Three newcomers to Windsor talk about how they dealt with the hot summers
Getting a little too hot this summer? You don’t stand alone. People all over Canada say they are feeling the heat, especially at home. We’re following it. Teams from the CBC have put temperature and humidity sensors in dozens of homes in several cities, including Windsor, Ont., to see what people do when it gets hot, sizzling, and dangerous. This is a story like that.
If you move to Canada from somewhere else, you might expect the weather to be warmer. But Windsor, Ontario, has another week of heat warnings and temperatures that are close to 40 C with the humidex. This means that people have to deal with the heat without always being ready.
Even if they have air conditioning, some new Windsor residents are afraid to use it, sometimes because of money worries and sometimes because of more complicated situations. This is a trade-off that can have real effects on mental and physical health.
Bushra Binte Ishaque moved from Bangladesh to Windsor with her husband and two-year-old son in January. She has to spend most of her day in her apartment. Ishaque works from home as a call center worker during the day, while her husband, who works nights, sleeps in the one bedroom of their apartment.The family can only afford one AC unit, but they don’t use it much.
“I have to stay in the living room so I can do my work,” she says. “My husband sleeps in the room with the air conditioner, but I don’t because I can’t talk while he’s sleeping.”
The living room is open to the kitchen, so heat and humidity build up while her husband sleeps. Ishaque tries to help by leaving the balcony window open, but it isn’t enough.
The brick building gets very warm, especially when Ishaque cooks. Her son often sleeps in the same bed with her at night to keep himself at a comfortable temperature.
Ishaque is one of 10 Windsor residents who have agreed to joinCBC’s Urban Heat ProjectWhere teams have put temperature and humidity monitors in the homes of people who have problems with high temperatures inside. Since our team started keeping track, most days her apartment is a lot hotter than the outside air.
“I can’t get another unit because I don’t have enough money. The price of the air conditioner, yes, but also the cost of running it. It makes me very worried.”
Ishaque works at a call center and also goes to school at the University of Windsor. At the moment, the campus is a cool place to be on hot days.
Elnaz Akhavan is another newcomer whose heat puts her in a dangerous spot. Even though she has a small air conditioner in her living room, there have been nights when her apartment was well over 30 C.
“It gets very hot in the rest of the apartment. “Sometimes, even if it’s on, it won’t work because it’s so hot,” she says.
Akhavan is from Iran, and at the University of Windsor, she is getting her PhD. She lives alone, except for a cat she watches for someone else. Even in the summer, she finds it helpful to spend as much time as she can at school.
She says, “I’m very busy at this school, but even when I wasn’t, I still liked being there.” “I go to school to get a break.”
It’s advice that Akhavan has given to his friend Zeinab Niknam, who is also new to Canada. Along with her husband, Zeinab moved from Iran to Windsor so that she could also go to college there. Their living room has a portable air conditioner, but they don’t use it very often.
She says, “We’ve been here for just over a month, and we still haven’t gotten our first bill.” “So we’re worried that it might get so high. So we try to limit how much our air conditioner is used.”
In the meantime, the couple has moved a mattress into the living room so that on really hot days they can sleep in front of the cool air coming from the AC. Still, the temperatures inside the Niknam home are often hotter than the temperatures outside.
She says, “My husband can’t stand the heat.” “If it’s more than 30 degrees and he doesn’t have air conditioning, he can’t. We can’t pay for another unit right now, so we hope the bill isn’t too high.”
Niknam also finds peace at the university, just like Akhavan.
“We go to the gym, and I stay at school. We only go home at night, and we try to spend our time where the weather is better.”
This week, there are heat warnings for most of the city. Windsor has put out a list of public places with air conditioning, like the Chimczuk Museum and the Windsor Public Library, in case people need to go there. The city says that people who want to get out of the heat can also call 211 to find out about other options.
CBC News will keep telling stories from families in Windsor who agreed to be part of our Urban Heat Project all through the summer.