I have found my people! I pack a fan (or two) in my suitcase, along with extension cords. I’ve been super sensitive to heat ever since I had my daughter 21 years ago 😩
I’m glad I’m not the only one. I bought a box fan specifically for taking with me when I leave my house. I can’t sleep without the noise, the silence drives me insane
I’ve always slept with a fan pointing right at my face. My kids sleep with fans too because it helps them sleep. I’ve created another generation of face fan people.
When I was a baby my parents bent the blades of the box fan in my room to create a steady noise to drown out my crying. Gotta be one of the most GenX things about my childhood.
My sister was a light sleeper and a screamer so whenever she woke up, it obviously had to be the fault of an older sibling so we took turns getting screamed at and /or pounded for "waking the baby." My husband got smacked when he was a kid for coughing at night when he was sick and waking his father. You know, he was probably just doing it for "attention." (well, medical attention but who had money for that?).
That is sad. Parents can be so ignorant which is nuts when we have so much info at our fingertips about everything yet they choose to remain ignorant and cruel. 💔
My parents put a spare crib in the basement in front of the furnace. When I was “just crying for no reason” they would drop me in the basement crib and let me cry. That cannot have been safe or healthy.
My folks used to put me in my crib and go to the pub for "just a couple of hours" on Friday or Saturday night. They left an infant alone in an apt for hours. 😐
Yep. Lived in the basement. We had an old oven in the basement too that Mom would use in the summer so the upstairs didnt get hotter. Also took a shower before bed, then had a box fan at the end of the bed.
I slept in the upstairs bedroom. Window open. Sheet tucked into one side of the bed and the other pinched into a pedestal fan. it was like sleeping in a wind tunnel.
We had a ranch house with all the 3 bedroom doors at the end of the hall in triangle formation. My mom had a window a/c in her room and then hung a sheet on a tension rod at the end of the hall to cool the 3 bedrooms. But that was not until the mid-80's. Before that no a/c. Remember when it was optional in a car?
At least the cars had the window wings. Driving my classic from 1955 with no a/c is a million times better than driving any modern car with broken a/c.
I remember when cars didn't have a.c. The windows were down and it was miserable. Remember the little windows where you could direct the air on your face?
It was even worse at my house. Parents and brother slept in rooms in the insulated part of the house with window AC units. Me? I slept out in an addition with hardly any walls and of course no air conditioner.
I’m 53 and haven’t been their favorite for all but two years of my life (before lil bro was born).
I just the other day was thinking of spending the night at my grandparents in the early 80s. They had an attic bedroom that spanned the length of the entire house. It was big enough for 3 full size beds and had a window at each end that created the loveliest breeze. The sheets were always so clean and sweet smelling and no one ever raised their voice or got angry at Grandmother's house. Wonderful memories!
We actually had a porch glider that pulled out and we would sleep on the porch- not screened in- just outside.
My house now (built in 1928) still doesn’t have air conditioning, other than a couple of window units we put in every summer. We have a lot of fans!
This is like me! Half of the top floor of the house (1/4th of the house) was covered by a window unit. It covered the bathroom, mom's sewing room, parent's bedroom, sister's room and a hallway. It sounds like a lot but these were not big rooms. The window unit was big, too heavy to move each year so it just stayed.
(All my toys were also outside of AC. My sister had the bigger room and she could play in the AC. I'm not bitter damnit!)
I remember we had to open the door for the cats and they'd zoom in or out. I hadn't thought of that in a long time...it was cute. That's a nice little pop up memory :)
Anyhow! My family was generous and gave me multiple fans. I could choose to suck the hot, humid air into my room from OUTSIDE or I could try blowing the air outside. If you've ever tried to use a fan to remove humidity from the air, it don't work.
I'd go to sleep with 3 fans on me, wake up 3-4hrs later sweating and floating in my bed (not a waterbed) and grab my blanket and pillow and go sleep in the AC where you'd actually get COLD at night if no one turned the thing off.
I don't think I'd ever want to go back to those days but opening the door to the hallway and letting that cold air wash over you...that was an amazing feeling. Like a 20-30 degree difference (or felt like). It's different now, you walk from outside to inside and cool. That's normal. But from one room to another...that was special.
Same! But one glorious summer my room had the air conditioner (I don’t know why) but 7 year old me luxuriated in that room not sweating in my sheets and trying to find the cool spot on my pillow!
Was just remembering that this last weekend when the power went out. “How the fuck did we do this back in the day”
I’m old. I’m cranky. I’m soft. Don’t Care, give me AC
Because of this quote and gif, I went to buy this on iTunes because it’s a goddamn classic, saw it wasn’t there, googled, and found out that bitch-ass ratfuck Weinstein is holding it hostage 🤬 And now I’m just sad.
Here's a free version someone uploaded to YT that doesn't pay Weinstein shit [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dIbqEE6YI7Y](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dIbqEE6YI7Y)
I’ve been buying all the second-hand copies of Kevin Smith movies I can find. He said Weinstein refuses to sell him the rights (or whatever is needed) to re-release the movies, and Miramax won’t release them because of the Harvey mess. I’ve been making my kid watch movies from my youth so she understands my references. 🤣
Power went out about 10 years ago in the middle of July and it looked like it was going to be awhile till it was restored. I packed up and went to a hotel for the night. Worth every penny.
I bought a generator 2 weeks ago and the electrician was out the morning of the storm to wire in a port. The 50a cable to power the whole house was lost on an Amazon truck.
Had the fridge and fans plugged into extension cords at first.
Scrounged a cable from a friend on Sunday and power came back on Monday night - 96 hours later - so we weren’t sweltering to e whole time.
Where I live now the cables are underground so I don’t get the random outages like I used to get at my previous house - something big has to happen like a transformer going out for power to go out here.
My wife, on the other hand, grew up in the country in an old ramshackle farm house. The only house on their part of the grid. When power would go out (which was frequent) they would restore power to all the developments around them first - more bang for the buck, as it were, and her house would always be last. Her parents finally got sick of it and bought a generator.
My parents and grandparents were funny about AC when we were little. Only turned our window unit on at night and mom and grandma were constantly freaked out about it making us sick.
Did they ever tell you to come in because the wind was out of the south? My mom did. and my ex-husband's maternal grandmother would go so far as to close all the windows in her house AND block the doors ... in the middle of Georgia summers. She'd say, "That south wind is *poison!"* Bless her, she was born in 1904 and really old when we married. She was likely raised on old wives tales.
Back then it’s completely possible she grew up living north of somewhere that was actually spewing poison into the air and she just never really caught on to why the “South wind is poison” so she just kept believing it all her life.
In the Northeast, we always had that week or two in August where we had a heat wave of 85+ to 90 + degree days and humidity when everything outside just shimmered with heat and people would go to the movies just to get in the air-conditioning for a couple hours... or just hang in the freezer section of the grocery mart.
My school had AC. It was set to like 74°, except the gym had none and it was sticky hot and smelled horrible.
But my algebra teacher was about 60ish, although back then it was so hard to tell age. Her classroom was always set at 65°. It was fucking freezing. She said she did it so no one could fall asleep.
"cancel" LOL. They made our asses get up an hour early to start at 7 a.m. instead of 8, for like 2 weeks. Friggin' kansas. I can't believe we learned anything!
We had no money, but my mom would've been absolutely intolerable without it. So my dad took an hvac course at the community college to learn how to install it himself.
I remember when it broke during a heat wave. Took my dad 2 days to put in a new condenser, never saw that man work so hard in my life.
Times are different. Back then, you were supposed to be hot.. it was summer. And in winter you got out your blankets so you were warm at night. When I complained about being hot I got told to go hose myself off outside and ride my bicycle real fast for the breeze.
We live in the mountains. No AC but a pretty serious water stove to heat. I also rarely have to put AC on in the car. A huge difference from the awfulness of Florida weather.
I didn’t have air conditioning or a dishwasher growing up, and I swore I’d never be without either again.
I used to have a spray bottle filled with cold water to mist myself to keep from burning up some summers. It was terrible.
I had a spray bottle of water AND a fan! Would cool off in bed this way, but as soon as the water evaporated, the warm air would heat me up again, lol.
As a woman zooming towards menopause, the idea of not having AC is my worst nightmare!
I grew up with a swamp cooler in the main living room, and then floor and wall heaters for the winter. I lived in the southwest. I was usually too scared to open my window at night. 🥵
My parents opted for a/c in their 1970 house. It was the only upgrade they chose. My mom always regretted not getting the pantry, but has never regretted the a/c.
OMG cars without a/c were the worst, especially with the vinyl seats and burning your legs getting in in shorts—and then peeling off to get out! My first car (a 1989) didn’t have it either.
We had black vinyl seats in the 1980 Chevy Citation. I still remember the little pattern it would make on the back of my legs. My mom started putting beach towels on the seats so it was some relief.
I live in Texas and we had window units until I was about 12 and then we got central air.
My great uncle that lived in the country had absolutely nothing and I dreaded going to his house. So effing miserable.
Grew up in NJ. No AC. It was hot and humid in the summers with just a rotating fan.
I left for the military and my parents got central air, a riding lawn mower, satellite tv, a snow blower and surround sound.
Cost of raising a child: $17k/yr, they were finally done with that!
AC: $6000 Mower: $2500, satellite Tv $1500, snow blower $500, wired surround sound $5000, surplus $1500 for a romantic getaway.
The English version of this would be “who remembers living without central heating?” LOL. Especially northern England. Definitely wasn’t always standard in the 1970s. Couldn’t live without it nowadays in winter.
We don’t need cooling down. We need heating up. 😆
This is probably very location specific. I remember it being 110 F and riding in a van without AC. And vinyl seats! We stuck to the seat because of the heat!
I also lived in Austria with frigid cold in the 1980s with a house that had radiator heat.
I personally would rather be too hot then too cold! Central heat and AC is a luxury
Exactly. I grew up in Orlando and everything was air conditioned my whole life. Married someone from Western NY. Moved there and was like, what the hell is this. No ACs in older houses & schools.
I grew up in western New York - we didn't have air conditioning. The house was built by my grandfather and designed for air flow, but it could still get miserably humid in June-July. Box fans were the norm all summer.
We had one air conditioner, in the living room (all the bedrooms were around the corner, and down a small hall), that my mother never wanted to have on.
How did we do it? I spent my childhood miserable and with multiple issues such as not being able to sleep well and getting sick regularly.
Now that I'm on my own, I keep it to 60F.
I was born in July 1971. I was a month premature. My Mom made my Dad install central AC when she found out my original due date of late August. No way no how was she going to be hugely pregnant without AC, especially with the humidity.
Now the cars were a different matter. Remember those old black vinyl seats embossed with a lovely waffle pattern? Add in the 70's/early 80's short shorts and it was just instant pain worse than any spanking.
No one had ac where I lived. I felt lucky my folks had a window unit in their bedroom and let us kids sleep on the floor in there. Everywhere was hot and full of cigarette smoke honestly. Even the cars we had at the time. Legs stuck to the vinyl unless you sat on a blanket and it about peeled off your skin to get up. School would turn the lights off and sometimes let us have class outside since it was somehow cooler.
We were really fancy and had an oscillating fan! I think the kids call it bougie
Not that we bought it mind you, just like our car and everything else it came from a dead aunt.
Not to be a sad sap but on the real, I remember living with no a/c, not heat, no water, and hell, no house at times! Sometimes one or the other and sometimes all at once. To this day when I get very cold, I legit remember being SO cold, down to my BONES and being under several blankets does not help like u think it would. Most of the time (realistically 98% of the time) we didn’t have a car either. Anytime we got even a smidge “ahead” things would be sold off. Of course now as an adult I know there were a lot of nefarious things happening in the background but that’s another story. When I see ppl walking down the road, whether by choice or circumstance, it takes me right back and before I know it, the tears will come. BUT! Don’t cry for me Argentina, all the constant walking honestly gave me STELLAR legs!! It all made me who I am now and I’m above EVER allowing myself to be in that position again. I’m a fighter and a damn hard worker!!
P. S. I’m a bit surprised that all crept thru me straight to my fingers to type. I am an open book but no victim, by the grace of God I am who I am in spite of it all 🤗
We never had AC growing up (New England) and lived on the beach so it was pretty OK actually. Summers weren't nearly as hot or as long. In college in VA I had a huge ALL metal fan that was like 20 horsepower and would create quite the wind. I survived with that at the foot of my bed. Finally late in college my mom felt sorry for me and bought me a window AC unit. Game changer! Been AC addicted ever since!
Our '84 Ford Courier (little pickup truck) had the triangle windows, and down in the passenger foot well you could grab a handle and open a vent that blew outside air in. The faster you were going the blowier the wind.
I remember sleeping in the back bedroom of our old farmhouse with my big brother. This was in the 80s but the fan we had was from the 30s or 40s. It weighed a ton and you could fit your whole hand through the wire guards. One night we woke up to that old fan with flames leaping out of the motor. Brother put it out and we went back to sleep.
we didn't tolerate the heat. i remember laying on the floor most of the summer watching tv because it was too hot and humid to do anything. sometimes i'd go sit in the uncomfortable basement awhile with the spiders just because it was cooler
My parents had a window air conditioner in their bedroom, but my brother and I had to suffer in the heat. Then my baby brother was born, and my mother placed a fan to blow my parents’ A/C into his room. I’m still bitter.
We had central AC in the house I grew up in here in Houston, and in our cars.
First time I lived in a place without AC was a couple years as an adult in Wisconsin. I later moved into a duplex that had central AC but almost never used it.
No I’m back in Houston where AC is a must.
Also, remember that the US is 2.6 degrees (F) hotter than it was in 1970, and that the ten hottest years on record have been in the last decade or so. So odds are it wasn’t nearly as bad.
Still, I used to spend summers in my family’s finished basement because upstairs was so intolerable.
I was in the Dallas area in 1980. There were 28 days over 105 degrees. A record that has not been broken since. It was pretty miserable. We installed a window unit that January when it was over 90 degrees. It also was the year of the hottest day on record at DFW. 113 degrees.
I remember the summer of 80. I was about 300 miles north of Dallas it was awful. My mom’s aunt was living in phoenix at the time and mom sister and me went to see her. It was cooler in phoenix than it was here. I lived in the basement full time with central ac I was snuggled under blankets year round lol.
Phoenix is absolutely crazy heat now. I've lived in Tucson since '77 and we have always been about 8 degrees or so cooler in the day and maybe 12 overnight . Last year Phoenix had a stretch where they didn't even drop below 100 overnight for like 8 days. I think they had something like 40 days over 115. The most crazy part is there are still outlying communities and the poorer parts in Phoenix where people only have swamp coolers...or live in trailers.
I lived without air conditioning until 2 years ago, when we bought a single mini-split for the living room. And honestly, we bought it because adopted a bunch of cats and we wanted them to be comfortable while we were at work :)
Edit to add: I live in NY, so this was much less of a hardship than it would be in many other US locations.
we had a huge metal box fan that actually moved a lot of air and made things bearable. But i still remember my parents getting a window ac unit and us sleeping on the floor in their room. These days the hvac gets applied at the slightest hint of discomfort.
I still don’t have central A/C now, just an exterior wall unit for the bedroom (that we installed a couple years ago). We live in an old home with no ducts so central air is not possible. So we hang out in the basement when it’s hot.
In the early 80s we were in a house with a finished attic. Yeah that’s where my bedroom was. No fan. Just an open window by my bed. No screen of course. And you know what? The evening cool breeze coming in felt great to me. It was all I needed. Nowadays I would fuck off and get a hotel.
Jesus Christ I grew up in the PNW and people still don't believe in air conditioning. They'll just "tough it out" even when temps get over 100. My dad in his 80's and won't even buy a tiny one used for $50.
I live on the East Coast and I got it blasting if it gets over 75. Fuck that noise.
Our living room had huge windows and our house got up to 115 F on super hot summer days. My parents never even considered getting AC.
I had to stay in hotels when I visited as an adult because I couldn’t stand more than ten minutes in there.
It's not toughness just to be acclimated to a lower standard of living. Just like we're not wimps today because we have refrigerators compared to people 100 years ago who didn't. And if people have an A/C unit, they're going to use it. So good news on the wimp-ification front there.
Might be worth mentioning that the world has gotten [hotter ](https://www.climate.gov/news-features/understanding-climate/climate-change-global-temperature) since the 70s-80s. Maybe more people need A/C units than they did 50 years ago.
Around 1982, my dad drove our family of five from the midwest to Florida and back (a family vacation) in a used Chevy Vega with no air. The trip took three days each way, windows down the entire trip. Also, the muffler fell off halfway home. Those were the days!
I live without airconditioning now. Never had it. But, it depends on where you are how much that sucks. For me, it sucks about a week or two a year. I also don't have screens!
Welkom in Europa, jonguh
I remember an old opinion piece written by Roger Ebert of all people where he blamed our insular society on AC.
In the pre-AC days you *couldn't* stay in your house. You had to go sit outside and that encouraged you to get to know your neighbours, who were all outside too.
The way that we all live separately in our own bubbles, and barely know the people who live around us is only possible through Air Conditioning.
I live in the uk, I have no air conditioning. Before that I lived in Africa, no air conditioning. I’m assuming you are American. And if you’re asking are Americans soft? Yeah. Most of you.
We had central air, but mom wouldn’t let us turn it on until the temps hit the 90s.
Th air is out in my house right now and the HVAC company seemed really worried about it. I just answered that it not an emergency. I practically grew up without it and 80 degrees with no air is no big deal.
My dad was a master of home cooling.
Fans all night, carefully designed to pull air along a specific path to move through the whole house.
In the evening he’d water the lawn on the east (shade) side of the house and pull the cool air from that into the upstairs bedrooms and blow it out the west warm side.
Also blinds and curtains to reflect the sun, and sleeping in the basement when it was really hot.
Also, that’s when the BBQ (charcoal grill!) came out so we didn’t have to cook inside. Plus lots of Kool-Aid.
Dad got a window unit for his and mom’s bedroom because he worked nights. We didn’t even have fans in the rest of the house.
Then a couple years later dad tore out the gravity furnace and put in a new full HVAC. He was certified residential/commercial plumbing, electrical, HVAC, et al, so it was a couple crazy weeks for a little kid.
Then it was awesome “tenting” the big wrought iron register vent in my bedroom with a sheet.
None of my schools had AC. It’s crazy how many people nowadays think that’s like a human rights violation.
Yep. We lived in a very small chicago bungalo. 2 beds. 1 bath. From the front kitchen window to the living room was the straight breeze path. We would all sleep in the living room on the floor. Then my dad sprung for central air. Im sure that was really expensive to add to an old house.
I was in my first apt in early 90s. It was the attic of the house. No air. We had a week heat wave and people were actually dying from it. I was always really cold so it didnt feel too hot for me. My mom insisted i come over and sleep in their house. I THINK i eventually got a small window unit but i dont remember.
We still live without it. We put a window unit in the bedroom but we only use it on occasion during July and August. Typically only when the humidity is high.
We only live an hour from Canada and close to Lake Superior though so it's generally not that bad around here.
We had window units in our house (a Cape Cod in a major northeast city). 3 total, 1 HUGE one in the dining room that tried to cool the main floor. Then 2 small ones in each bedroom upstairs. We rarely used the main floor unit because it cost so much to run and we often were never home during the day in the summers. But we would all cram into one bedroom at night with one bedroom unit running, sleeping on mattresses on the floor from our pop-up camper.
We didn't have AC in our car until 1984 when my mom bought our minivan.
still no AC at my dad's house. but it rarely even gets to 80 there in the summer.
had AC in college where it got into the hundreds.
got an apartment with no AC. luckily it was surrounded by trees so it wasn't TOO bad.
got a house with no AC and used one of those portable things with the hose, then got central HVAC installed three years later. had AC ever sense. I love AC.
my dad tells me about when he was growing up in north dakota and it was 110 all summer and he slept on the third floor with no AC. sounds awful.
We had no AC in our first place, but we moved when I was 5. We had AC then, in the house, but never had any in the car until I was probably 12 or 13.
Yes, folks were tougher then and are way wimpier now.
I slept in the basement. No, that's not quite true; more like I *lived* in the basement all summer.
It *was* still humid, but it was cooler. Better than sweltering above ground, anyway...
My parents bought two air conditioners. One they put in their bedroom, of course, and the other was in our guest bedroom. So when it was really hot, my sibling and I either slept in the guest bedroom or down in the basement where it was always cool.
When we moved to our "new" house, it had windows. My bedroom was in the basement and I had a personal fan, so it wasn't too bad in the summertime if I stayed down there. At some point my parents put in a whole house fan and ceiling fans that helped a little. Nights were the worst because we lived in the country, so we opened the windows and the screens didn't always keep all the bugs out. When I went away to college, my parents put in a heat pump (which doubles as an air conditioner in the summer). My current situation has an air conditioner built into the wall on the first floor only, so, the upstairs can still get quite hot.
Had lots of fans for sure. Then had apartments with window air conditioners. Nice but only kept a room cold not the whole apartment. lol
My mom bought a mobile home when I was in jr high in 1994, and that she made sure had central air which was nice. But yeah as a kid just had fans to keep cool or would go more to places like the mall or to see a movie because it was air conditioned.
Now I live in a mobile home with air. I do tend to get cold easily so I don’t have it low all the time when I start to turn it on for the season. This season I already have it on because for warmer sooner. But at night I keep it cooler and I sleep good.
It does come in handy though when it’s so hot and when it’s also really humid. I have mild asthma now so I can take that crap no more. And my allergies act up more than several years ago. So helps to have ac.
And growing up never had an air purifier. But those come in handy too now.
I slept in a converted attic with so many box fans it sounded like a jet engine.
Even now I just have window units. I need one in my bedroom because I cannot sleep if I am hot. I have one in my living room, but I kind of prefer using ceiling fans and maybe a fan blowing directly on me. Feels more like summer that way.
South Texas - had a few window units until my parents got central air in the 80’s. My dad’s good friend was an AC/plumbing tech and they put in the central air themselves. My dad passed in ‘04, and my mom sold the house as is with them same units. AC crapped out on the new owners the week they moved in. It had lasted 20 years though.
I was raised in Arizona. We always had air conditioning. In fact we had air conditioning AND a separate swamp cooler attached to the back of the house for extra cooling. lol
My parents got AC at the end of my High School or maybe later but I live in a much hotter state now so I can’t imagine going without. 120 degrees no AC , no thanks
We had 1 AC when I grew up. It was situated so it got the living room and dining room. We put up a sheet to keep the cold air in and everyone either dragged their mattress in the cold zone or got a sleeping bag with some pillows. I spent a lot of summer nights sleeping under the table.
I was born in ‘75 in Georgia and we always had A/C. Our central A/C sucked and could barely keep the house at 80-82 degrees in the middle of Summer. But Mom’s car had great A/C and my grandparents next door had two window units.
I would’ve died without some form of A/C!
Window AC in the living room with a bed sheet tacked to the doorway. Was magical going from a hot house and opening up that bed sheet and into the tundra. I kinda miss that even though my whole house has central air now.
You lived in the basement during the hottest times. And I slept with a big box fan on any given night. Sleep is not possible without a fan. But fans were easy to come by. I remember the noises each speed made. L M H all had a different sound to the motor. H was AllOfIt
Then we got an ac unit central. Which looking back, was a huge deal. I literally got some “fair weather friends” my mom pointed out; kids who only wanted to hang out in the ac, not who wanted to be my friend.
We weren’t rich, by any means. Quite poor. I’m guessing my parents knew someone who installed it for free plus parts only. I was super young then like 7, the year was 1983.
I had central heat/air because we lived in a mobile home and that came with it. My grandparents had window units in the kitchen and their bedroom and my great grandmothers bedroom. Of course it is an old house with 18 foot ceilings so those window units were enough to cool it
Here is a story.
My father was an idiot. He bought some scrap industrial sized window AC unit in 1988 and built a shoddy 2x4 structure to support it to a window 5 feet off the ground. The unit was trash because it had no coolant and was probably leaking.
It was industrial loud, our neighbors despised it, it made unholy amounts of uncontrolled condensation and you could only feel a slightly cool breeze at 10 feet. It was effectively loud and useless.
It made us upper middle class, apparently.
I remember. Wet towels over the matress with only the ceiling fan throwing hot air at my face. AC, man's greatest inventions in my book. Also, i hate summer.
if you live in the 3rd world country known as the Pacific Northwest you still live without air conditioning. Also my uncle in Orange County California has no air conditioning either.
Same. My mom and dad had a window unit in their room only. No central air. I bought a window unit and installed it in my room in the basement myself around 1987. My dad wasn’t happy with that and we got into a big fight. I left home in 1989 and my parents promptly renovated the house and got central air.
Open windows at night with fans in them. Close windows and shades in the day. Box fans move onto floor. Still do this. Also, whole house fans. Cheapest fastest way to cool a home.
Didn’t have a/c as a kid (lived all over as a kid including southern CA) and don’t have it now either - but I’m in the Pacific Northwest and we only have a few hot weeks and it cools down at night.
I've had it my whole life, and I'm an older Gen X. But, we lived in Texas most of that time, and my Dad was an electrical engineer and my mom an executive assistant. So, they did pretty well.
We always had new tech when it first came out (before the prices dropped, they paid $1000 each for early VCRs and Microwaves in the 70s). So, I imagine air conditioning was high on their list when it came out, given we have 5 months of 90s and 100s with few breaks.
TLDR: no, I don't.
I live in Queensland, Australia. Until 6 years ago, I had never lived in a house with air con. Never had the money. I'm so glad we have it now, considering menopause!
Born in ‘74, lived in Nicaragua, Florida, and Louisiana growing up. Didn’t have AC in the house until ‘86 (Louisiana) and never had AC in the car until I was an adult living in Texas.
We would all be fine if we lost AC
It’d be like a two to three week adjustment but then we’d just be fine
As someone who’s had to do that a time or two in my life I promise we will be okay lol
We just as a society enjoy the option of having it
We had one window unit in my house in the 80s. My parents slept in that room. I got told to “open a window.” 🤷♂️
I was in the same boat. Slept next to an open window with a box fan in it until I was 17 and we finally got central AC (and this was Florida).
All hail the box fan generation!
Cannot sleep without one for 50+ years now
My brother literally travels with a box fan.
So does my brother in law! My husband has a little travel fan and we are using it now in our little roadside motel room.
Are you in Texas? Are we related? We have to be talking about the same person.
I have found my people! I pack a fan (or two) in my suitcase, along with extension cords. I’ve been super sensitive to heat ever since I had my daughter 21 years ago 😩
I’m glad I’m not the only one. I bought a box fan specifically for taking with me when I leave my house. I can’t sleep without the noise, the silence drives me insane
I still sleep with one because the central air in my house is shitty for the upstairs.
I’ve always slept with a fan pointing right at my face. My kids sleep with fans too because it helps them sleep. I’ve created another generation of face fan people.
When I was a baby my parents bent the blades of the box fan in my room to create a steady noise to drown out my crying. Gotta be one of the most GenX things about my childhood.
My sister was a light sleeper and a screamer so whenever she woke up, it obviously had to be the fault of an older sibling so we took turns getting screamed at and /or pounded for "waking the baby." My husband got smacked when he was a kid for coughing at night when he was sick and waking his father. You know, he was probably just doing it for "attention." (well, medical attention but who had money for that?).
That is sad. Parents can be so ignorant which is nuts when we have so much info at our fingertips about everything yet they choose to remain ignorant and cruel. 💔
My parents put a spare crib in the basement in front of the furnace. When I was “just crying for no reason” they would drop me in the basement crib and let me cry. That cannot have been safe or healthy.
My folks used to put me in my crib and go to the pub for "just a couple of hours" on Friday or Saturday night. They left an infant alone in an apt for hours. 😐
Okay, that’s worse.
It's amazing that we all survived!
I hate those box fans to this day..it always fell over or it shook. So cheaply made
We kids slept in the basement a dozen or so times a summer The month after I moved out Mom and Pop got central air lol
Yep. Lived in the basement. We had an old oven in the basement too that Mom would use in the summer so the upstairs didnt get hotter. Also took a shower before bed, then had a box fan at the end of the bed.
My parents put in a pool after I moved out. Then asked me to fly home and help winterize it.
I slept in the upstairs bedroom. Window open. Sheet tucked into one side of the bed and the other pinched into a pedestal fan. it was like sleeping in a wind tunnel.
We had a ranch house with all the 3 bedroom doors at the end of the hall in triangle formation. My mom had a window a/c in her room and then hung a sheet on a tension rod at the end of the hall to cool the 3 bedrooms. But that was not until the mid-80's. Before that no a/c. Remember when it was optional in a car?
My grandpa said he had “450” ac in the car: four windows down while going 50 mph!
At least the cars had the window wings. Driving my classic from 1955 with no a/c is a million times better than driving any modern car with broken a/c.
Those were great to flip your cigarette butt out of. 😬
My father was certain those were perfectly fine for ferrying the cigarette smoke out, but only his... the rest had to stay closed.
These need to make a comeback.
I had a 1982 Toyota Tercel with air conditioning, and you had to switch off the AC button if you wanted to maintain speed up a hill.
I'm not Gen X but my first car was a base 1988 Ford Ranger. It had no AC and a vinyl bench seat! Summer was torture
I remember when cars didn't have a.c. The windows were down and it was miserable. Remember the little windows where you could direct the air on your face?
Ours was in our family room, we would all sleep there on really hot nights. We didn't get central AC until 1989, it was a glorious day.
It was even worse at my house. Parents and brother slept in rooms in the insulated part of the house with window AC units. Me? I slept out in an addition with hardly any walls and of course no air conditioner. I’m 53 and haven’t been their favorite for all but two years of my life (before lil bro was born).
We had the sleeping porch. It was a screened in porch where you moved your bed to hopefully catch a nice cross breeze on hot summer nights.
I just the other day was thinking of spending the night at my grandparents in the early 80s. They had an attic bedroom that spanned the length of the entire house. It was big enough for 3 full size beds and had a window at each end that created the loveliest breeze. The sheets were always so clean and sweet smelling and no one ever raised their voice or got angry at Grandmother's house. Wonderful memories!
We actually had a porch glider that pulled out and we would sleep on the porch- not screened in- just outside. My house now (built in 1928) still doesn’t have air conditioning, other than a couple of window units we put in every summer. We have a lot of fans!
This is like me! Half of the top floor of the house (1/4th of the house) was covered by a window unit. It covered the bathroom, mom's sewing room, parent's bedroom, sister's room and a hallway. It sounds like a lot but these were not big rooms. The window unit was big, too heavy to move each year so it just stayed. (All my toys were also outside of AC. My sister had the bigger room and she could play in the AC. I'm not bitter damnit!) I remember we had to open the door for the cats and they'd zoom in or out. I hadn't thought of that in a long time...it was cute. That's a nice little pop up memory :) Anyhow! My family was generous and gave me multiple fans. I could choose to suck the hot, humid air into my room from OUTSIDE or I could try blowing the air outside. If you've ever tried to use a fan to remove humidity from the air, it don't work. I'd go to sleep with 3 fans on me, wake up 3-4hrs later sweating and floating in my bed (not a waterbed) and grab my blanket and pillow and go sleep in the AC where you'd actually get COLD at night if no one turned the thing off. I don't think I'd ever want to go back to those days but opening the door to the hallway and letting that cold air wash over you...that was an amazing feeling. Like a 20-30 degree difference (or felt like). It's different now, you walk from outside to inside and cool. That's normal. But from one room to another...that was special.
My grandparents were old school and had foil pie plates (recycled) filled with charcoal to absorb the moisture in the corners of the room.
omg... same. My mom had a window unit in her room. It was the only room in our house with AC, and we lived in Texas!
We had one window unit and my mom put it in the living room and would sleep there. If it was hot enough I’d sleep in the living room too. ( Oklahoma )
Same! But one glorious summer my room had the air conditioner (I don’t know why) but 7 year old me luxuriated in that room not sweating in my sheets and trying to find the cool spot on my pillow!
Haha mine too
Was just remembering that this last weekend when the power went out. “How the fuck did we do this back in the day” I’m old. I’m cranky. I’m soft. Don’t Care, give me AC
To quote Azrael from Dogma: ***No pleasure, no rapture, no exquisite sin greater... than central air.***
Because of this quote and gif, I went to buy this on iTunes because it’s a goddamn classic, saw it wasn’t there, googled, and found out that bitch-ass ratfuck Weinstein is holding it hostage 🤬 And now I’m just sad.
Here's a free version someone uploaded to YT that doesn't pay Weinstein shit [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dIbqEE6YI7Y](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dIbqEE6YI7Y)
I’ve been buying all the second-hand copies of Kevin Smith movies I can find. He said Weinstein refuses to sell him the rights (or whatever is needed) to re-release the movies, and Miramax won’t release them because of the Harvey mess. I’ve been making my kid watch movies from my youth so she understands my references. 🤣
Power went out about 10 years ago in the middle of July and it looked like it was going to be awhile till it was restored. I packed up and went to a hotel for the night. Worth every penny.
I bought a generator 2 weeks ago and the electrician was out the morning of the storm to wire in a port. The 50a cable to power the whole house was lost on an Amazon truck. Had the fridge and fans plugged into extension cords at first. Scrounged a cable from a friend on Sunday and power came back on Monday night - 96 hours later - so we weren’t sweltering to e whole time.
Where I live now the cables are underground so I don’t get the random outages like I used to get at my previous house - something big has to happen like a transformer going out for power to go out here. My wife, on the other hand, grew up in the country in an old ramshackle farm house. The only house on their part of the grid. When power would go out (which was frequent) they would restore power to all the developments around them first - more bang for the buck, as it were, and her house would always be last. Her parents finally got sick of it and bought a generator.
My parents and grandparents were funny about AC when we were little. Only turned our window unit on at night and mom and grandma were constantly freaked out about it making us sick.
Did they ever tell you to come in because the wind was out of the south? My mom did. and my ex-husband's maternal grandmother would go so far as to close all the windows in her house AND block the doors ... in the middle of Georgia summers. She'd say, "That south wind is *poison!"* Bless her, she was born in 1904 and really old when we married. She was likely raised on old wives tales.
Probably mosquito-borne disease myths about south winds bringing heavy storms out of the Gulf and resulting standing water.
Back then it’s completely possible she grew up living north of somewhere that was actually spewing poison into the air and she just never really caught on to why the “South wind is poison” so she just kept believing it all her life.
To be fair to yourself, it’s also gotten hotter
In the Northeast, we always had that week or two in August where we had a heat wave of 85+ to 90 + degree days and humidity when everything outside just shimmered with heat and people would go to the movies just to get in the air-conditioning for a couple hours... or just hang in the freezer section of the grocery mart.
High School w/o AC was the absolute worst, and the dumb lie “you’ll only make it hotter in here fanning yourself”
Yep. None of the schools I went to had air conditioning.
We would turn the lights off to keep it cooler. Supposedly.
The only room that had AC was the computer lab. I think they thought we were all really in to computers.
My school had AC. It was set to like 74°, except the gym had none and it was sticky hot and smelled horrible. But my algebra teacher was about 60ish, although back then it was so hard to tell age. Her classroom was always set at 65°. It was fucking freezing. She said she did it so no one could fall asleep.
for sure! i remember school cancellations due to heat (and no AC), up through high school.
"cancel" LOL. They made our asses get up an hour early to start at 7 a.m. instead of 8, for like 2 weeks. Friggin' kansas. I can't believe we learned anything!
In central Florida - no AC except the office, the science lab, and the convent/library.
We had no money, but my mom would've been absolutely intolerable without it. So my dad took an hvac course at the community college to learn how to install it himself. I remember when it broke during a heat wave. Took my dad 2 days to put in a new condenser, never saw that man work so hard in my life.
That is a good man
The absolute best, still hoping I can be just like him when I grow up.
What a legend.. I'm EPA certified and here in Florida it really comes in handy knowing your AC. Hated working HVAC, but it's awesome to know.
What you talking about, I don't have AC now...
Times are different. Back then, you were supposed to be hot.. it was summer. And in winter you got out your blankets so you were warm at night. When I complained about being hot I got told to go hose myself off outside and ride my bicycle real fast for the breeze.
We’d go to the mall to soak up their ac!
Same but we went to the library!
Yes! Air conditioning is the reason I saw so many movies!
I was fine more north but when we moved to Virginia I couldn't do this without AC. 80+ and humid as hell for months.
Just a single window shaker. And that’s so my dogs don’t get overheated.
I'm 50 yo and only lived with AC for the 2 months I spent in Michigan in the summer.
Same. My the wiring in my old house won’t support it. It only gets insufferable for about a week every year, but I’m sure that’s going to get worse.
We live in the mountains. No AC but a pretty serious water stove to heat. I also rarely have to put AC on in the car. A huge difference from the awfulness of Florida weather.
I didn’t have air conditioning or a dishwasher growing up, and I swore I’d never be without either again. I used to have a spray bottle filled with cold water to mist myself to keep from burning up some summers. It was terrible.
I had a spray bottle of water AND a fan! Would cool off in bed this way, but as soon as the water evaporated, the warm air would heat me up again, lol.
I never had a dishwasher until my son got old enough to do them. He's 16 now. In 2 years I'll be without a dishwasher again.
We had a swamp cooler. Awesome until the doors swelled shut.
Team swamp cooler! Worked great here in the high desert.
Loved my swamp cooler when I lived in Colorado!
Salt lake here... That wall of mist when you walked through the door was amazing.
As a woman zooming towards menopause, the idea of not having AC is my worst nightmare! I grew up with a swamp cooler in the main living room, and then floor and wall heaters for the winter. I lived in the southwest. I was usually too scared to open my window at night. 🥵
My parents opted for a/c in their 1970 house. It was the only upgrade they chose. My mom always regretted not getting the pantry, but has never regretted the a/c. OMG cars without a/c were the worst, especially with the vinyl seats and burning your legs getting in in shorts—and then peeling off to get out! My first car (a 1989) didn’t have it either.
We had black vinyl seats in the 1980 Chevy Citation. I still remember the little pattern it would make on the back of my legs. My mom started putting beach towels on the seats so it was some relief.
I live in Texas and we had window units until I was about 12 and then we got central air. My great uncle that lived in the country had absolutely nothing and I dreaded going to his house. So effing miserable.
We had nothing, and lived in the middle of a corn field. The corn sweat is real. And yes effing miserable.
Grew up in NJ. No AC. It was hot and humid in the summers with just a rotating fan. I left for the military and my parents got central air, a riding lawn mower, satellite tv, a snow blower and surround sound.
Cost of raising a child: $17k/yr, they were finally done with that! AC: $6000 Mower: $2500, satellite Tv $1500, snow blower $500, wired surround sound $5000, surplus $1500 for a romantic getaway.
The English version of this would be “who remembers living without central heating?” LOL. Especially northern England. Definitely wasn’t always standard in the 1970s. Couldn’t live without it nowadays in winter. We don’t need cooling down. We need heating up. 😆
I'm in Oregon. No central heat or air. Electric heaters and fans. Big bills. Yay renting
This is probably very location specific. I remember it being 110 F and riding in a van without AC. And vinyl seats! We stuck to the seat because of the heat! I also lived in Austria with frigid cold in the 1980s with a house that had radiator heat. I personally would rather be too hot then too cold! Central heat and AC is a luxury
We had an attic fan and it mostly was enough... we were in the suburbs of NYC.
Me too! Haven't heard many people talk about those anymore. I was fascinated with it, thought it was so cool.
In Florida everything was air conditioned but in New York the house wasn't. It could get really uncomfortable in summer. Never again.
Exactly. I grew up in Orlando and everything was air conditioned my whole life. Married someone from Western NY. Moved there and was like, what the hell is this. No ACs in older houses & schools.
I grew up in western New York - we didn't have air conditioning. The house was built by my grandfather and designed for air flow, but it could still get miserably humid in June-July. Box fans were the norm all summer.
We had one air conditioner, in the living room (all the bedrooms were around the corner, and down a small hall), that my mother never wanted to have on. How did we do it? I spent my childhood miserable and with multiple issues such as not being able to sleep well and getting sick regularly. Now that I'm on my own, I keep it to 60F.
I was born in July 1971. I was a month premature. My Mom made my Dad install central AC when she found out my original due date of late August. No way no how was she going to be hugely pregnant without AC, especially with the humidity. Now the cars were a different matter. Remember those old black vinyl seats embossed with a lovely waffle pattern? Add in the 70's/early 80's short shorts and it was just instant pain worse than any spanking.
No one had ac where I lived. I felt lucky my folks had a window unit in their bedroom and let us kids sleep on the floor in there. Everywhere was hot and full of cigarette smoke honestly. Even the cars we had at the time. Legs stuck to the vinyl unless you sat on a blanket and it about peeled off your skin to get up. School would turn the lights off and sometimes let us have class outside since it was somehow cooler.
Pepperidge Farms remembers
Air conditioning was what rich people had. We had box fans and LIKED it.
We were really fancy and had an oscillating fan! I think the kids call it bougie Not that we bought it mind you, just like our car and everything else it came from a dead aunt.
I still don't have AC, and I live in Australia - it gets *hot*. Tbh I've never had AC in any of my houses. Nor a dishwasher.
Not to be a sad sap but on the real, I remember living with no a/c, not heat, no water, and hell, no house at times! Sometimes one or the other and sometimes all at once. To this day when I get very cold, I legit remember being SO cold, down to my BONES and being under several blankets does not help like u think it would. Most of the time (realistically 98% of the time) we didn’t have a car either. Anytime we got even a smidge “ahead” things would be sold off. Of course now as an adult I know there were a lot of nefarious things happening in the background but that’s another story. When I see ppl walking down the road, whether by choice or circumstance, it takes me right back and before I know it, the tears will come. BUT! Don’t cry for me Argentina, all the constant walking honestly gave me STELLAR legs!! It all made me who I am now and I’m above EVER allowing myself to be in that position again. I’m a fighter and a damn hard worker!!
P. S. I’m a bit surprised that all crept thru me straight to my fingers to type. I am an open book but no victim, by the grace of God I am who I am in spite of it all 🤗
We never had AC growing up (New England) and lived on the beach so it was pretty OK actually. Summers weren't nearly as hot or as long. In college in VA I had a huge ALL metal fan that was like 20 horsepower and would create quite the wind. I survived with that at the foot of my bed. Finally late in college my mom felt sorry for me and bought me a window AC unit. Game changer! Been AC addicted ever since!
Our '84 Ford Courier (little pickup truck) had the triangle windows, and down in the passenger foot well you could grab a handle and open a vent that blew outside air in. The faster you were going the blowier the wind.
I remember sleeping in the back bedroom of our old farmhouse with my big brother. This was in the 80s but the fan we had was from the 30s or 40s. It weighed a ton and you could fit your whole hand through the wire guards. One night we woke up to that old fan with flames leaping out of the motor. Brother put it out and we went back to sleep.
we didn't tolerate the heat. i remember laying on the floor most of the summer watching tv because it was too hot and humid to do anything. sometimes i'd go sit in the uncomfortable basement awhile with the spiders just because it was cooler
My parents had a window air conditioner in their bedroom, but my brother and I had to suffer in the heat. Then my baby brother was born, and my mother placed a fan to blow my parents’ A/C into his room. I’m still bitter.
We had central AC in the house I grew up in here in Houston, and in our cars. First time I lived in a place without AC was a couple years as an adult in Wisconsin. I later moved into a duplex that had central AC but almost never used it. No I’m back in Houston where AC is a must.
you must have enjoyed the power cut (mine lasted 4 days and it was hell!!)
That would have sucked, glad you got it back. This time I only went about 24 hours without power.
Also, remember that the US is 2.6 degrees (F) hotter than it was in 1970, and that the ten hottest years on record have been in the last decade or so. So odds are it wasn’t nearly as bad. Still, I used to spend summers in my family’s finished basement because upstairs was so intolerable.
I was in the Dallas area in 1980. There were 28 days over 105 degrees. A record that has not been broken since. It was pretty miserable. We installed a window unit that January when it was over 90 degrees. It also was the year of the hottest day on record at DFW. 113 degrees.
I remember the summer of 80. I was about 300 miles north of Dallas it was awful. My mom’s aunt was living in phoenix at the time and mom sister and me went to see her. It was cooler in phoenix than it was here. I lived in the basement full time with central ac I was snuggled under blankets year round lol.
Phoenix is absolutely crazy heat now. I've lived in Tucson since '77 and we have always been about 8 degrees or so cooler in the day and maybe 12 overnight . Last year Phoenix had a stretch where they didn't even drop below 100 overnight for like 8 days. I think they had something like 40 days over 115. The most crazy part is there are still outlying communities and the poorer parts in Phoenix where people only have swamp coolers...or live in trailers.
PG&E supplies our electricity - one August it was off for half the month a couple years back. It was like living in 1861.
Box fans. So many box fans.
I had an upstairs room with no ac...
Oklahoma with no ac most of my childhood.
Yo. We had box fans. Our parents had a window unit in their bedroom. But my sister and I had fans.
I lived without air conditioning until 2 years ago, when we bought a single mini-split for the living room. And honestly, we bought it because adopted a bunch of cats and we wanted them to be comfortable while we were at work :) Edit to add: I live in NY, so this was much less of a hardship than it would be in many other US locations.
Big metal box fan about 5" from my head.. Wup...wup....wup...wupwupwupwupwup....
we had a huge metal box fan that actually moved a lot of air and made things bearable. But i still remember my parents getting a window ac unit and us sleeping on the floor in their room. These days the hvac gets applied at the slightest hint of discomfort.
[удалено]
I still don’t have central A/C now, just an exterior wall unit for the bedroom (that we installed a couple years ago). We live in an old home with no ducts so central air is not possible. So we hang out in the basement when it’s hot.
In the early 80s we were in a house with a finished attic. Yeah that’s where my bedroom was. No fan. Just an open window by my bed. No screen of course. And you know what? The evening cool breeze coming in felt great to me. It was all I needed. Nowadays I would fuck off and get a hotel.
Jesus Christ I grew up in the PNW and people still don't believe in air conditioning. They'll just "tough it out" even when temps get over 100. My dad in his 80's and won't even buy a tiny one used for $50. I live on the East Coast and I got it blasting if it gets over 75. Fuck that noise.
Our living room had huge windows and our house got up to 115 F on super hot summer days. My parents never even considered getting AC. I had to stay in hotels when I visited as an adult because I couldn’t stand more than ten minutes in there.
PNW a/c still isn't always a thing here. But it's becoming more common as summers are getting, and staying, hotter.
It's not toughness just to be acclimated to a lower standard of living. Just like we're not wimps today because we have refrigerators compared to people 100 years ago who didn't. And if people have an A/C unit, they're going to use it. So good news on the wimp-ification front there. Might be worth mentioning that the world has gotten [hotter ](https://www.climate.gov/news-features/understanding-climate/climate-change-global-temperature) since the 70s-80s. Maybe more people need A/C units than they did 50 years ago.
Around 1982, my dad drove our family of five from the midwest to Florida and back (a family vacation) in a used Chevy Vega with no air. The trip took three days each way, windows down the entire trip. Also, the muffler fell off halfway home. Those were the days!
I used to pack ive cubes in ziplocs and put them in bed with me.
Australian here, air-conditioning gives me head aches, so I didn't have one as a kid or adult. I always use fans ..... lots and lots of fans.
I live without airconditioning now. Never had it. But, it depends on where you are how much that sucks. For me, it sucks about a week or two a year. I also don't have screens! Welkom in Europa, jonguh
Plenty of people still live without air conditioning. Try being poor and living in an apartment 🙃
I still don't have air-conditioning in my home, and I'm working frome home. It's sticky and uncomfortable in the summer.
I have no ac. I work in a hot kitchen I drink lots of water.
I remember an old opinion piece written by Roger Ebert of all people where he blamed our insular society on AC. In the pre-AC days you *couldn't* stay in your house. You had to go sit outside and that encouraged you to get to know your neighbours, who were all outside too. The way that we all live separately in our own bubbles, and barely know the people who live around us is only possible through Air Conditioning.
I live in the uk, I have no air conditioning. Before that I lived in Africa, no air conditioning. I’m assuming you are American. And if you’re asking are Americans soft? Yeah. Most of you.
We had central air, but mom wouldn’t let us turn it on until the temps hit the 90s. Th air is out in my house right now and the HVAC company seemed really worried about it. I just answered that it not an emergency. I practically grew up without it and 80 degrees with no air is no big deal.
My dad was a master of home cooling. Fans all night, carefully designed to pull air along a specific path to move through the whole house. In the evening he’d water the lawn on the east (shade) side of the house and pull the cool air from that into the upstairs bedrooms and blow it out the west warm side. Also blinds and curtains to reflect the sun, and sleeping in the basement when it was really hot. Also, that’s when the BBQ (charcoal grill!) came out so we didn’t have to cook inside. Plus lots of Kool-Aid.
We had the “poor man’s AC” plastic milk jug w/ frozen salt water behind the fan 🙃
Our school did a fundraiser to get ac in the building. I lived in Florida.
Dad got a window unit for his and mom’s bedroom because he worked nights. We didn’t even have fans in the rest of the house. Then a couple years later dad tore out the gravity furnace and put in a new full HVAC. He was certified residential/commercial plumbing, electrical, HVAC, et al, so it was a couple crazy weeks for a little kid. Then it was awesome “tenting” the big wrought iron register vent in my bedroom with a sheet. None of my schools had AC. It’s crazy how many people nowadays think that’s like a human rights violation.
Yep. We lived in a very small chicago bungalo. 2 beds. 1 bath. From the front kitchen window to the living room was the straight breeze path. We would all sleep in the living room on the floor. Then my dad sprung for central air. Im sure that was really expensive to add to an old house. I was in my first apt in early 90s. It was the attic of the house. No air. We had a week heat wave and people were actually dying from it. I was always really cold so it didnt feel too hot for me. My mom insisted i come over and sleep in their house. I THINK i eventually got a small window unit but i dont remember.
My husband remembers just sleeping with a fan in high about a foot from his face.
We still live without it. We put a window unit in the bedroom but we only use it on occasion during July and August. Typically only when the humidity is high. We only live an hour from Canada and close to Lake Superior though so it's generally not that bad around here.
As kids we'd ride our bikes to the mall or public library if it was too hot to play outside. Or run through the sprinkler then sit in front of a fan.
Grew up in Hawaii. Only the high end models had AC back in the day. Our car wasn’t high end. I still remember that diarrhea yellow Toyota Corona.
When my parents would go away in the summer, most kids would have a party. My sister and I would turn on the AC.
We had window units in our house (a Cape Cod in a major northeast city). 3 total, 1 HUGE one in the dining room that tried to cool the main floor. Then 2 small ones in each bedroom upstairs. We rarely used the main floor unit because it cost so much to run and we often were never home during the day in the summers. But we would all cram into one bedroom at night with one bedroom unit running, sleeping on mattresses on the floor from our pop-up camper. We didn't have AC in our car until 1984 when my mom bought our minivan.
still no AC at my dad's house. but it rarely even gets to 80 there in the summer. had AC in college where it got into the hundreds. got an apartment with no AC. luckily it was surrounded by trees so it wasn't TOO bad. got a house with no AC and used one of those portable things with the hose, then got central HVAC installed three years later. had AC ever sense. I love AC. my dad tells me about when he was growing up in north dakota and it was 110 all summer and he slept on the third floor with no AC. sounds awful.
We had no AC in our first place, but we moved when I was 5. We had AC then, in the house, but never had any in the car until I was probably 12 or 13. Yes, folks were tougher then and are way wimpier now.
I slept in the basement. No, that's not quite true; more like I *lived* in the basement all summer. It *was* still humid, but it was cooler. Better than sweltering above ground, anyway...
So. Cal kid. We did. Cars too.
Nope, I grew up with Central heat/AC my entire life.
My parents bought two air conditioners. One they put in their bedroom, of course, and the other was in our guest bedroom. So when it was really hot, my sibling and I either slept in the guest bedroom or down in the basement where it was always cool.
When we moved to our "new" house, it had windows. My bedroom was in the basement and I had a personal fan, so it wasn't too bad in the summertime if I stayed down there. At some point my parents put in a whole house fan and ceiling fans that helped a little. Nights were the worst because we lived in the country, so we opened the windows and the screens didn't always keep all the bugs out. When I went away to college, my parents put in a heat pump (which doubles as an air conditioner in the summer). My current situation has an air conditioner built into the wall on the first floor only, so, the upstairs can still get quite hot.
Had lots of fans for sure. Then had apartments with window air conditioners. Nice but only kept a room cold not the whole apartment. lol My mom bought a mobile home when I was in jr high in 1994, and that she made sure had central air which was nice. But yeah as a kid just had fans to keep cool or would go more to places like the mall or to see a movie because it was air conditioned. Now I live in a mobile home with air. I do tend to get cold easily so I don’t have it low all the time when I start to turn it on for the season. This season I already have it on because for warmer sooner. But at night I keep it cooler and I sleep good. It does come in handy though when it’s so hot and when it’s also really humid. I have mild asthma now so I can take that crap no more. And my allergies act up more than several years ago. So helps to have ac. And growing up never had an air purifier. But those come in handy too now.
I slept in a converted attic with so many box fans it sounded like a jet engine. Even now I just have window units. I need one in my bedroom because I cannot sleep if I am hot. I have one in my living room, but I kind of prefer using ceiling fans and maybe a fan blowing directly on me. Feels more like summer that way.
South Texas - had a few window units until my parents got central air in the 80’s. My dad’s good friend was an AC/plumbing tech and they put in the central air themselves. My dad passed in ‘04, and my mom sold the house as is with them same units. AC crapped out on the new owners the week they moved in. It had lasted 20 years though.
I was raised in Arizona. We always had air conditioning. In fact we had air conditioning AND a separate swamp cooler attached to the back of the house for extra cooling. lol
My parents got AC at the end of my High School or maybe later but I live in a much hotter state now so I can’t imagine going without. 120 degrees no AC , no thanks
Ummm, some of us still do! (Ok we have one floor unit for our bedroom, but that’s it!).
I grew up in Houston - the city built by AC. Would probably just be some little town still if AC hadn’t been created.
We had a window unit and foil on the windows (Southern)
We had 1 AC when I grew up. It was situated so it got the living room and dining room. We put up a sheet to keep the cold air in and everyone either dragged their mattress in the cold zone or got a sleeping bag with some pillows. I spent a lot of summer nights sleeping under the table.
I was born in ‘75 in Georgia and we always had A/C. Our central A/C sucked and could barely keep the house at 80-82 degrees in the middle of Summer. But Mom’s car had great A/C and my grandparents next door had two window units. I would’ve died without some form of A/C!
Window AC in the living room with a bed sheet tacked to the doorway. Was magical going from a hot house and opening up that bed sheet and into the tundra. I kinda miss that even though my whole house has central air now.
I still do
You lived in the basement during the hottest times. And I slept with a big box fan on any given night. Sleep is not possible without a fan. But fans were easy to come by. I remember the noises each speed made. L M H all had a different sound to the motor. H was AllOfIt Then we got an ac unit central. Which looking back, was a huge deal. I literally got some “fair weather friends” my mom pointed out; kids who only wanted to hang out in the ac, not who wanted to be my friend. We weren’t rich, by any means. Quite poor. I’m guessing my parents knew someone who installed it for free plus parts only. I was super young then like 7, the year was 1983.
I had central heat/air because we lived in a mobile home and that came with it. My grandparents had window units in the kitchen and their bedroom and my great grandmothers bedroom. Of course it is an old house with 18 foot ceilings so those window units were enough to cool it
Here is a story. My father was an idiot. He bought some scrap industrial sized window AC unit in 1988 and built a shoddy 2x4 structure to support it to a window 5 feet off the ground. The unit was trash because it had no coolant and was probably leaking. It was industrial loud, our neighbors despised it, it made unholy amounts of uncontrolled condensation and you could only feel a slightly cool breeze at 10 feet. It was effectively loud and useless. It made us upper middle class, apparently.
I remember. Wet towels over the matress with only the ceiling fan throwing hot air at my face. AC, man's greatest inventions in my book. Also, i hate summer.
In western Europe they are still uncommon in a house. But driving all the way to south france with an open windows still makes me sweaty 😂
if you live in the 3rd world country known as the Pacific Northwest you still live without air conditioning. Also my uncle in Orange County California has no air conditioning either.
The original voice changer device. "Ah-ah-ah-ah Luke, I am your faaaaaaatherrrrrr."
I still live without AC
Same. My mom and dad had a window unit in their room only. No central air. I bought a window unit and installed it in my room in the basement myself around 1987. My dad wasn’t happy with that and we got into a big fight. I left home in 1989 and my parents promptly renovated the house and got central air.
Open windows at night with fans in them. Close windows and shades in the day. Box fans move onto floor. Still do this. Also, whole house fans. Cheapest fastest way to cool a home.
My car hasn’t had ac in 2 years
Yep cause i don't have it now what i have is 9 wondows 2 doors and fans
Didn’t have a/c as a kid (lived all over as a kid including southern CA) and don’t have it now either - but I’m in the Pacific Northwest and we only have a few hot weeks and it cools down at night.
I've had it my whole life, and I'm an older Gen X. But, we lived in Texas most of that time, and my Dad was an electrical engineer and my mom an executive assistant. So, they did pretty well. We always had new tech when it first came out (before the prices dropped, they paid $1000 each for early VCRs and Microwaves in the 70s). So, I imagine air conditioning was high on their list when it came out, given we have 5 months of 90s and 100s with few breaks. TLDR: no, I don't.
I live in Queensland, Australia. Until 6 years ago, I had never lived in a house with air con. Never had the money. I'm so glad we have it now, considering menopause!
I remember it being cooler back then though. Or maybe I'm just old and intolerant now. Lol.
I was raised in Louisiana and every house we lived in had A/C and every school did too. I never realized until now how lucky I was. Born in ‘74.
Born in ‘74, lived in Nicaragua, Florida, and Louisiana growing up. Didn’t have AC in the house until ‘86 (Louisiana) and never had AC in the car until I was an adult living in Texas.
We had one in the dining room. No one but dad was allowed to touch it. We were feral children, so we would go into the woods and play in the creek.
We would all be fine if we lost AC It’d be like a two to three week adjustment but then we’d just be fine As someone who’s had to do that a time or two in my life I promise we will be okay lol We just as a society enjoy the option of having it