Twenty years ago, Sofia Coppola’s film Lost in Translation was released, a title that we always remember when we want to talk about some misunderstanding associated with ignorance of any language. Although the movie, of course, tells us something completely different. Well, it happens, you know…

And yet, for example, it also happens that several people live under the same roof, and have completely different ideas about what a comfortable temperature is for living and sleeping. And what for some is a pleasant coolness, to others, feels like a brutal cold. A not-so-pleasant situation just like this is depicted in the story recently posted by the user u/CamoMaster74 in the Reddit Malicious Compliance community.

The author of the post shares a rented home with four other small families, most of whom don’t speak English

Image credits: Pixabay (not the actual image)

The HVAC system in the house is designed in such a way that everything is combined with just one thermostat

Image credits: u/CamoMaster74

Image credits: Erik Mclean (not the actual image)

Image credits: u/CamoMaster74

The author’s neighbors had been constantly changing the thermostat temperature and never switching it back

Image credits: Vlada Karpovich (not the actual image)

Image credits: u/CamoMaster74

The tenant finally had had enough of it and took some brilliant petty revenge, letting them sleep with cold air blowing

So, according to the Original Poster (OP), they share a 5-bedroom home with 4 other small families and their communication is greatly hindered by the language barrier, because the rest of the neighbors are from a Spanish-speaking country and do not speak English well. And the neighbors, as the author of the post adds, constantly set a temperature in the house that is uncomfortable for them and their roommate.

The thing is that the HVAC system in the house is designed in such a way that proper ventilation between rooms or floors is almost impossible, and there are no thermometers in each room either – everything is controlled through a thermostat, which is located in the hall which the OP shares with their roommate. And because of this very thermostat, the author constantly had problems with their neighbors…

Even though the landlord once requested for the thermostat to be kept above 60°F as long as it’s colder than that outside, the neighbors kept going around and setting it up their own way. In fact, as the author of the post believes, everything could be done much easier – just open the window when it gets hot, and close it when the room is ventilated enough. However, the neighbors, as they have already said, had their own ideas on what comfort is.

So it turned out that the thermostat was constantly at the level of 80°F, or 50°F, and the OP had either to freeze and sweat from the heat or switch it manually twice a day. They set everything to the standard 60°F, but the next day it happened again… This went on until the OP remembered how the landlord once told them that the air coming out of the vents was cold because most of the HVAC system is in an uninsulated garage. But the neighbors didn’t know about it because the landlord didn’t speak Spanish either! And so, one beautiful evening, the author of the post and their roommate got ready for some petty revenge…

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They grabbed all the blankets they could find, did not switch the thermostat from the 50°F previously set by the neighbors, and simply went to bed. The doors in each room were well insulated, so that cold air from the street constantly blew into all the rooms all night long… Needless to say, the next day, absolutely all the neighbors started to leave the thermostat set to the standard 60°F.

Image credits: Pixabay (not the actual image)

In fact, according to experts, sleeping in either too hot or too cold temperatures is not very healthy, so the perfect range would be exactly the same 60 to 70°F, as recommended by the landlord from our tale. For example, Michelle Drerup, PsyD, a sleep psychologist at Cleveland Clinic, says to keep your bedroom at 60 to 67°F (15 to 19° C) and to think of your bedroom as your ‘cave.’ “It should be cool, dark and quiet to enhance your sleep,” the expert claims.

Funke Afolabi-Brown, MD, a board-certified pediatric pulmonologist and sleep medicine physician, also suggests that the ideal temperature for sleep is between 60 and 72°F. “This is ideal because variations in our core body temperature, which is regulated by our body’s circadian rhythm, drop in the evening and coincide with our brain’s melatonin secretion. Having a cool room environment further promotes this temperature drop and improves our sleep quality.” Dr. Afolabi-Brown explains on her own website.

Meanwhile, in the comments to the original post, a real discussion has ensued about the principles of the thermostat, as well as about human physiology and the psyche, which sometimes makes that physiology suffer, pretty much – for example, sleeping all night in an excessively cold room. However, according to the original poster’s own words, they plan to move out of this house in the near future… no, not because the neighbors found out why they were freezing all night, but for some financial reasons. Whatever the case, most folks in the comments just do not get how it’s actually possible to share a thermostat with neighbors…

In fact, neighbors can be so unpredictable that even the sight of another person sleeping peacefully in a hammock in their own backyard due to stuffiness in the house (yes, outside the comfortable temperature range) may seem inappropriate and offensive to them – as it happened in the story told in this post of ours. In the meantime, we would like to know your opinion about the heroes of this tale, so please express your viewpoints in the comments below.

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Massive discussion arose in the comments, yet some of the commenters just advised the author to move out of that house

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