To sleep with the windows open?

[SunSunGoAwayButNotCompletelyPlease]

All the bedrooms are on the first floor and it's gets really hot and stuffy if we don't open the windows wide. It always makes me a bit uncomfortable though.

What do other people do?

I sleep with the window open near enough 365 days of the year, unless there's a howling gale with dashing rain. 🤷‍♀️

I do it all the time. I reckons the heat will kill me before any burglar will.

@SunSunGoAwayButNotCompletelyPlease

if a burglar wants to carry a ladder around with him, then good luck to him. If he came here, he wouldn't need to 'prise' anything open, the windows are wide open. A burglar is MUCH more likely to prise or break a downstairs door/window open before they start climbing a ladder to enter a bedroom window.

besides if they did they wake me the minute the put the ladder against the wall, if not before.

IF by some chance they did get in, they'd only have themselves to blame for the lifetime therapy they'd need. Middle aged, overweight, person/people starfishing (or worse). 🤷🏻‍♀️🤦🏻‍♀️

I think you need to really think about the reality of a burglar with a ladder entering your first floor bedroom window & weigh that up against getting some air in the bedroom.

I used to work in this area, and it was amazing how many people in the UK wake to find a bat flying around their bedroom and try to shoo it out and get bitten, or wake when they are bitten at night whilst sleeping!

Where did you work, the Bat Bite Reporting Hotline? I don't know anyone who's been bitten by a bat, and I know loads of people who live rurally with every window and door permanently open. I do know someone who was bitten by a badger, but it didn't get in through a window.

Even I've never been bitten by a bat, and absolutely everything bites me. Ticks, leeches, insects (not just the usual suspects, I've been bitten by ladybirds), fish, amphibians, reptiles, birds and mammals of all shapes and sizes have had a go. A tiny lizard once clamped its jaws onto the end of my little toe and sat there for about 10 minutes trying to work out how to swallow the rest of me. The largest thing that's bitten me with intent - drawing considerable amounts of blood - was a Shire horse, but I've also had an elephant stuff my hand in its mouth (that more of a suck than a bite). I have been playfully chewed by lions and violently snapped at by toads, but I have never been been so much as nibbled by a bat.

And in answer to the original.question, I only close my bedroom window at night if the temperature drops below -10°C or winds go above 70mph. And then sleep badly because it's stuffy.

I used to work in this area, and it was amazing how many people in the UK wake to find a bat flying around their bedroom and try to shoo it out and get bitten, or wake when they are bitten at night whilst sleeping.

well if you work in that area you're bound to come across people who have encountered bats, but I'm 50 years old and sleep with the window open and have never woken up and found a bat in the room. Pretty sure I've never been bitten by one either. It's definitely not a reason to keep the windows closed.

On the ground floor I'd be cautious of it but not upstairs.

I like to sleep with the windows open but in reality my neighbourhood is too noisy for it

@BinturongsSmellOfPopcorn

"Bat Bite Reporting Hotline", I'm dead 😂😂😂

(Not that I'm doubting the PP, mind you)

I didn't get bitten but that might have been because my reaction was to open all the doors, run outside and contemplate moving house

we have a small window open all year round. Currently the two big ones are open too. theres a latch to keep them open about 3 or 4 inches.

Never felt so ill as the time we stayed in a supposedly 5* hotel and our ground floor room only had patio doors so we had to sleep with them shut. And they wouldnt give us water to drink . I spenbd hours on rightmove wondering why there are only juliet balcony doors on some bedrooms and trying to work out how they could change to normal windows.

You stayed in a 5* hotel; even if the hotel didn't "give" you water I'm sure you could have afforded to buy a bottle of water.

Unless your hotel was the middle of the Sahara desert that that makes no sense.

Why are you uncomfortable? Afraid of burglars, or insects?

Personally I can’t imagine sleeping with windows closed, especially in summer.

Me too. And anyone who doesn’t is a skank

This ⏫️
We have them all open rain wind and shine.

Yes - same here - I hate being stuffy - even in January

I live in NE Spain and its usual to have bars and net on windows. Our windows are always open unless the air con is on!

We use a fan, I hate the idea of mosquitoes under the sheets!

I don’t think I could sleep in a downstairs room because I have to have the window open but I’m also scared of people climbing in. In theory the dogs would bark, but in the past someone came into our house at night and the dogs didn’t even wake up despite them behaving like guarding the house from every human that so much as walks past the garden is their main life goal the rest of the time!

Open all year round - as wide as possible in summer - I do have insect netting though which also stopped the cats leaping in!