Adult Children who live at home the heating goes on when your parents say so.

Keeping your house freezing cold has become a bit of a cult on here. As I recall, this particular race to the bottom began last winter. It seems to have taken over from the "I never answer the door" one.

Last year I read a post from someone boasting that it was 8C in their house. I quickly checked met office weather and found that the lowest temperature in uk was 12C.

A lot of early 20s/graduates have no idea how much it costs though - at uni bills are often included in the rent. My friend rents to students and they crank it up high all day long. My brother was the same - it was all 'free' to him.

I had a housemate who moved into our HMO which was rent excluding bills. We'd get the bills in and split it 4 ways. Housemate was used to rent inc bills. She'd put the heating on whenever she was in. If you switched it off, she'd put it straight back on, wandering around in shorts and a sleeveless top and exclaiming she was 'chilly'.

The final straw was when I came home one day and noticed her bedroom windows were wide open. Oh great, she's finally realised it's like a sauna in the house. No, the heating was still on full blast! When I knocked and asked her why the heating was on but the windows open, she said she'd got stuffy and wanted some fresh air. Turn the fucking heating off first!

Needless to say, she never actually paid a heating bill and when it came in after the first quarter, she avoided us, argued about paying 1/4 when really it should have been more anyway, and eventually one day just disappeared leaving us splitting it 3 ways.

Ha, DS complained about not having control over the heating, I said him WFH meant that the bills had shot up, and that he and his employers were benefitting financially from him being at home, but I was losing out.
He then offered to pay me more money and we agreed on an extra £100 pm and he could then put the heating on when he wanted to.
TBH I'm not even sure that £100 per month covered having the heating on for an extra 8 hours a day, and the extra electricity for a multiplicity of computers and screens, but we agreed it and he kept paying it over the summer.
He's moved out now, I'll be interested to see the difference in useage.

If the AC don’t like the heating arrangements at Mum and Dad’s, they move out, get their own accommodation and have the heating on whenever they choose.

Really depends.

If the homeowner is struggling to find the cash to pay for the heating then maybe the kids can cough up some more rent to help out.

But in some cases it's probably just a matter of people being miserly and wanting to save pennies at the expense of being miserable.

Everyone has a different opinion on heating though, and one of the reasons I am glad to be out of rentals is because some people seemed to think heating a house while leaving all the windows open because otherwise it gets "stuffy" is a sensible thing to do.

Yabu. It's cold during the day if wfh. Saying that should pay rent and money towards heating

YABU yes - they pay rent they shouldn't have to freeze.

Surely it is a matter for them and their parents.

Can you have some kind of system for charging them when they do that?

I can't work out if this post is more patronising, infantalising, meddling or just stupid. It's 1C in London at the moment, of course people should have their heating on in order to work. It's bad enough that rents are so out of control that gen z is being forced to live at home for longer than older generations did, now they should be freezing while living there too?

We had Economy 7 electric heating in our rental flat that didn't really work properly, so it was a choice between no heating and putting on the expensive to run during the day panel heaters, which we didn't want to do as the prices of electric shot up. Our kitchen generally ran at 8c, you could see your breath in there in the morning. I'd be in multiple layers and have a hot shower every day at 4pm just to warm up.

Really handy if you're someone like me who frequently forgets to put the butter or milk away, though 😁

Absurd. Heating should be on. They are paying rent. Alternatively, they should have some heating device in their room to keep them warm. It's 0 degrees outside the heating can't even raise the temp by 2 degrees in 2 hours. Probably that house is like 12-14 degrees. That's not livable condition.

It is VERY VERY COLD at the moment in the UK and cost of energy is ruinous. Difficult situation. I think almost anyone working at home, adult child or not, especially in a draughty or badly insulated home, needs to wrap up warm in this weather and try to manage with a lower room temperature than they might prefer. But leaving the heating off all day won't work if it's minus 3 outside. Compromise is essential and an offer to pay towards the extra heating is appropriate.

I just like people to be comfortable in my home, rather than miserable.
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If I was having to be careful about paying for heating, I'd ask the children for extra money. That's the fairest thing to do.

I'd say yes because they asked the bill payer! :)

You're lucky that you can afford to in that case.

Suppose it depends on parents financial situation.

What's it got to do with you? When live-at-home 20-somethings want your opinion, I reckon they'll ask for it.

Surely that poster is just taking the p1ss?

No one could work at 6 and no one house gets down to 6 😂😂

There are HMO landlords who put locks on radiators/heating controls so that tenants can't turn them up. I've also known people who were lodgers who were left freezing because the live-in landlord was too tight to properly warm the house.

I am now imagining Zoom meetings with everyone huddled in their duvets - I guess it might develop an 'esprit de corps'.

The thermostat is on a timer at our house so it’s never going to be totally freezing. It’s 18.5 between 7.30am till 10pm. The issue is when people have very different ideas what warm is. My neighbour kept hers at 23 day and night, I would feel uncomfortable at that level of heat.

Bill payers should get final say. DS pays some rent it no way near covers his costs.

This reminds me of my mum growing up, in Scotland, she used to leave the windows open in winter to 'toughen us up', no heating

I don't visit often now as an adult.

Depends who pays the heating bill I guess.
I’m assuming it’s you. Maybe tell them they have to pay a contribution (separate from rent)?