The last time that I was visiting with her, I politely asked if we could turn down the air conditioning system a few degrees to which my aunt nearly imploded
You never know what people have been through or how they’re going to react to things because of their past. This is especially true when it comes to people who have lived through traumatic events which have left a lasting impression on their psyche. You can’t tell who has been through abuse, violence, or poverty before in their lives just by looking at them. This makes it difficult to be sensitive to differing needs all the time. This was especially true, I realized, when it came to my aunt and her central heating and cooling system. I never realized that she had previously been in an extremely controlling relationship, which included controlling the indoor air temperature to an extreme degree. Apparently, my aunt’s former husband was a bit of a curmudgeon when it came to utility bills and energy expenditure. Because he works out of the house all day long, he didn’t think that my aunt should require any central heating or cooling. He didn’t want to pay the energy bills for her to be comfortable all day, so he had installed locks on the thermostat to prevent her from altering the central HVAC system settings. This meant, she lives at home in fluctuating indoor air temperatures and suffered for nearly 10 years with unbearable air quality. Of course, I had no clue that she was so sensitive about her central heating and cooling system settings. The last time that I was visiting with her, I politely asked if we could turn down the air conditioning system a few degrees to which my aunt nearly imploded. Now that I know she previously lived under an HVAC tyranny, I feel terrible for trying to mess with her indoor air temperature at all. I tried to make it up for her by buying a smart thermostat and having a professional HVAC technician upgrade her entire central HVAC system. No one should ever live under those uncomfortable circumstances.