More than “summer” temperatures: An apartment as hot as an oven
Jasmin L. has been causing the extremely high temperature in her apartment for weeks. What their landlords, the Tigewosi, don’t seem to do much about. It’s not their fault that it’s hot in summer.
How are you supposed to endure that? The sun burns directly on the windows. 30 degrees in the coolest part of the apartment. 51 degrees in the conservatory. There is no sun protection for Jasmin L., 29, on the 4th floor of Wiesengasse 17. The air there is muggy, sticky, stands as a mass of heat in the room. It’s hard to enter. You immediately start sweating profusely. jasmine charged. The landlords of the property are the Tigewosi. With bureaucratic bravura, the housing company always let the young woman’s requests for sun protection and remedies come to nothing. Just why?
“I tried everything to reduce the temperature,” says Jasmin. She has lived here for five years. It’s not the first summer that the apartment has gotten unbearably warm. But the recurring and longer-lasting heat waves in Innsbruck often make it unbearable for her in her own four walls.
It hasn’t been below 25 degrees for weeks
The curtains that Jasmin put on all the windows herself are drawn. The slits between the fabric to hold clothespins. All lights and appliances are also switched off. She hasn’t used the stove, let alone the kettle, since the beginning of July. Despite this, the indoor temperature has not fallen below 25 degrees for weeks. Even at night at night. It’s too warm to sleep well. And during the day it quickly gets to 35 degrees.
Jasmin’s pets, the 4-year-old therapy dog Mia and the 8-year-old cat MugMug, also suffer enormously from the heat. They sit or lie around all day. Panting.
The conservatory is only watch tv with leaky window blinds. And sheets. Jasmin hung it up herself. In summer, the sun shines through the large panes of glass from 6 a.m. in the morning until 8 p.m. in the evening. The room acts as a radiator for the rest of the apartment.
Tigewosi investigates the case
“Of course, we take complaints seriously and, as in this case, follow them up immediately,” says Birgit Scheiber-Kolp, Deputy Head of Property Management. Tigewosi would have been informed of Jasmin’s situation on July 15. On the same day, an employee contacted her mother to discuss the situation. Among other things, the possibility of installing a sunshade has been revised. On July 18th, Jasmin was contacted to arrange a viewing appointment. A property manager and a Tigewosi technician wanted to check the situation on site. “This was initially accepted with thanks by the tenant, but subsequently rejected by her mother for incomprehensible reasons,” says Scheiber-Kolp.
Jasmin rigorously denies this statement. “I have no idea what gave them that impression,” says Jasmin. “Like me, my mother would gratefully accept any reduction in temperature. She is extremely worried about me as I have problems with my circulation and get regular headaches from the heat.” After Jasmin contacted the Tigewosi on July 20th, an employee repeated the situation with her mother and discussed possible solutions.
Many people affected
“The fact is that many people are affected by periods of heat like the past few days,” says Scheiber-Kolp. Apartment tenants are required to take all available measures to avoid overheating, which is already in their own interest. “Whether all possibilities and, of course, reasonable measures to avoid heat have been taken by tenants in this case, we do not know of this one complaint.”
The low number of complaints could actually be related to the lack of complaint options. In Austria, there are no maximum temperatures in apartments. Summer temperature increases used to be bearable. But since the summers have been getting hotter and extreme temperatures have been recorded on more and more days, this is no longer the case.
Older standards obsolete
Construction standards from the past are now outdated. Just like the Tigewosi’s explanation, which in this specific case only refers to earlier times: “Our residential buildings were each built according to the current state of the art and therefore have the corresponding structural properties,” says Scheiber-Kolp. The comment that tenants can apply to the landlord for permission to install sun protection sounds defensive. Tigewosi claims that this is usually granted. And immediately points out that there is “basically no legal right to sun protection or air conditioning”.
Furthermore, Scheiber-Kolp claimed that the company had not received any application from Jasmin L. Which doesn’t really fit the contacts made as an explanation. While Jasmin claims to have sent numerous requests for help.
No concrete plan
Allegedly, the Tigewosi Jasmin will now offer a decent solution in the near future. However, there is no concrete plan for this. Uncertain what will become of the promises. Especially since Jasmin did not have good experience with the housing company when she had problems. For example when it came to removing mold from the walls. She was refused help. And when a water pipe broke, it took months to repair the damage. During this time, she was given alternative accommodation: a mattress on the floor of a closet-sized room. Without cooking facilities. “It was pretty demeaning, to be honest,” says Jasmin. “I didn’t feel like I was being treated with decency.”
And now Tigewosi drags herself along again. On July 23, a joint meeting took place on site. A property manager and a technician from the Tigewosi took part, as well as a specialist company that is now supposed to record the specific temperatures over a certain period of time (about 14 days). “Based on the on-site inspection, it can be assumed that the temperatures that are normal for the (hot) summer months are read out by the data loggers,” says Birgit Scheiber-Kolp. “Of course, the prerequisite for this is user-friendly behavior.” But what does that mean? The tenant cannot open windows because there is no cool air coming from outside. The entrance door to the hallway, where it can be cooler, must not be left open according to the rental regulations.
Completely useless air conditioner
The specialist company has agreed to provide Jasmin with an air conditioner on a temporary basis so that she can reduce the temperature in the apartment if she so desires. But: “It’s a shame that the device is completely useless,” says Jasmin. It wouldn’t be constructed properly and wouldn’t have remotely enough energy to reflect the temperature by even one degree. Which leads to further disappointment. Just like all other fans or cooling devices, Jasmin bought it herself. So she would prefer to change residence: “Ever since I moved here, I’ve been looking for something new, with the support of the municipal housing office and my advisor Sanja Markovic.”
Unfortunately without success.