HEATWAVE SUPPORT THREAD 🥵🥵🥵🥵🥵🥵🥵🥵🥵😡😡😡😡😢😢😢

[mumofoneAloneandwell]

I am not coping

Hardly slept. Youngest cried and didn’t sleep until 11pm when she then just fell asleep due to exhaustion. It’s horrid. Air conditioning units are sold out everywhere.

My poor little black cat has been panting 😐the old cat is laid out like a bearskin rug.

Can you somehow hang a sheet on the outside of your windows to stop the sun hitting them?

This is what they've been doing in France.

Thanks for the link @JenniferBooth

It's so horrific for those people - I wonder how on earth they are managing to survive this week?

Apparently 5 million children (not to mention all the adults too) are living in homes that overheat due to the way they are built.

I fear there are going to be deaths reported by the end of this week. I'm very surprised we aren't hearing on the news about heat related deaths already.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c0r7d7vzrkjo

10.30am here and already 29 degrees, due to reach 32 degrees by 1pm.

I'm hiding in the coolest room of the house with 3 fans on me and I have no intention of moving (drink and toilet breaks aside).

I'd say your cat is distressed due to overheating. Have you got a fan you can put fairly closeby? Also, I think I'd be tempted to phone the vet for advice on what you can do to cool further.

Very difficult to do in a second floor flat with tilt and turn windows. There’s no way I could get it across the full window span either, alas.

Been worried about my cat too. I just keep offering wet food and wet treats like dreamies yoghurty things or lik e liks to try to keep her hydrated. Obviously her appetite isn’t great in this heat but as long as she has something and some water I’m trying not to panic.

Panting is a sign of dehydration. Do your cats eat wet food?

I have tilt windows too. If you open the window and put the sheet or towel through the top gap then close it, it shuts the material and keeps it fixed in place.

Only my side windows open - the middle big one doesn't open at all so I just have sheet on the inside for that. But I've done my side windows and it helps.

My windows are in 4 big panes and the middle two open so I could shove something on there. But it still leaves two large panes either side. I’m also - and I know how this sounds - a bit wary because I’m surrounded by neighbours and yes, I’m concerned how it will look from the outside. At least with my back door and the metallic blanket that looks like a crack den it’s not too visible so that doesn’t bother me.

This is terrible and I really feel for these people living in tiny, cramped flats with poor insulation and windows on only one side so you can't get any through-flow of air. Our climate is changing faster than we can remediate, our infrastructure can't cope and we don't have the money to retrofit old housing, schools and offices. We know that the old, the young and people with certain health conditions struggle to regulate their body temperature, but how is anyone supposed to cope if their home is 43 degrees?

It's incredibly unsafe to be in a room for longer than a few minutes at 43C.
Heat stroke and dehydration will set in very quickly.

People are going to die.
They must be dying already - we just aren't hearing about it.

Any doctors or nurses about to let us know what's happening out there?

I know what you mean about the look of it. But once you put yours up I bet lots of others will follow suit.

If you are in an area that's predicted to get to 37C today do it for the sake of your health.

I’m always reminded of this article when it gets super hot:

https://www.irishexaminer.com/lifestyle/outdoors/arid-41688018.html

Tomorrow’s forecast is supposed to be 35 here. I think I’ll have to just shove something up there.

I have a portable air con unit upstairs, it tells me the room temperature when I turn it on.

Last night it said 40c.

40!!!

And honestly the aircon only really took the edge off. Left on all night and it only got down to 29c.

Our house is a sauna in the Summer and cold in the Winter. Bet you can guess which season I prefer!

Poor children in this heat. Wet hair and fans seem to help.

Seriously considering sleeping on the beach tonight 😭

I ended up doing just that last night. A few years ago we converted our garage to a living space and I gave up and put a cheap airbed in there last night because I was mentally declining with the constant lack of sleep (one of the major factors in my summer seasonal depression). I am still hating every last second of what I call selfish season (the hotting up climate is the result of collective human selfishness in my opinion) but at least I’ve had some sleep so I can actually function!

It is hard to sleep isn't it? We were out last night in London with friends (London was heaving - so many people out and about!), but when we got back the house had been closed up all day and all evening and it was like a furnace. It was nice and cool at 11pm though so we opened everything up and got a breeze going through, but the bedrooms were still so warm.

I've taken the duvets out of all the covers and we're sleeping with a fan at the bottom of the bed and that just about makes it bearable.

I’d really like to get some of those ceiling fans. They must do a reasonable job because you often see them fitted in hot countries.

Taylor Swift and you're a goth? Very interesting lol x

What will be moaned about next week?

Yes, they do work really well. We lived OS for a while and a lot of apartments have them attached to the light fitting. If your ceilings are high enough to safely accommodate them, they're great.

I’m (maybe completely incorrectly!) guessing either the goth fest or Taylor Swift is for a child / children? I don’t know why though, as I love Taylor Swift thanks to my dd, and have eclectic music taste myself.

34 degrees in Wiltshire. Am melting. But WFH & hot tub on cool which has been a blessing with dd home from school the last 2 days.

They have carried on building like that WITH the knowledge of summers getting hotter so death from heat stroke in one of these places surely = manslaughter