"Our Whole Family Sleeps In Hoodies"
- 17.10.2026, 17:52
The authorities' response to the woman from Gomel sparked a heated debate.
Varvara Andreevna, using the username "wizards.apprentice" on Threads, appealed to the Gomel City Executive Committee, according to “Solidarnast”.
According to the resident, she called the Executive Committee’s reception desk, where she received the standard response: heating will be turned on when the average daily temperature remains below +8° for three consecutive days.
“Judging by the weather forecast, we won’t see such temperatures until the end of October, but it’s already impossible to stay in the apartment. During the day, the temperature rises to 19°, but at night it’s always lower. Humidity is 100%, and there’s always water on the windows,” the Gomel resident shared.
Varvara added that laundry doesn’t dry for 4–5 days after washing, and black mold is appearing on the walls.
“They’ve turned on the heat in social services facilities, but what about everyone else?!” the woman asks in bewilderment. “So, kindergartens are supposed to have heat, but young children under three have to freeze at home. My child is wearing three layers of warm clothes, and it doesn’t help.
Our whole family sleeps in hoodies because we can’t fall asleep otherwise. I believe in my welfare state—our voices will be heard!”
In the comments, the author clarified that she lives on the first floor in a corner apartment.
The post garnered about 50,000 views and hundreds of likes.
The woman from Gomel received support in the comments.
“They’re simply calculating the average daily temperature incorrectly—minimum plus maximum, divided by two. But they don’t consider that the maximum temperature lasts only 1–3 hours, while the minimum persists throughout the dark part of the day—more than 8 hours.
And even the high—only 12–14 degrees—can’t make up for the prolonged cooling at +5–7 degrees. Over the past 24 hours, the average hourly temperature was just 7.4 degrees; yesterday and tomorrow it won’t be any higher.”
I’ve never seen anything like this in my entire life. I wonder why they turned the heat on. It’s sweltering in the hospitals, but freezing at home. The same kids are coming home to cold apartments. Is Gomel being used as guinea pigs for an experiment?
“I completely agree with the author of the post. In our apartment, the warmest room is +16°, but it’s impossible to sleep at night—the space heater doesn’t help, the humidity is sky-high, all the windows in the building are fogged up by morning, and even some of the doors in the building have warped... It’s bad every year, but for some reason this time it’s much worse than usual.”
One commenter writes that the heat has been turned on in his building:
“They shouldn’t have turned it on—it’s sweltering in the house, and opening the windows doesn’t help. It’s an old building, and it’s impossible to adjust the heating. As far as I’m concerned, they turned it on way too early.
I was comfortable in my apartment at 19 (degrees Celsius); now it’s 26 with the windows open—it’s awful. But at least we didn’t have any humidity.”
People are wondering: what criteria do heating utilities use when they turn on the heat as late as possible in the fall and delay turning it off as long as possible in the spring?
An energy worker’s wife responded in the comments: “My husband works for this organization. These same energy workers live in apartments and are freezing. The heating networks are just following management’s orders.”
Another woman from Gomel wrote: “Gas in the kitchen, a space heater in the kids’ room, and an air conditioner in the living room. I can’t even imagine what the electricity bill will be.”
Gomel has really hit rock bottom this year! They haven’t cleared the snow, mowed the grass, or turned on the heat…
“We need heating—at least the basic heating mode. I live on the first floor on the north side; the temperature in my apartment has been 16 degrees for two weeks now, and 15 for the last four days. Where’s the compliance with social standards?”—Gomel residents complain.
“We came back from the maternity hospital with our baby a few days ago, and we just can’t seem to give the little one his first bath because the apartment is freezing! It’s even impossible to change his diaper comfortably because by the time I finish changing him, his hands and feet are freezing. I walk around all bundled up myself, and I’m still freezing.”
They turned the heat on in Minsk apartments a long time ago, but it seems we’re not even human in Gomel. It feels like they’re giving this heat away for free, which is why they don’t turn it on early.
The city administration also came under fire in the comments: “The new mayor must be a walrus—he’s hot. To top it all off, all that’s left is to turn off the hot water.”