This story comes from a woman renting an apartment in Dorchester.
I live on the 2nd floor of a triple decker in Dorchester, a neighborhood in Boston. I’ve been here for about 8 and half years. My space has a dozen windows and because of all of the light it’s blazing hot in the summer. In order to try and keep my home cool, I have 4 fans and 2 air conditioning window units. I try to be really strategic about when I use the fans and the ACs to keep the bill as low as possible. I only use the fans and AC when I need to. The electric bill would be very high if I ran these units all of the time.
During the summer I spend a lot of time at the library or walking around the mall to access the free AC. I keep all of my blinds down during the summer to try to keep the space a little cooler. I’ll open the window at night for some fresh air if the temperature has gone down. My window units are quite difficult to manage. They don’t fit the windows perfectly so I have to work to secure them and carefully move them in and out of the windows. I worry that they might fall out one day. I’ve actually hurt my back trying to get them in and out of the windows. Generally, I’ll use them during the day and then take them out at night if it’s cool enough to get a breeze while I sleep. The past 2 years have been the hottest on record for the planet. Twenty years ago I didn’t even own an AC - I just had a fan. You can’t live here without AC anymore.
I have a gas stove/oven in my kitchen that I don’t use at all in the summer because it makes the apartment too hot. I’ve also learned how detrimental a gas stove can be to my health so when I cook with the stove (in the cooler months) I make sure to always keep the window open.
In the winter I have a space heater that I use to try to keep my heating bill lower. My apartment is quite large and there’s only one thermostat, so if I turn on the heat I’m heating the whole apartment. If I’m just using one room of the apartment it’s wasteful to turn the heat on. As a result, I generally don’t turn the heat on. It’s too expensive. I had to turn the heat on once this year just to make sure the pipes didn’t freeze.
The pandemic has really increased the amount of money I’ve had to spend on energy. Before the pandemic my bills were really low; I was at work in an office and then at the gym or attending events. Once everything transitioned to remote work I really noticed the impact on my energy bills.
I always pay my utility bills on time but it’s a challenge. Every once in a while after I pay my bill I think: “I guess I’m going to eat rice and beans for a week.”
I unplug everything in my apartment. Even if I use it every day. I also make sure to turn the power strip off in the evening when I am asleep.
I would really like to see the state and utilities better manage wasteful energy use. I see so many outdoor restaurant venues heating outside spaces in the winter and think about how wasteful that is. There are also apartment buildings where the tenants don’t have the ability to regulate their own heat and it gets so hot in the winter that they need to open the windows. We must be as smart as possible about how we’re using our energy.