How to Keep Your Apartment Cool When You Don’t Have an AC

No matter where you live, the summers can get quite hot. If you can’t handle the heat, you are probably doing a lot of things to keep the home cool. The best way to deal with this is to have an Air Conditioner, that’s for sure, but if you don’t, you’ll need to find other ways.

With that in mind, we wanted to give you some of the top recommendations for keeping your apartment fresh if it has no AC.

1.    Isolate the Apartment from the Outside

If the temperature outside is too high, it’s only natural to try and shield the inside of your apartment. You need to make sure that that temperature doesn’t affect your home and the best way to do that is to keep your windows closed from early morning and keep them open during the night – as long as the night is not hot as well.

Additionally, you should keep the blinds down if the sun is shining directly into your apartment. If that’s not enough, you can buy blackout curtains or blinds which block sunlight.

2.    Keep as Many Electronics Off as You Can

You’d be surprised how much heat the electric devices produce.

●        If you use old incandescent bulbs for your lighting, then keep as many off as you can.

●        Don’t go overboard with the cooking as the oven can produce a lot of heat. You can switch it up by grilling more than you usually do.

●        Try to keep your desktop computer screen off as much as you can.

Whichever electronic device is producing heat, try to keep it off whenever you’re not using it. Plus, you’ll save on the bills as well.

3.    Use Fans Properly

If you’re using fans – use them well. By that we mean to keep in mind that they only blow the air around, they don’t cool it, so make sure they are blowing directly at your when you want to cool off. Don’t overdo it or you might get a headache.

Additionally, you can use a spray bottle with water on hand to sprinkle yourself to cool off.

4.    Focus on Your Body Temperature, Not the Room

Try to cool yourself off if you’re feeling hot, not the room. You can do that in many ways, with a cold shower, by chilling out, eating a cold meal or drinking a cold beverage, and more. You can even change the sheets on your bed as fresh sheets can cool you off when you go to bed.

5.    Cool Your Bed

Speaking of beds, you can try some neat little hacks to cool off once you go to sleep. Have a cold water bottle near your feet and if it’s not too strange for you, slightly dampen your sheets or keep them a bit in the freezer before going to bed. You’d be surprised how effective cold sheets can be in the hot summer nights.

If you don’t have an AC and you’re not getting one, you can do as many of the things we mentioned here to cool off. We are positive that they will make a huge difference.

How to Deal with Noisy and Loud Neighbours?

All of us who live in apartments know how troublesome neighbours can be. Sometimes you bother them by being noisy, and sometimes they bother you with their loudness.

However, there are often those times when there’s a neighbour or more who are being more than annoying with how loud and noisy they can be. In such cases you can’t live with it – you have to do something.

If it has come to the point when you can’t take it anymore and don’t know what to do, read on as we’ll give you some tips.

Talk to them

Yes, it does sound like a simple thing to do, but many don’t even attempt it. They either dread confrontations with neighbours, or they feel like it would lead to nothing. However, you would be surprised how reasonable people can be if you try to speak with them.

Naturally, it doesn’t mean that you get mad or tell them how annoyed you are. You should calmly approach the issue. First, introduce yourself if you don’t know each other and slowly and casually approach the topic.

You should act innocently and not appear like you’re attacking them. Mention to your neighbours that they may not be aware, but they are very loud, and the walls are thin, and you can’t manage to get any rest from the noise. 

The key is to try to appeal to their reason and not get confrontational. You can point out that it’s ok to have fun but that the noise is upsetting others around them. But never go about it by attacking them and telling them to stop it or something along those lines. Such a conversation will not end well with most people.

The last thing that you can do is offer a compromise of sorts. Ask them to be quiet during the hours of rest or when it’s most bothersome to you and say that it’s ok to be loud during other hours of the day. Get creative – it all depends on what you want, what they want, and to find some middle ground. But bear in mind the rules your building has.

Additional Tips

Sometimes talking won’t work, so here are some other simple tips that you can use which can be very useful with loud neighbours.

●        Write them a letter of complaint. It is formal, but you’d be surprised how practical demands or pleads can be when they are in writing.

●        Employ the help of others, like the landlord, other tenants, or even the authorities if nothing else works.

●        If you’re going to contact the authorities or the landlord, it’s best to keep notes on when and how loud your neighbour is and the confrontations about the noise you had with them. It’s essential to have proof and detailed information on your attempts to reason with them.

●        If you are thinking about moving, be careful when checking new apartments. Make sure to inquire about the neighbours. When searching for a new place, spend more time looking at the apartment and the building to find out the level of noise.

We hope that all of this will be of help in your dealings with loud neighbours. Always remember – talking works most of the time.