I’ve been living in a friend’s basement for the past year and a half and it’s not so bad.
I have a separate bedroom attached to a large kitchen and living room space.
It was nicely furnished when I arrived as well, with a leather couch and lazy boy recliner that were removed from my friend’s living room upstairs when he got brand new furniture the year prior. He was the one who encouraged me to move here in the first place after my landlord inexplicably raised my rent by 30% last year as the housing market surged. Best of all, he enjoys my company and has yet to encourage me to move out. I like cooking and grilling and try to make and share as many meals as I can to make myself wanted in this household. Although my friend is so kind that I know he’d keep me here even if I couldn’t cook myself out of a paper bag. Recently I was able to use some of the money I’m saving on rent to improve my comfort in this basement space. It is true on the one hand that it’s much cooler in the summer down in the basement compared to upstairs because of the geothermal cooling effect from being underground. However, it still gets fairly warm in the summer and I have to use a window air conditioner down here to get it cooler inside. I use fans to redirect the cold air emitted from the window a/c, but it wasn’t enough. I finally decided to upgrade this old basement window air conditioner with a ductless mini split. After getting quotes from a number of different HVAC suppliers, I finally pulled the trigger on a system with a company right down the road from here.