Student house of freezing teenagers - heating on? No

[Uneek]

My DD lives in a student rental with 5 others, with rent and bills split evenly between them. A couple of them are refusing to put the heating on. When my DD has suggested having it on with the thermostat set at a low temp, one of them said she should just put another jumper on. When DD said she would buy a plug in electric heater for her bedroom, the 'put another jumper on' student said she would not pay towards the electricity for the heater as it costs more than gas.

This has turned into a competition to see how long they can go with no heating. 'Another jumper on' student even suggested seeing if they can last until Christmas!

Has anyone else come across this issue? Suggestions on how to stop a war breaking out in this house and allow them to defrost...

I use an oil filled heater, they warm up the room brilliantly. However, I would caution they use quite a lot of electricity. Is there any way she can say she will use the heater and work out approx how much it will cost to run and pay for it?

Buy her a paraffin heater and paraffin. It does not need to plug in and she does not consume leccy.

Solutions: she pays for the ch. or she heats her room only (eg electric heater with smart plug) and pays for that part.

if her house mates can’t afford it what other option is there?

Yep this wins.

FGS just don’t bring it up and then switch it on and feign ignorance. If it’s a multi person house no ones going to know who did it and half the people probably don’t even know how to work it. Have a secret switch on switch off war in true passive aggressive house sharing manner. And do please share the subsequent note war 🤣

My DD in her mid 20s has this issue. She is in a house share in Bristol. Her housemate is on a much lower wage and is incredibly worried about putting heating on. Jumpers, hot water bottles and blankets seem to be current solution. It’s miserable

Nope I've just bought a small one for the bathroom.

This concerns me as my DD is going into 2nd year and looking with friends for a share - this is not something i had considered that some students might not heat the room to save on money, ridiculous. I thank the OP for highlighting this potential issue as i will insist on a cost share agreement from day one is set up.
In the student halls, heating is included as part of the rent so not an issue for first year students.
The only option the OP has here is to try and encourage her DD to reach agreement to split it 6 ways, that is the cost. If the two jumpers still refuse to pay their share she needs to replace with two students that will pay. Its either that or the OP's DD finds alternative digs or the OP pays more which just isnt right.

Good luck

Buy thick insulated curtains for her room. It makes quite a difference.

God, another one who wants to send us back 200 years to 'the good old times' of damp and mould.She won't be healthy for long when her room looks like my dds student room- a veritable rainbow of mould! See pics

There is usually a ceiling on the bills though

Students can't all live in the same room and get any work done!

buy her an electric blanket. Pennies to run, much cheaper then heating the space

I'd hate this!
But it's a good lesson for your DD to challenge strong willed people.
They need to have a house meeting and a vote. She needs to gather her thoughts and make a clear argument.
And say something along the lines of we all live here together and one person doesn't get to dictate how we live.
Perhaps they could come to an agreement that those with and electric heater in their room pay a higher proportion?

If money is an issue she can get support to pay for her bills from the uni.

Not the same but I lived with an overly clean person at uni. She just assumed that we'd all get in line if she moaned enough. But the fact of the matter was the house wasn't too messy or unclean - she just had unreasonable standards and her moaning was annoying us all. So we basically said we'll try and but harder but she needed to also try harder at being more relaxed and being a more pleasant housemate or she could leave if it wasn't working for her. The penny dropped and it was it was like a personality change for her. She realised she couldn't go through life with everything on her terms.

This has reminded me of my first house share. No heating or hot water. We used to sleep with coats and hats on. It was miserable. I second those saying get her a heated blanket, her housemates don't have to know. They should take a vote on the heating.

I do feel for the students who are worried about not being able to afford the bills.
For both my kids bills are included so that has removed that particular argument but there is room for many others! Back in the 90s we heated our flat to a min - everyone spent the day in the library and no one took the piss - we were in lock step.
Surprising how involved parents are in their adult kids lives, will they ever be allowed or able to solve their own problems.

I had housemates who proudly lived up to their frugal Yorkshire reputations and not helped by an inadequate heating system from when the house had been sub-divided; it was had the power for a small flat, not a large townhouse. The pipes never had chance to warm up as the heating would inevitably have been switched off before you'd sat in your room too long.
By spring, I discovered it was better to leave my window open to let the outdoor heat in! It was damp (but not mouldy) behind my bed where the bay window was- but realistically it was poor layout from when the room was divided and no other place to put the bed than in the most vulnerable spot. I naturally kept the bed slightly off the wall for my comfort, but actually it was the best practical response to the problem.

Over winter, I used a bowl of tealights for heating my room- not the safest option and heated throws would be a far safer option (they didn't seem to be a thing 20 years ago, and electric blankets were the kind of thing your granny might have and hadn't got over their 70s incinerating you in your bed reputation)

Students typically have lived pretty aescetically, argued a lot about it and skulked off to their illicitly heated rooms anyway. Aside from damp/ asthma issues, they're a pretty hardy demographic.

These days, I'd go for a heated throw in this situation.

Sneaky plug in room heaters are the most expensive way to heat a home.
We had one rich kid in a house share who did this and we still remember it 20 years later because the rest of us paid for it!
50p an hour, an hour in the morning, four or five at night that's £20 a week, nearly a hundred over a month.
The sneaky way will cripple everyone we else. Far better to talk to your kids about the actual cost of each method and the implication of poorly insulated housing stock along with geography.
Someone moving from a new build in Surrey to a Manchester Victorian 7bed is going to have no idea.

Please don’t buy her a separate heater for her room, as pointed out the hourly cost of using these is high!!
I put ours on a couple of weeks ago and the cost was 35p per hour, the heated blanket costs a penny per hour- huge difference.

But I agree the heating needs to be on for a couple of hours each day to avoid damp (and just for generally living in), then supplement with heated blanket, hot water bottle etc.

This one just needs thrasing out, I think.

I'd start with pointing out the risk of mould meaning desposits are not returned and pushing those that are holding out to commit to refunding the others the missing despsit if mould is the reason they do not get part/all returned. That might help sharpen some minds to the fact that's it's not just being cold that is the risk they are taking.

Look at a minimum temperature everyone can agree to. Say, 19c between 7am and 8am and then again between 6pm and 9pm. Then, make sure everyone commits to doing all the OTHER things that save energy money (efficient modes, not charging stuff that doesn't need it, using curtains open/closed at the right times of day to capture heat then keep it in, not leaving doors open unnecessarily etc).

She needs to organise a house meeting and the majority rule. There should be heating on, if cold, at least twice a day. They can't let one housemate hold them to ransom.

‘Another jumper on' doesn't understand how a flat share works and needs to grow up or move out. Tell your daughter to put the heating on and get a heater for her room. If the others don’t want to pay their share they can leave the property while it’s being heated.

Get him to calculate additional cost s for uis heating , then he pays additional ?

We had this in my uni house. At one point, three of us girls all slept in one bedroom with an electric heater because at least one room was warm.

it all came to a head and blew up into an enormous argument because one of the ‘extra jumper’ brigade made a comment about the black mould and didn’t like it when us girls pointed out that that’s because it was bloody freezing. He moved out at the start of the following term, the heating went on when we needed it and it was lovely after.