Older teen DD has decided to live in our annex over the garage. It has a separate entrance to the main house and is heated separately.
The main house is well insulated and has a central heating system powered by a heat pump which works most efficiently when it is left on all the time but at a low level. Our kitchen and living room are always warm, the bedrooms and any other rooms at a lower setting, and DH’s office is only heated by a wood burner lit on days he works from home. We spend most of our time in kitchen and living room.
By contrast, the annex is on electric panel heaters, and is adequately insulated but not to the extent of the house. The heaters have timers and temperature settings on them. It has become apparent recently that DD has turned the heaters on 24/7 and has them on a high setting. She does not return them to timed settings when she is out at college during the day. She also has an electric blanket on her bed which seems to be on all the time. DD suffers quite pronounced Raynaud’s Phenomenon, to the extent that she was referred to a consultant for a particular medication to keep it under control. However, her main way of keeping it under control is to keep herself warm. She has decided this makes a good reason for having her heating on all the time.
DD insists that if she puts the heating back on a timer, she might come in early from college and then have a Raynauds episode, during which she cannot feel or move her hands, which will leave her unable to do coursework until it passes. I am of the opinion that she should come into the house and work in the kitchen (open plan, vast, and warm!) until her heating comes on. DH said I should cut her some slack, then he got the electricity bill after the December cold snap and has declared ‘something must be done about it!’
AIBU to expect DD to share our main heated living spaces with us if her annex is not warm enough? There is a bit more going on too, she arrives in the house at family meal times, eats, then disappears again, without taking part in any of the meal preparation or tidy up, which annoys me much more than it annoys DH. DD does not yet pay bills as she is still in higher education. However her desire to live in her own space before she has the money to pay for one or the maturity to look after herself makes me feel a bit like I’m running a hotel just for her. DH gave her the blessing to live in the annex once she reached a particular birthday, but I was away on a business trip when she moved out and would have liked to have seen the annex made a bit more teen-friendly and more ground rules put in place before she moved into it. DH said he thought I was being a bit silly and too strict, but the cat is out of the bag now and it is hard to lay out rules now that she has been living out there for over a year!