08 Dec 2012, 12:06 pm
I am living in an emergency homeless house and most of the time I manage to be cheerful but sometimes I get rather overwhelmed by life and the fact that there is no one to look after me. I am having one of those days where everything breaks and goes wrong.
My ancient iphone broke. My SIM card broke. So I have no phone number while I wait for them to send a new SIM.
The back-up PAYG SIM I am using is running out of credit and I want to top it up so I can make emergency calls and guess what? GiffGaff website is...yes...broken.
Now my gas boiler has broken. I can't turn on the heating or wash my hair. It's not a major emergency to wash my hair. I can live with greasy hair but the heating is important. It's rather cold in here even with all my layers on.
So everything is going wrong at once. 
It will be all right once someone mends my boiler but it's the weekend so I don't suppose they will come and mend it just now. I have phoned them about it and left a message but I can't phone them very much more until I can somehow have an active phone number again.
Oh well at least I haven't had one of my clumsy accidents and hurt myself. It could be worse. Also at least my electricity isn't broken and I can still boil the kettle to do the washing up. I hope there is no power cut... 
At least I am better off than most of the world's population. At least I have somewhere to live at all. That's good. It shouldn't really matter that I'm cold and have no phone. But it does. See I am trying to lecture myself and remind myself of all the things I should be happy about but I can't help it. No matter how I give myself pep talks, sometimes I just have to cry.
I wish someone would come and make my heating work again.
envirozentinel
Forum Moderator
Joined: 16 Sep 2012
Gender: Male
Posts: 17,226
Location: Keshron, Super-Zakhyria
08 Dec 2012, 12:18 pm
Hey I understand your frustrations, sometime "Murphy" takes a hand and seems to make everything break at once... been through this kind of thing. You'll get over it. Many of us on the spectrum have a lack of patience and go into a meltdown when things don't go right...
Luckily its currently summer where I am...
Hope its going better already... 
08 Dec 2012, 12:20 pm
envirozentinel
Forum Moderator
Joined: 16 Sep 2012
Gender: Male
Posts: 17,226
Location: Keshron, Super-Zakhyria
08 Dec 2012, 12:37 pm
08 Dec 2012, 12:42 pm
I can relate to your problem. Here in northern France it is bitterly cold too. We have no heating either, we simply can't afford any! It often goes down to around 10 or 11 degrees Celsius (50 Fahrenheit) indoors here (currently 15 degrees which is a heatwave for us! ), so we wear lots of layers of clothes. I even wear fingerless gloves and a coat indoors sometimes too when it is really bitter, sometimes a fleece hat too! I also wear two pairs of socks - one very thick.
We don't have any hot water either. The water heater broke around a month ago and we can't afford to repair it. The only hot water we have now is from the electric kettle or a saucepan on the cooker.
We are muddling through though. I've discovered how to have a "shower" by standing in the shower tray and using a bucket full of hot water (heated from the kettle and stove) and use a jug to pour it over myself. Not ideal but we are keeping clean.
Keep your chin up. It could be worse and there are certainly many people in the world who are worse off than you and worse off than me, and they live quite happily without these things we usually take for granted.
08 Dec 2012, 1:18 pm
Oh dear Tallyman. Your situation makes mine seem wonderful.
I wear hat scarf and gloves in bed to keep warm at night. For expense reasons, I do not put the heating on anywhere except the kitchen during the day, which is where I spend most of my time during the day. So I am already used to being rather cold. It's not like I am a pampered person who usually has 100% of the radiators in the house going full blast. I don't. I only have one of them on sporadically during the evening when things get very cold indeed, but once it's warmed me up a bit, I turn it off again. So this new "no boiler" situtation is not too much of a drastic change from the way things were before. It's just that I have got rather cold now, and would like to turn on the radiator for a blast of heat, but I can't. And it's making me get a bit upset. I hate being cold.
I am wearing:
Wooly trousers
Long skirt
Long undercoat
Long quiltet overcoat
Long-sleeved T shirt
Long cardigan
2 scarves
big socks
gloves
but I'm still cold!
I might have to go and get into bed, or make some hot water bottles and put them on myself while I'm sitting here.
Interesting fact: I have learned that a touch-pad thingy on a laptop partially responds even when you're wearing gloves.
No I don't. I am autistic. I have zero friends. If I had friends or family members I would be talking to them instead of offloading to strangers on an Internet forum, wouldn't I? Most of the time I get by being all alone but when I have a crisis I just start to feel rather desperate and panicky because there is never anybody to help. But I just end up having to pull myself together and get on with sorting it myself, because there's no one else to sort it, so if I don't sort it, it won't get done.
Update: an on-call person has just phoned me and she is going to call me back.
Update again: they said they can't get someone to come and look at it until Monday.
08 Dec 2012, 4:26 pm
), so we wear lots of layers of clothes. I even wear fingerless gloves and a coat indoors sometimes too when it is really bitter, sometimes a fleece hat too! I also wear two pairs of socks - one very thick.We don't have any hot water either. The water heater broke around a month ago and we can't afford to repair it. The only hot water we have now is from the electric kettle or a saucepan on the cooker.
We are muddling through though. I've discovered how to have a "shower" by standing in the shower tray and using a bucket full of hot water (heated from the kettle and stove) and use a jug to pour it over myself. Not ideal but we are keeping clean.
Keep your chin up. It could be worse and there are certainly many people in the world who are worse off than you and worse off than me, and they live quite happily without these things we usually take for granted.
When I was studying I lived in a very cheap appartment with my boyfriend. There was no heating installed (we are talking Denmark) we had these portable gas heaters (electricity was to expensive). They generate lots of water and can not be turned on during night. The toilet was on the backstairs and the shower in one of the rooms (no bathroom). During winter we slept with lots of clothes on, and sometimes hats. The only fish I was able to keep in my aquarium was goldfish, they could survive the cold
One winter the water heater broke - that ment heating water to wash in, and washing very fast because it was very cold inside. Shortly after that central heating was installed in the whole block.
edit.
At the moment I have turned down the heating in half the house to 10-14 degrees. The heating bill was too large and I am trying to find ways to cut costs. We are having -7 outdoors at the moment
When I get my hands on some money it will be invested in insulation!
11 Dec 2012, 2:25 pm
All fixed now. The engineer came and mended it. I have heating in the kitchen again.
On the bright side, at least my house isn't as cold as this train. 
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article ... s-ice.html
11 Dec 2012, 3:49 pm
Hot water bottles fix the universe!
Glad its all fixed and back on.
starfox64
Yellow-bellied Woodpecker
Joined: 27 Oct 2012
Gender: Male
Posts: 51
Location: Blue moon where love is universal
12 Dec 2012, 1:44 am
12 Dec 2012, 4:21 am
12 Dec 2012, 4:24 am
I wear hat scarf and gloves in bed to keep warm at night. For expense reasons, I do not put the heating on anywhere except the kitchen during the day, which is where I spend most of my time during the day. So I am already used to being rather cold. It's not like I am a pampered person who usually has 100% of the radiators in the house going full blast. I don't. I only have one of them on sporadically during the evening when things get very cold indeed, but once it's warmed me up a bit, I turn it off again. So this new "no boiler" situtation is not too much of a drastic change from the way things were before. It's just that I have got rather cold now, and would like to turn on the radiator for a blast of heat, but I can't. And it's making me get a bit upset. I hate being cold.
I am wearing:
Wooly trousers
Long skirt
Long undercoat
Long quiltet overcoat
Long-sleeved T shirt
Long cardigan
2 scarves
big socks
gloves
but I'm still cold!
I might have to go and get into bed, or make some hot water bottles and put them on myself while I'm sitting here.
Interesting fact: I have learned that a touch-pad thingy on a laptop partially responds even when you're wearing gloves.
No I don't. I am autistic. I have zero friends. If I had friends or family members I would be talking to them instead of offloading to strangers on an Internet forum, wouldn't I? Most of the time I get by being all alone but when I have a crisis I just start to feel rather desperate and panicky because there is never anybody to help. But I just end up having to pull myself together and get on with sorting it myself, because there's no one else to sort it, so if I don't sort it, it won't get done.
Update: an on-call person has just phoned me and she is going to call me back.
Update again: they said they can't get someone to come and look at it until Monday.
12 Dec 2012, 4:34 am
Aww, thank you AspieOtaku! You are right, but there is no one to hug me except my dog. But he cuddles into me in the night and we keep each other warm. Well, not warm exactly. Warmer. I don't know how cold he feels, but I feel very cold in my bed. It takes me about an hour to warm up, even with all my layers of clothes, my two duvets, my hot water bottles, and my dog. But at least it is not as cold in my house as on that cold train I linked to.
envirozentinel
Forum Moderator
Joined: 16 Sep 2012
Gender: Male
Posts: 17,226
Location: Keshron, Super-Zakhyria
12 Dec 2012, 12:54 pm
15 Dec 2012, 7:36 pm
