Roommate insists on keeping apartment at 80°F in the winter and refuses to bundle up, roommate develops hack to trick the thermostat: 'She also told me she doesn't even look at the cost of her electricity'

Author image for JR Atkinson
JR Atkinson • Writer and Editor
Dec 9, 2025 10:00 PM EST

Who hasn't had an argument about the thermostat with a loved one or a roommate? 

It's like that episode of Peep Show where Jez identifies that Mark's new roommate likes the temp slightly lower while he likes it slightly higher, so they compromise and remain "Both one degree uncomfortable." Nobody wants to be one degree uncomfortable. But this is bound to happen when you live with others. Not everyone has the same internal temperature or experience of warm and cold. Maybe you run hot and are always peeling off layers when your roommate is putting on a sweater in the same conditions. Humans are tricky that way. But odds are, you're splitting the utilities. This means that you have to find some way to compromise. 

The pair in this story couldn't quite do that. One of them wanted to keep the apartment blazing hot all of the time, even in the winter, when it is monumentally expensive to do so. Hasn't she heard of putting on some warm socks and wrapping yourself under a blanket? We're not all made of money!

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  • A woman adjusts the thermostat on a wall.
    via Unsplash+ (Kateryna Hliznitsova)

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

  • That's what her roommate tried to explain to her after she kept setting the thermostat way too high. But when she wouldn't listen, she developed a sneaky tactic to trick her into thinking she was getting her way. Read on for the full story and see what commenters had to say about this “trick.”

  • Roommate refuses to wear clothes in winter and cranks heat to 80°F. She doesn't understand thermodynamics, so I'm using a pot of water to trick the thermostat.

    As the weather had been getting colder, I have come back to my apartment multiple times to find that my roommate has cranked up the heater to 79 or 80. I'm perfectly fine with that temperature during Phoenix summers where we live, but 80 inside when it's 40 outside is probably just as expensive as running 70 inside when it's 110 outside. We run heat on electricity, not gas. Either way, she claims that she:
    via u/Organic_Talk_79
  • • Has anemia and is sensitive to cold temperatures but refuses to wear more clothes (she regularly walks around in a spaghetti tank top and shorts), buy a space heater for her room (allowed by the lease), or find any alternative method to keep herself warm outside of turning the apartment into the desert. I have thyroid issues and cold intolerance as well, but I put on more layers like a normal person.
    via u/Organic_Talk_79
  • • Wanted to run the apartment . at 73 or 75 during the hotter months, yet apparently she cannot tolerate lower than 78 in the winter. • Does not care about finances . yet has shown to be financially irresponsible. Out of the three or four months she's lived here, on two
    via u/Organic_Talk_79
  • months I've found notices from the landlord on our door that she hasn't paid rent yet and has to cough up or get out. Our rent is on separate leases and we're not liable for each other, so it doesn't impact me, but our utility bill is split in half before it's even billed. Our third roommate moved out, so we're splitting the cost of utilities for a 3 bedroom apartment, and I doubt either of us can afford running the heat so high.
    via u/Organic_Talk_79
  • • Does not understand how the HVAC works and refuses to believe the cost will go up significantly running the heat at 72 vs. running at 80. She also told me she doesn't even look at the cost of her electricity.
    via u/Organic_Talk_79
  • Eventually we settled on 76 after her choosing to ignore my texts asking to talk and actively avoiding me in the common area. It's okay when the sun's out, but the other night, the heater turned on 3 times between 12 am to 1 am, and that was my last straw. I looked up our thermostat's manual online and changed the temperature offset
    via u/Organic_Talk_79
  • setting from 0.5 to 2, so it doesn't run the moment the apartment drops to 75.5. I also changed the maximum heat setting to 76 and locked the thermostat so that she needs to press the buttons in a specific combination to be able to edit the settings. She's not exactly the brightest crayon in the box given she doesn't even know how the HVAC works, so I doubt she will figure it out.
    via u/Organic_Talk_79
  • That was normal and all, but after looking around, I found the thermostat is mounted on the living room wall, and directly on the other side of that same drywall is our pantry. If I put something on one of the shelves, it would be directly behind the thermostat. I took my cooking pot, filled it with hot water, wrapped it in towels, and stuck it on that shelf. The heat should permeate through the drywall and convince the thermostat it's warmer than it actually is.
    via u/Organic_Talk_79
  • The sun keeps the apartment warm in the day, and every night, I've been sticking a pot of hot water in the pantry. I store some random stuff in there, so a pot wouldn't look out of place at all, not that she has ever opened the pantry. Either way, the heater barely runs, and she still thinks it's 76 degrees.
    via u/Organic_Talk_79
  • EDIT: For those who don't think it would work: on two nights with very similar lows (43-44) and the same AC settings from 10 pm to 4 am, the heater turned on 5 times without the pot and only 2 times with the pot. Additionally, the first night I tried it, the temperature sensor even rose to 77 at some point. If it's 40 or 50-something
    via u/Organic_Talk_79
  • outside, it would be impossible for that to happen without some sort of heat making the sensor read wrong. I would trust empirical evidence over people claiming it wouldn't work.
    via u/Organic_Talk_79
  • A woman sweats on a blue couch indoors, stretching out.
    via Nikolay Kolosovskiy

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

  • Commenters had some disagreements about what was going on here.

    puddncake · 22h ago She needs a heated vest for Christmas.
    via u/puddncake
  • Resident-Conditio... . 22h ago Someone never had a parent tell you "put on a sweater if you're cold" and it shows.
    via u/Resident-Condition-2
  • Briilliant_Bob . 22h ago Won't constantly having a pot of hot water in a pantry cause mold to grow in there?
    via u/Briilliant_Bob
  • psychoPiper • 22h ago Now to just allow this hot steam to seep through my drywall to trick the thermostat... Surely nothing bad could happen lol
    via u/psychoPiper
  • Commercial-Guid... . 22h ago As an hvac tech, you both. don't understand thermodynamics.
    via u/Commercial-Guide-704
  • Terrible_Sandwic... Saying she doesn't understand . 22h ago thermodynamics while bragging about using a pot of water with no heat source on the other side of the wall to trick the thermostat is pretty funny.
    via u/Terrible_Sandwich_94
  • ZestyChinchilla • 22h ago Unfortunately that's not really how thermostats work.
    via u/ZestyChinchilla
  • IllusoryFuture • 22h ago 80 degrees in winter? Geeze. I sweat when it's that hot inside in summer! (I tend to run hot.) I also live in Phoenix and haven't even turned on my heat yet this winter. house is currently 68 degrees and I'm fine with it.
    via u/IllusoryFuture
  • ScienceConstant3... . 22h ago There's absolutely no way that is doing anything. Either this story is just made up or you're gaslighting yourself about temp. lol Jesus
    via u/ScienceConstant3225
  • Patient_Doctor44... . 22h ago Can't you program your thermostat so the temperature is lower when she's asleep?
    via u/Patient_Doctor4480
  • jd3marco 22h ago I'm not sure how much that pot of water will help. I would just turn down the thermostat. She cannot run the heat like that. I assume it would be a battle. The up and down of changing the settings will cost a lot too.
    via u/jd3marco
  • Your landlord is already probably pissed at her. Running the heat at 80 got damn degrees will shorten the life of his equipment. I would explain what's going and ask for lock or password protected thermostat.
    via u/jd3marco
  • Grand-Expression... . ⚫ 21h ago >That was normal and all, but after looking around, I found the thermostat is mounted on the living room wall, and directly on the other side of that same drywall is our pantry. If I put something on one of the shelves, it would
    via u/Grand-Expression-783
  • be directly behind the thermostat. I took my cooking pot, filled it with hot water, wrapped it in towels, and stuck it on that shelf. The heat should permeate through the drywall and convince the thermostat it's warmer than it actually is. Putting a pot of hot water on the other side of a wall is not doing anything.
    via u/Grand-Expression-783
  • WaltRanger 22h ago This is the dumbest petty revenge I've ever read. Putting a pot of water (that required energy and therefore money to create) in a cabinet wrapped in towels will not have any effect on the thermostat.
    via u/WaltRanger
  • Character-Floor-6... 22h ago . Heating is cheaper than cooling.. but putting on trousers and a sweater is a better answer than running the heat to 80 degrees. At some point Roommate will figure out that the thermostat isn't working as expected and will complain to the landlord.
    via u/Character-Floor-6687
  • RecognitionClean... . 22h ago That's not how it works. All you did was convince yourself that it worked.
    via u/RecognitionClean9550
  • lilolemi • 22h ago . My house was built in 1895 and is super drafty. We keep the heat at 65 in winter. We would go broke keeping the heat at 80.
    via u/lilolemi
  • bjk31987 • 16h ago . Laughs in Minnesota Tell your roommate to put on a damn sweater and some leggings/socks if she's cold. I keep the temperature around the low 60's and I haven't frozen yet. Get a warm blanket.
    via u/bjk31987
  • catcon13 • 21h ago You people are all much richer than me. I keep the thermostat at 64° in winter. Occasionally, if I can't bundle up enough to warn up, I'll bump it to 65 or 66 but that's it.
    via u/catcon13
  • SpaceManSmithy • 16h ago Imagine not wanting to put on warm comfy clothes in the winter.
    via u/SpaceManSmithy

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Tags

utilities thermostat aita drama cold bad roommates storytime friends reddit story friend story winter temperature reddit thread Reddit roommates discourse money conflict
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