More heat, no air-con: At-home workers face new threat as temperatures soar
By Rachel Parsons
It took a moment for Debbie Alvarez to regain consciousness and realize what had happened.
She remembered standing up from her desk at home, feeling dehydrated, sweaty and light-headed because of the high humidity and intense heat of the abnormally early southern California monsoon season in 2023.
The next thing she knew she was lying on her bedroom floor, her ankle throbbing.
“I blacked out. I woke up right behind my desk on the floor and I had twisted my ankle pretty badly from the fall. I couldn't get up,” Alvarez said - even to reach her computer and let her boss know she had fainted.
Worsening extreme heat is making working hours less comfortable - and in some cases even dangerous - for more home-based workers around the world, whose numbers have surged since the COVID-19 pandemic.
Until then, Alvarez, a call center customer service representative, worked in an air-conditioned office in Irvine, California, and never thought much about the region’s blistering heatwaves.
Her small home, rented for herself and her two children in nearby Santa Ana, didn’t have air conditioning but the family spent much of the week at work or school, and on weekends they went out, she remembers.
But during the pandemic, her company shifted to home-based work - and then decided to keep the practice after the pandemic ended.
That has left Alvarez, an otherwise healthy 39-year-old, as one of millions of renters in southern California who work from home without air conditioning, a growing concern as dangerous stretches of extreme heat come more often and last longer, affecting job productivity as well as health.
Around the world, millions of home-based workers like her are struggling as climate change brings more extreme temperatures, with modest incomes often limiting their ability to afford cooling.
heat regulations
Santa Ana, like most cities in California, has no law requiring landlords to maintain safe maximum temperatures in their rental units. The state in October passed a law requiring such measures statewide by 2027, but it does not mandate a specific maximum temperature.
Nationwide, fewer than a dozen counties and cities have implemented some form of cooling laws, according to The Network for Public Health Law.
That is despite heat becoming the top weather-related killer in the United States, and researchers discovering decades ago that people without air conditioning were at least 50% more likely to experience illnesses such as heat stroke, heat exhaustion and organ failure than those with even a small air conditioning unit.
Despite the evidence, cooling ordinance proposals have faced strong opposition from landlords in California and across the blistering southern U.S. states.
As summer temperatures climb in southern California, Alvarez has considered trying to find a new job in order to work in an office again. She asked her landlord if she could install an air conditioner at home but was refused over concerns the electricity bill, which her landlord paid, would soar, she said.
But facing extreme heat without effective cooling means “you can't completely focus on your job because you're constantly trying to accommodate yourself to cool down,” she said.
Companies so far do not seem to be considering growing heat as a significant part of their work-from-home policies, or presenting air conditioning as a perk for return-to-the-office pushes.
Of nearly 20 large or mid-sized U.S. corporations, contacted to ask whether they saw air conditioning as a way to bring people back into the office, only three responded, either with a no comment, or that they had no policy to address the problem.
‘AMAZINGLY CRAZY’ HEAT
About 12 miles away from Alvarez’s apartment, Estella Banks, who lives in Fullerton, has a small wall-mounted air conditioner - but it has been broken for at least five years.
Her landlord would let her replace it but Banks would have to pay for it, and justifying the cost is difficult, she said. Instead she makes do with fans in every room in the house, including three in the living room where she works.
The 59-year-old education consultant and artist has high blood pressure, a risk factor for heat stroke, and often works with a personal fans hanging around her neck in addition to the others in the room.
On an average recent October afternoon, a thermometer in her living room read 85 degrees Fahrenheit (29.4 degrees Celsius). During the summer, she said, it soars into the mid-90s.
“I do remember last year when it was 111 (degrees Fahrenheit outside). That was amazingly crazy,” Banks said.
On the hottest days she goes to the local library to work on her laptop. But she is also a commercial artist and packing up all of her paint and other art supplies and using them elsewhere is a challenge.
“The summer has been a huge ding to my productivity in terms of my art because the (paint) I like to work with dries too fast and you can't get the prints,” Banks said.
She said the worsening heat makes her lethargic and sleepy, impairing her concentration.
According to U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics data, women are more likely to work from home than men.
For people with existing illnesses, worsening extreme heat is an added worry.
Earlier this year, Banks’ adult daughter lived with her while undergoing chemotherapy for cancer. Chemotherapy can interfere with the body’s ability to regulate its temperature, making patients extra susceptible to heat illness, doctors say.
At times, her daughter slept with ice packs in her bed to protect her health, Banks said, with night-time heat a growing problem.
‘PATCHWORK’ LAWS
Renters across southern California have reported heat-related health complications including headaches, dizziness, asthma attacks and nosebleeds, according to research from Los Angeles-based policy nonprofit Strategic Actions for a Just Economy (SAJE).
California’s Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment notes that” emergency department visits and hospitalizations due to heat-related illnesses” are rising in the state.
But so far laws governing maximum indoor temperatures are patchwork at best. Some regulate only certain kinds of dwellings, such as nursing homes, while others focus on specific geographies or parts of rental homes.
If Banks lived five miles north, in Los Angeles County, her home would fall under new heat legislation passed in August, which will require landlords to maintain indoor temperature below a maximum of 82F in most rooms by 2027.
But Orange County - where Alvarez and Banks live - does not have such a law, nor do the cities of Santa Ana and Fullerton.
Governments from all three jurisdictions did not respond to requests for comment.
CLEAN ENERGY COOLING
Los Angeles County has about 100,000 rental units that don’t fall under any city’s jurisdiction, said Barbara Ferrer, director of the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health.
She said county officials are aware that installing thousands of air conditioners will increase electricity demand and drive more climate-changing emissions unless the power for them comes from renewable sources.
Fortunately, under the county’s current plans its electricity will be completely renewable by 2027, said Ted Bardacke, CEO of the Clean Power Alliance, the county’s power company.
Still, officials are also promoting use of alternative low-carbon cooling such as planting shade trees, installing window awnings and ceiling fans and painting roofs white to reflect the sun’s heat.
“The idea behind this is to do as much passive cooling as possible … understanding that we don’t really want to exacerbate climate change issues,” Ferrer told the county Board of Supervisors at its August meeting.
EXPANDING LAWS
The City of Los Angeles, with roughly 1 million rental households, plans to adopt the same heat ordinance passed by Los Angeles County, said Grace Hut, an assistant director for policy at SAJE, which was involved in crafting some of the proposals included in L.A. County’s law.
But more needs to be done at the state level, Hut said.
With just a patchwork of county and city laws in California, “there are always people who are not going to be covered (by cooling laws),” she said, urging the state to make similar legislation “a priority and policy of their own”.
For now, electricity demand for cooling is on the rise in California, with about 13 percent of household electricity consumption going to cooling in 2019, up from 7 percent in 2009, according to a California Energy Commission study.
Those working in the heat without air conditioning are also making their own changes to cope.
In Fullerton, Banks is still making do, heading to the library when she needs to and painting on cooler days.
But Alvarez, tired of working soaked in sweat and watching her computer overheat, decided to move after her former landlord refused to provide an air conditioner or allow her to buy one.
Now she’s studying for a nursing degree, in a new place with air conditioning that she pays for. During the summer, her bill ranges from $500 to $700 a month, she said.
The cost is enormous but “the constant worry of how I am going to get through today is no longer there,” she said. Now, “I look forward to actually sitting here to work, because I’m comfortable.”