It's fricken freezing in here, Mr. Bigglesworth!

It’s getting cold here in Tiny-Townville and I’ve gone into hibernation mode for the winter. I packed up my stuff and moved into one room (my bear den) and have been performing daily tasks in there, such as, primping, microwaving meals and sleeping. Why have I moved all my stuff into one room for the winter? Because that is where my space heater is.


I am refusing to turn my heater on due to a nasty rumor I was told by my neighbor. They said that their electric bill was $600 two months in a row last winter. This seems ridiculous, but after asking others who live in historic homes, such as I, it turns out they have suffered the financial hardships of winter heating. Here are the reasons given to me as to why the bill would be so high:

1) It is an electric heater and costs more money than a gas heater. (And no, I will not be replacing the electric heater with a gas one for this rats’ nest, since I am not the owner.)
2) This OLD house is poorly insulated.
3) The air ducts are in the ceiling of my house… and heat rises… therefore, the heat doesn’t reach the lower habitable part of my house (you know, where the food, bed and TV are), making it inhabitable.

Since I live in the same house as these neighbors, I assume that I will meet the same billing fate if I chose to turn the heater on. My lack of wealth has caused me to forgo the luxury of heat.

My situation makes me wonder what the rest of the people living in historic homes are doing? Have they switched from electric to gas? Are they just going without heat as well? Or are they suffering the financial burden of their high priced electric bill in order to not lose the tip of their nose to frost bite?

I’ve tried moving the space heater to other parts of the house, but the other rooms are just too big with too high of ceilings for the heat to circulate through the room properly and make it warm. When I brave the living room for a half hour to watch a DVR’d show, I have to huddle in front of the space heater to avoid hypothermia. If I walk anywhere not carpeted without shoes, my toes go numb. It’s only 54 degrees out, so what am I going to do when the temperature drops into the 30s? (BTW... I think it's cold when it is 70 degrees out.)

On the bright side, my electric bill was only $49 last month. I guess I can use the extra money to buy more blankets… or an extra space heater.