If you live in a cold climate, having heat on during the winter is a necessity. And if you live in a hot climate, air conditioning can be essential as well. That’s why one woman decided to invest in an air conditioning unit, despite the fact that her family was struggling financially.

But according to her husband, keeping cool at home is a luxury. Below, you’ll find the full story that the wife shared on the “Am I the [Jerk]?” subreddit, detailing the drama that went down in her family after her spouse decided to sell their AC unit without consulting her.

Air conditioning is a necessity for many living in extremely hot climates

Image credits: cottonbro studio / Pexels (not the actual photo)

So when this woman’s husband sold their unit without consulting her, she demanded to be paid back immediately

Image credits: Airam Dato-on / Pexels (not the actual photo)

Image credits: Timur Weber / Pexels (not the actual photo)

Image credits: Delicate-Corner-5645

Image credits: Suleyman Seykan / Pexels (not the actual photo)

About 90% of households in the United States have air conditioning

If you live in a country with a mild climate year round or somewhere with extreme winters and very short summers, it’s likely that you’ve never needed to have air conditioning. When it’s only warm one month out of the year and an AC unit would be simply sitting unused for 11 months, it’s easy to consider cooling to be a luxury. But as someone who lived in south Texas for 18 years, I can say that it is definitely a necessity in many places.

Summers are brutal in Texas, but warm temperatures can be present for 9-10 months out of the year. The heat is exhausting and excruciating, and without being able to retreat inside to a cool room, I’m not sure how I would have gotten anything done during the summers growing up. According to Statista, about 90% of homes in the United States have air conditioning, but it’s not the only country that prioritizes keeping cool.

91% of households in Japan also have AC, along with 86% of homes in Korea. In Saudi Arabia, 63% of homes have air conditioning, 60% do in China, and 16% do in Mexico and Brazil. Fixr reports that only 10% of households in Europe have AC, which is understandable considering how short summers are in many of those countries. But the world is expected to have 5.6 billion air conditioning units installed worldwide by 2050, as the planet continues to warm due to climate change.

Image credits: Ketut Subiyanto / Pexels (not the actual photo)

AC can be a lifesaver in preventing deaths caused by heat-related illnesses

It’s a common misconception in some countries that air conditioning makes people sick. I’ve met plenty of people who swear that the cold irritates their throats or that their parents taught them it’s not healthy. But it can actually be extremely beneficial, especially for those who can’t handle being in extreme heat. According to the US Environmental Protection Agency, over 11,000 people have died due to heat-related causes since 1979.

The Guardian reports that those at the highest risk of developing heat-related illnesses in the summer time are unhoused individuals, elderly people, those with pre-existing medical conditions, people who work outdoors and those who don’t have reliable access to air conditioning. And approximately half of these heat-related deaths are thought to be heart attacks that are induced by high temperatures.  

Even Europe has seen devastating effects of rising temperatures. The 2022 heatwave killed over 60,000 people, primarily in Italy, Greece, Spain and Portugal. “It’s very frequent in summer in Spain in our hospitals,” Ángel Abad, a doctor at La Paz university hospital in Madrid told The Guardian. She noted that patients grow increasingly anxious as they realize they might be dying. “The patient cannot breathe. The heart starts failing. The [underlying] problem becomes stronger.”

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Image credits: Miriam Alonso / Pexels (not the actual photo)

Air conditioning can also provide other benefits, such as improving air and sleep quality

Aside from keeping people cool and saving lives, air conditioning can also improve air quality. Airwell explains that as long as the unit has quality filtration, an AC unit can filter out dust, pollen, mold, cigarette smoke and other pollutants, making the air inside very clean. This filtration can also prevent bacteria from reproducing, as well as stop viruses and microbes from floating through the air, supplying those inside with a constant stream of clean air.

Having an air conditioning unit can even improve the quality of your sleep. We all know it’s challenging to sleep when it’s boiling hot, and I’ve spent far too many nights  tossing and turning when I was visiting or living in a warm place without AC. According to Fortune Well, it’s been found that we actually do sleep less when our body temperature remains high during the night.

“During certain stages of sleep, our body is not able to regulate temperature, so if we’re exposed to extremes in temperatures, we are more likely to wake up,” Rebecca Robbins, instructor of medicine at Harvard Medical School, told Fortune Well. Experts say that the ideal temperature to sleep in, the “thermal neutral zone” is between 65-68 degrees Fahrenheit (or between 18-20 degrees Celsius). 

We would love to hear your thoughts on this situation in the comments below, pandas. Do you think this woman deserves to be paid back immediately? Then, if you’re interested in checking out another Bored Panda article discussing relationship drama, we recommend this piece!

Readers assured the woman that she had every right to be heated

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