The Winter of Discontent
Mia is a renter from Canberra, ACT. She shared a cold house with two flatmates while at university.
After we received the first season’s electricity bill, my housemates and I flatly refused to heat the house, no matter how low the mercury dropped.
Admittedly, we probably could have used a heater occasionally, but we didn’t trust ourselves to ration it once we’d had a taste: heating was a slippery slope. Anyway, all we had was an ancient box in the living room which gave off a rather nasty smell whenever we turned it on. And the house was so draughty it went back to being an icebox almost immediately. “You’d only end up feeling even colder and more miserable for yourself than you had before,” we schooled distraught and disbelieving visitors whenever they inquired about the heating.
We walked around our home like we were about to head off for a day of skiing – laden with puffer jackets, scarves, gloves, and beanies. When July came around we even started wearing this armour to bed, buried deep beneath five layers of blankets, sleeping bags, and whatever else we could find to heap on top. Still, when we woke up in the morning we’d see our breath hanging in the air as we lay there, weighing up a bursting bladder against the dread of facing sub-zero temperatures in the bathroom.
One August I hosted a Sydneysider who was coming to Canberra for an inter-varsity law competition. I stressed incessantly the importance of bringing a sleeping bag and warm clothes, but he forgot even a pillow. To make matters worse, he ended up sleeping on the couch after I couldn’t get the pump for the air mattress to work.
He got not a wink of sleep the two nights he stayed. I found him wide awake the first morning, buried under every piece of clothing he had brought, including even an expensive-looking suit jacket. My two night-owl housemates confirmed they’d seen him browsing Instagram at 3am.
He was a good sort and didn’t complain, though he was very keen on the complimentary coffee available at our workshop the next day. He politely declined my offer of a couch the second time around and wisely decided to book a hostel for that particular occasion.
The cold had some other unintended consequences. We had to give up olive oil because it turned solid just sitting in the cupboard. I tried putting it in the fridge once to see if that would help, since it seemed warmer there than it was in the cupboard, but to no avail. Even my toothpaste froze once when I left it on the windowsill.
Unbelievably, it was at least five degrees colder inside the house than it was outside. We took to opening up all the doors and windows in the dead of winter to try and warm it up. The neighbours probably thought we were bonkers.
I eventually just avoided the place at all costs. I’d get up early and pack a dinner to take to uni along with my lunch. This worked well, since it let me stay in the library well into the night. I tried to reason it was good for my study but deep down we all knew the truth. The only problem was that, the longer you stayed, the colder the bike ride home.
When all else failed, the only way to heat up was to take a scalding shower of pure hot water that turned your butt and chest this horrible shade of pink-red and gave the impression of having been badly sunburnt at a nudist beach. It even produced that flaky sunburn skin too.
By the second or third winter I was spending at least a couple of nights a week at the house of my boyfriend who, thankfully, still lived at home, and whose public-servant parents could afford to keep the place cozy. It turned me soft, though, and every time I returned home it felt even less bearable. We were all waiting to see who would crack first. The prize has to go to the poor housemate who resorted, one frosty night, to blowing herself with a hairdryer for warmth.
Mia is still renting but thankfully now lives in an insulated home with a modern heater.