It’s 2022 yet people are freezing at home

I'm only 40, but my parents and grandparents used to told me stories from back in the day. No heating upstairs, sleeping room's windows frozen inside during winter, barely a bathroom. I recently realised how frugal my grandmother lived, to the end of his life, at 90, a few years ago.
Never complaint and was healthier than lot's of younger people.
We will have to realise how well and comfy we lived for the last 50 years. Even modest people got a heated house, bathroom, toilet, TV and internet.
Our youngest generations who doesn't get to know how our grandparents lived, will likely have a reality check in the coming years.

 

Of course we were better off 60 years ago. We didn't need a dishwasher, internet, pc or laptop, sky sports sub and if we were lucky, ome telephone for the whole household. We didn't have much to spend money on so we just fed ourselves and kept warm.

 

You've hit on one of the downsides of modern society, the demise of the extended family as younger generations disperse around the country.

Loneliness amongst the elderly is a sad consequence of the choices our generation has made, myself included.

 

I don’t understand the point of this thread?

I was born in 1963, even more people were freezing in their homes back then, the UK population has increased by about 14 mil and we’re not supposed to burn fossil fuels anymore because it’s heating up the planet!

We make very little, we grow very little, we export very little and yet we’re supposed to keep everyone warmer just because it’s 2022?

My 91 year old mum lives in the same sunshine semi the they bought brand new when I was 6 weeks old.
It was single glazed, no central heating, no cavity wall or loft insulation. There was a 3 bar gas fire in the 24x12 living room, the bathroom had an electric ring heater round the ceiling light, an enamel bath and Lino floor!
Hot water bottle in winter and fight over who had the cat sleeping on the bed for warmth

 

They allow it because they get a vat tax take on it.

 

Funny, reading that I was just thinking I can honestly say my father had the most relaxed happiest 10 years of his life after my mother died and he was on his own. He really chilled out! lol Then again he wasn't freezing, hungry and skint. And when his dementia got really bad, rather than shuffle him into a home my brother moved in with him - again, lucky that worked out. lol

Tis true, most of us old gits on here can remember all that. I remember my soon to be sister-in-law's rented semi. We stayed with her for a while. One gas fire, the cat caught fire once (smouldering anyway) trying to get closer to it. You couldn't wash-up in winter because water froze in the sink. Ice inside the windows and all that. Got to say I prefer being warm!
Same when we were snappers really except the kitchen wasn't a single brick extension.

There's truth in that. Or maybe that was all "we" could afford, that and saving up for a holiday. Nobody had credit cards.

 

The times of cheap excessive energy are over...
But very sad that it often hits the poorest the hardest - who also have no reserves to optimize themselves.
It's not going to be easy for social peace in Europe. But one should also remember that it was not always so comfortable as the past decades.

I still know houses in the past without heating in every room and mini-windows, apartments with only a tiled stoves in the living room/stove in the kitchen and oil/coal boiler in the bathroom, no running hot water... luxury only came in the 70s/80s... with underfloor heating everywhere and floor-to-ceiling windows in increasingly huge houses and apartments. As a student, I lived some years on 9 square meters including bed, desk, wardrobe and washbasin - plus shared toilets and kitchen. Today tiny houses are luxury to this.

After our children moved out, we reduced ourselves to a small old house. But this 100-year-old little house used to have smaller rooms before (partitions were removed) - half of the current ones were unheated barns and workshops instead of living space. The windows were smaller and fewer (but today they are solid and triple-glazed instead of windy wooden windows). And even as a fridge there is still an ancient icebox without electricity and technology in the basement ready to use. We have drastically reduced our consumption, reserves with wood stove/fireplace and fortunately could & can invest in solar and heat pumps for the future... we are on our way without having to freeze. But only a few can do that without help...

Take care and peaceful warm Xmas,

 

A good synopsis of where we are at.

I’d agree with most of it other than in the 2 up 2 down We lived in we had 4 gas grilles in the fire but only ever saw the middle 2 lit!
Whatever differing views we may have the reality is that we should not have been subject to such price hikes in such a short time frame. Our infrastructure to store has been dismantled. Our suppliers are now owned overseas, and when massive profits over and above those predicted are harvested then , in the current situation they should be subject to a windfall tax.
The term windfall tax is a misnomer ….they have hardly paid any in the last 2 years!

ps we didn’t have a cat.

 

If you think that is bad then take a look at the small business sector and whilst there is government support it ends at the end of March and is only applied on the commodity element of bills, the utility companies have seen an opportunity to profiteer and have whacked up the non commodity element, thats if they will give a contract in the first place.

 

I don't understand how you can't see that the point is about progress, surely the main aim of all societies?

When you were born in 1963 society was revolting against the status quo after the devastation of the 40's and the general misery of rationing and National Service of the 50's.

To look back on those days as somehow better is sentimental twaddle.

 

I am happy to join Dunc as a sentimental twaddlist . I’ve been called worse

 

Being the son of a miner,who got a free ton of coal every ,lets say five week. We lived in a metal framed windowed house single glazed, no insulation anywhere in the house .
I fondly remember the rear bedroom windows being frozen shut most of the winter with as much as an inch of ice at the bottom of them , we had a fire downstairs and one in the front bedroom, this was lit by carrying a shovel full of fire from downstairs fire ,up the stairs to the bedroom . We all slept in the front bedroom until you were actually asleep then we were carried into the rear freezing bedrooms unaware of the cold .
Now that was cold and even though the coal was free , it actually cost dads life , dying from emphysema by breathing in the coal dust .
Gas Today is expensive but not as much as my dad and many other miners paid for the coal, with their lives.

 

How warm is warm?
Good example.
Went around my 89 year old mothers yesterday.
There she is,sat there in a load of jumpers and fleeces. Not complaining about the cold.
She has heating,she has savings,she can get help with it all if she really wanted to,but she refuses to because she’s Old School.
She’s just use to the cold and dark winters we used to have back in the day. She asks for nothing.
She’s very much ‘put another jumper on and move around a bit’,if you’re cold.
We never had heating once,you know…or roofs….etc…

 

So true,
Just been reading a weather report on sky news, it actually said “ we have reports of snow on roads in Edinburgh”…
Everything or many things are so ridiculously sensationalised now , I hopefully can take a step back and evaluate…. Not so sure about younger generations , but this may be grossly unfair .

 

I don't think Dunc was referring it to be ..was better .

 

https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=&ved=2ahUKEwjqtdecv-v7AhVxQkEAHd5sD8kQtwJ6BAgJEAI&url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DT1mGoLDRbc&usg=AOvVaw2YV1WyJqzf5mOh9od2Fz3r

 

Yeah. It is.
I probably mentioned it before,but born in ‘68 through to ‘77,I lived in a caravan with only a small wood burner.
Admittedly, we had a big gas bottle outside but that was mainly for the cooker.
It was only a thin skinned caravan,like the static ones you stay in at holiday parks.
That was always cold,but my mum used to knit us all jumpers and we would have them as Christmas presents. We would get up and have to scrape the ice from the inside of the windows, some mornings. Don’t think we ever received any additional ’help’ from anyone. We just had to jump around a bit,when we were cold.
Incidentally…
In ‘76, when we had the heatwave,and your lolly fell off its stick as soon as you took it out of the freezer…did anyone cry ‘Global Warming!’.
Can’t remember …I was only 9 and never took much notice…

 

Where did I say it was better or I felt sentimental for it?

Just a fact, people don’t need houses heated to 20 odd degrees to survive, it’s not even very healthy.

 

no

it is THAT worse in other places

 

Apologies, that's how it read to me. But the thread is entitled people freezing at home, not needing to be heated at 20degC. You made that leap, not me.