A friend moved to Florida in the middle of 2025. He went back in February 2026 to deal with issues around selling his old house in the Boston suburbs. Some of his messages to a group chat:
After Florida this is indeed f***ing torture
I spent the entire morning doing useless shit that is neither fun nor contributes to my future well being. Shoveling snow, salting.
Even though I pay hundreds of dollars a month to an entitled lazy idiot gardener who doesn’t do anything unless you tell him repeatedly.
The house was empty yet my heat bill was $1500.
In Florida that will be the electric bill for a 20k sq ft house with another 15k sq ft of usable outdoor living space
I forgot a snow brush
Now I will have to scrape snow off my car after a [gym workout], all sweaty and freezing
Took me an hour to get to my house from the airport on Friday [about 20 highway miles]
But it is good because I can spend this time listening to NPR
He included a photo:
A little later in the chat group, from a participant who lives in a South Shore suburb of Boston:
How can anyone commute to work? It’s an hour and 20 minutes going to Cambridge now [27-mile trip, mostly highway]. I guess people don’t work from home anymore?
[me] They stopped taking the T. So even though fewer are working the traffic is as bad or worse. ChatGPT: [the MBTA has] about ~64% of pre-pandemic ridership
Speaking of NPR, we had a dealer loaner while our Honda Odyssey was being serviced (some more battery trauma, this time with a 4-month-old Duracell AGM; I paid $308 for a Honda OEM part instead of trying to get another short-lived Duracell under warranty). I didn’t want to go to the trouble of getting Apple CarPlay organized so instead of my usual Audible book I listened to Treasure Coast NPR. When I tuned in they were talking about the real victims of the Gazans’ October 7, 2023 attack into Israel: American Muslims. Islamophobia in the U.S. reached crisis proportions after October 7 and then became an emergency crisis emergency when Donald Trump was elected by the haters. This piece was followed by a story about Black-white interracial marriage 60-150 years ago in the U.S. In a country that has been transformed by Latinx and Asian immigration, thus enabling the entire economy to do without Black workers (see Replacement of Black workers by migrants in Cambridge, Massachusetts), NPR remains stuck on the idea that Black-white relations are the defining issue of our time.
> NPR remains stuck on the idea that Black-white relations are the defining issue of our time.
PBS too. It’s another argument I’m not going to win. “Black Lives Matter *means* all lives matter, but it is wrong to *say* ‘all lives matter’,” she says. (WTF?) “I don’t want to argue about that again,” I say. “I’m not arguing, you are just wrong,” she says. Actually a good way to tell you dealing with a cis woman. (Love you sweetie…she sometimes reads Phil.)
Sounds like an alpha male airbnb owner. Greenspun doesn’t complain as much during his many annual trips back.
God save Florida from wealthy stingy dysfunctional NPR audience.
The Trump admin killed the start/stop regulatory credit so perhaps soon we can all live without this universally hated “feature”.
https://www.epa.gov/newsreleases/president-trump-and-administrator-zeldin-deliver-single-largest-deregulatory-action-us
They need go further and pass a law to require manufacturers to issue a recall and disable this abomination, which probably increases fuel usage.
> After Florida this is indeed f***ing torture…all sweaty and freezing
(Sounds like a session with Jasmine. She wanted $50 extra for the bondage package plus $25 for iced nips.) Not sure I can be as succinct as the above comments, but don’t you have to live in air conditioning most of the year in Florida? Please update us this summer on Mr. Gatsby here, Phil. I spent a lot of time in Florida, and everything smelled musty, even upscale hotels. In Mass it was the musty manners.
A/C is on about 50/52 weeks per year in Palm Beach County. With variable-speed A/C and proper engineering of ducts (not inside unconditioned attics or, if they are, spray foaming the attic) interior humidity will be 40-50%. If a whole-house dehumidifier is added the humidity level will fall to the 30s while additional fresh air is brought in. Being able to control HVAC is one of the only advantages of owning vs. renting!
I thought 60% humidity suits human life better than 30% — are Floridians trying to freeze-dry themselves?
In that case, I would line up my HVAC engineering team before moving in and have them sort out the house. Maybe have a backup firm in mind when the first one flakes out seemingly overnight. Also budget for a natural gas powered generator or solar/battery when the electrical grid goes down. Also think about having a stockpile of common HVAC parts. We had a TXV failure in our two year old Trane, and the whole house dehumidifier fail after one year. It took a week to get a replacement TXV (good thing we do scheduled maintenance in the spring) and almost a year of F-ing around with Trane to get a replacement dehum. We need engineering, we get Engineering. Coruscant doesn’t seem to far off, with this whole Koyaanisqatsi mess we’re building.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coruscant
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Koyaanisqatsi
@Federico
> I thought 60% humidity suits human life better than 30%
human -> fungal FTFY
40-50% is probably ideal for most people. But with variable-speed AC and a dehumidifier, the humidity can be set as desired.
There isn’t a strong case to be made for a generator if one is in a newer neighborhood with underground power lines. It’s not like in Maskachusetts where a tree falling can take out power for 50 hours in the middle of winter. Maybe there is a bad hurricane event every 50-75 years. In that case it makes more sense to drive to Orlando and stay in a hotel!