advantage of the 50-50 split agreement and use said agreement to defend their selfish decisions and actions.

In this next story, a person living with a roommate shares their ongoing thermostat battle with their roommate. This roommate has been turning the thermostat down to 50 degrees Fahrenheit during the winter because she prefers the house to be cold, but the person writing the story argues that a house should be warm in the winter. They even offered to pay 60 percent of the utility bill to make up for heating costs, but their roommate continues to avoid them when they try to have a productive conversation about it. If the roommate has a problem with the temperature, she can open her window. Agree? Scroll to read the whole story.

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  • "I'm getting ready to pull a nuclear option..." R 19/09/22 1633 19 KAMERTEMP DATE PROG- AUTO- MAN 1.6 Fk OFF
    via Arthur Lambillotte for Unsplash

    The image does not depict the actual subjects of the story. Subjects are models.

  • "WIBTA if I Locked my Roommate out of the Apartment Thermostat?"

    Last year, I got into a thermostat war with my roommate. When it got cold, I wanted to set a baseline temperature so that our central heater would keep our apartment above a certain point,
    via Non-Taken_Username2
  • usually around 67-69 degrees (F). We live in Southern California, so I figured that would be a reasonable baseline temperature. My roommate didn't like this, and would turn off the thermostat entirely any time the
    via Non-Taken_Username2
  • heat activated, no matter the temperature, eventually doing this regardless of whether the heat was actually running or not. We silently fought over it for a few weeks, until eventually I put
    via Non-Taken_Username2
  • my foot down and called a roommate meeting. The conclusion we came to was that I would get more control over the thermostat in exchange for paying for 60% of the electric bill.
    via Non-Taken_Username2
  • A year later and It's getting cold again. The outside temperature is regularly in the 50s-60s, so I'm back to setting the thermostat to around 68 degrees. Again, I think this is a reasonable baseline
    via Non-Taken_Username2
  • temperature that sets off the heat for maybe 10 minutes at a time once every hour or two when the apartment is at its coldest (usually between 12am and 10am). Despite our
    via Non-Taken_Username2
  • agreement, she's been messing with the thermostat again, although instead of turning it off altogether, she's setting it down to the eco setting every time she sees it higher than that (functionally, the same thing as turning it off).
    via Non-Taken_Username2

  • 68 degrees is a normal temperature to keep one's household at, especially when the weather starts getting a bit colder. When living with roommates, one has to consider not only what they want, but also what their roommate(s) want(s) as well. An easy fix for the person's roommate is to leave her window cracked to ventilate her room with some cold air. Instead of doing this, though, she continues to micromanage the thermostat and leave the house teetering the line of 50 degrees. 

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    The image does not depict the actual subjects of the story. Subjects are models.

  • After about a week of her doing this, I tried to extend an olive branch and text her while she was at work, saying I wanted to have a roommate meeting about it that night to cut this conflict off
    via Non-Taken_Username2
  • before we start to resent each other over it. She texted me back saying she wasn't feeling good mentally and that if we had a conversation that night, it wouldn't be productive. I told her I'd respect her space, and even as a peace offering kept the thermostat low that whole weekend.
    via Non-Taken_Username2
  • It's been 2 weeks since then, and she's been spending all her time in the apartment locked in her room, only coming out to grab food (to immediately take back into her room to eat). I have seen her for a collective 20 minutes
    via Non-Taken_Username2
  • over the past 2 weeks. It's still cold, and I'm starting to turn the heater up again (nothing extreme, almost never over 69 degrees), and she's still turning it down to 50 every time she sees it, even if the heater isn't actually on, and sometimes even remotely while she's at work through the thermostat's app
    via Non-Taken_Username2
  • She's clearly avoiding me and doesn't want to talk, and I'm getting real sick of playing this game with her. I'm getting ready to pull a nuclear option: kicking her off the app and setting a lock
    via Non-Taken_Username2
  • on the thermostat proper. I feel like this is an extreme option though, so I don't want to pull it unless things breakdown completely between us. However, my patience is wearing thin with her and I'm getting ready to go forward with it.
    via Non-Taken_Username2
  • TL;DR - WIBTA for locking my roommate from using the thermostat because she keeps turning it off, and is being avoidant and refusing to talk about it like an adult?
    via Non-Taken_Username2
  • Non-Taken_Us... Clarifying on the "Setting it down to 50 degrees" point: Our thermostat has an eco setting for when we basically don't want the heater on when it doesn't need to be (i.e when we're both not home). Setting down to 50
    via Non-Taken_Username2
  • doesn't make the apartment itself 50 degrees; it makes so the heater doesn't turn on UNLESS the indoor temperature gets that low (and considering the climate of where we live, that will never happen if the eco setting is on) So when it's set to the eco setting, the thermostat is functionally turned off
    via Non-Taken_Username2
  • InterestingChoic... Nta. You had an agreement and she's breaking it and lying about mental issues to avoid conflict
    via InterestingChoice484
  • Non-Taken_U... I don't think she's lying about it I do think she's using it to justify herself though
    via Non-Taken_Username2
  • Cosmic_Rat_Rave Give her a choice, no thermostat access or she starts paying the 60%. She made you start paying more to have control over it, she still has control, she needs to pay the larger part of the
    via Cosmic_Rat_Rave
  • bill. If she wants it 50/50 then she can act like a grown up and have an honest conversation about that a comfortable temperature is and stick to that. Either way don't let her keep control while getting a discount on utilities. That's bull
    via Cosmic_Rat_Rave
  • carealotcastle Houses are meant to be warm especially during the winter months. IMO If she prefers it to be cold she can crack her window and keep her room door shut, since she spends most of her time in there anyways. I might have had a different response if she spent most of her time in the common areas though. NTA, I hate being cold too.
    via carealotcastle

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landlord thermostat entitlement Heat rental house tenants legal cold tenant landlords weather apartments reddit story cold weather entitled renting winter reddit thread Reddit roommates entitled people apartment
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