Tired of people who are environment' irresponsible

[Popinski]

.....Environmentally irresponsible....aka...lazy....don't know common sense.

I'm not talking about tree-hugging. I'm talking about being a typical responsible American. My roommate spent thousands of dollars making his house "green", yet he is one of the biggest wasters I have ever seen. By the way, we both split 50/50 on utility bills.

Here's what makes me mad:

-He washes very low loads of clothes and put the water dial for LARGE LOADS!

-He made a mistake while cooking, went to the table and added more ingredients. As he did this, he left the darn gas stove on unattended for 5 minutes. What's so hard about turning a dial to OFF position? What a waste of gas!

-He always leaves the lights on when the room is unoccupied. Drives me nuts!!!

-We have room Air Conditioners and we have confirmed that turning them off when we leave the house saves more electricity than leaving them on all day like commercial air conditioners. He never turns the darn A/C off!! I'm tired of this!

-He leaves his computer on 24/7; not on sleep mode. He says, "I hate waiting for it to load up"

-He bought a Honda Civic because it has good gas mileage, but he guns it and does jack rabbit starts all the dang time!!

-He takes 20 minute showers. I told him that he will save energy by turning the dial to "energy saving" mode on the gas water heater. He says, "no, I don't want you to break anything".

-He has a tiny yard and cuts his grass with a 17 HP riding lawn mower! It takes 20 minutes to cut the grass using a more efficient walk-behind mower!!

I'm getting tired of people's irresponsible behavior. I'm talking money, environment, basic responsibilities. I warned him about his behavior and that I will only pay 10% of the utility bills. Man, I can't wait to buy my own house/condo

 

[Artem]

LOL. sounds like you and your roomie need to have a serious talk...again. better yet, show him this thread. Haha.

I have the same beef with my parents. My mom would fall asleep in front of the tv EACH and EVERY NIGHT. she would wake up hours later AND THEN finally hit the sheets. I hate it. The lights are on, tv, sound system and on top of all that, she'd have the laptop on sitting on her lap all at once.

How hard is it to realize that you're getting sleepy, finna pass out, turn the tv off and go to sleep like a NORMAL person. I don't know how my dad handles it. He sleeps alone 90% of the night.

 

[CROWNVIC4LIFE]

I had roomate like that [but worse] when I shared a apt in NYC awhile back..Since he was nice,did not steal,payed his share of the rent on time and let me use his 5.0 Mustang whenever I wanted I just looked the other way on all the other things..I figured I was blessed to have him.

 

[mpvue]

wow.


I agree to a point; I don't understand people who won't separate the garbage, esp when the city makes it so easy w/ recycling bins.
lots of people have irresponsible habits but when telling them about it strains the relationship or you become known as THAT irritating guy who tells everyone about it, well, that might be too much.
I'll be responsible for me and my family but I'm not going to be everyone's conscience.

 

[TallPaul]

One of the most environmentally irresponsible things that people do is douse their lawns with chemicals. What a waste. Who cares, just mow it. If there are weeds they only serve to add to the diversity. A grass monoculture is unnatural and hard to maintain. Many suburban lawns are chemically dependent.

 

[eljefino]

It never ends!

My wife uses like four feet of dental floss every night! She thinks she has to use new floss on each tooth because there might be germs on the floss from the last tooth.

My dental hygenist uses 15 inches, including the finger wrap, and if there were germs she'd have been trained another way.

When evening comes and it's time to run fans to cool off the house, I put mine upstairs blowing out. It sucks cool air in through the downstairs, and the heat given off by the fan motor goes outside. I've EXPLAINED this until I was blue in the face. When she's not looking I fix the fans, maybe several times an evening. Environmental stewardship is serious business.

You know that cold water that comes from the tap while waiting for the hot? I save that in a pitcher for the plants or I'll even flush a toilet with it.

The only way out is to become a hermit! Note that despite the waste, sharing living space has huge environmental and monetary benefits. Think of all the people sharing heat.

 

[simple_gifts]

Rampant consumption seems to be sold as an American birthright; even common sense, money saving ideas are often publicly ridiculed.

 

[sciphi]

Agreed. Our place switched totally to fluorescent lighting while our major electricity consumers are at least Energy Star rated. The water heater is down pretty low too. We also have thermal curtains over the windows which help on heating/cooling costs. So we have a lot of structural cost saving measures in place.

What bugs me is leaving the TV on and falling asleep in front of it with the light on. At least it's a fluorescent light and an efficient TV....

 

[John_K]

Usually if you bring it up with this type they say "well I'm paying for it, none of your business." They don't realize that we are all paying for the pollution, waste of resources, etc.

John

 

[callbay]

My favorite is when people leave the hot water on the whole time they wash dishs by hand. Even if they step away from the sink. We had a baby siter that used our entire 40 gallon hot water heaters worth of hot water that way

Lights on all over the place kind of bug me too especially if they have to be the exact same ones every night.

 

[Brons2]

Originally Posted By: Popinski
.....Environmentally irresponsible....aka...lazy....don't know common sense.

I'm not talking about tree-hugging. I'm talking about being a typical responsible American. My roommate spent thousands of dollars making his house "green", yet he is one of the biggest wasters I have ever seen. By the way, we both split 50/50 on utility bills.

Here's what makes me mad:

-He washes very low loads of clothes and put the water dial for LARGE LOADS!

-He made a mistake while cooking, went to the table and added more ingredients. As he did this, he left the darn gas stove on unattended for 5 minutes. What's so hard about turning a dial to OFF position? What a waste of gas!

-He always leaves the lights on when the room is unoccupied. Drives me nuts!!!

-We have room Air Conditioners and we have confirmed that turning them off when we leave the house saves more electricity than leaving them on all day like commercial air conditioners. He never turns the darn A/C off!! I'm tired of this!

-He leaves his computer on 24/7; not on sleep mode. He says, "I hate waiting for it to load up"

-He bought a Honda Civic because it has good gas mileage, but he guns it and does jack rabbit starts all the dang time!!

-He takes 20 minute showers. I told him that he will save energy by turning the dial to "energy saving" mode on the gas water heater. He says, "no, I don't want you to break anything".

-He has a tiny yard and cuts his grass with a 17 HP riding lawn mower! It takes 20 minutes to cut the grass using a more efficient walk-behind mower!!

I'm getting tired of people's irresponsible behavior. I'm talking money, environment, basic responsibilities. I warned him about his behavior and that I will only pay 10% of the utility bills. Man, I can't wait to buy my own house/condo




1. Get a front loading washing machine. Mine determines load size automatically. Top-loaders waste water even if you set the load size correctly.
2. Appeal to him on fire prevention grounds. It's stupid to leave an open flame unattended.
3. Get motion-detecting light switches, they are required around here these days in commercial construction. Sometimes the lights go off in my office when I'm in there and I just wave my arms and they come back on.
4. Window units? Total waste, get rid of them, they are not efficient.
5. Set it to sleep after 10 minutes when he's not using it.
6. He'll still get better mileage than if he had a V6 or V8 car and the same driving habits.
7. Just turn the water heater down and don't ask permission. I turn my tankless down to 100 in the summer. I also take 20 minute showers though My most recent gas bill was $11.
8. If he already had the tractor, it's probably better for the environment to just use it rather than go buy a walk-behind. There is an environmental cost of manufacturing new things.

 

[friendly_jacek]

LOL, my family is just like that. Now, the twist is they think I am the one who is nuts!

 

[JOD]

the flip side is that you could be living with me, someone who's parents grew up during the great depression:

"why is it so cold in this house"

"could you PLEASE TURN A LIGHT ON, I CAN'T SEE!"

"do you really think it's a good idea to compost cat vomit??"

This is no picnic, either...

 

[PandaBear]

I think you need to move, this roommate seems sloppy and there's nothing you can do to change that, environmentally responsible or not.

 

[tom slick]

It's interesting that conserving resources used to be just a good practice, now we've been conditioned to believe it's about the environment.

 

[Donald]

The Lowe's stores have all energy efficient lighting, the on/off times computer controlled. I believe the roof has insulation, but I am 99% sure the walls do not. What a waste. This is near Albany NY. It gets cold there.

 

[Popinski]

Originally Posted By: PandaBear
I think you need to move, this roommate seems sloppy and there's nothing you can do to change that, environmentally responsible or not.



I will be moving out soon...his cleaniness? that's another story.. let's just say that I"m his dang servant.

Originally Posted By: tom slick
It's interesting that conserving resources used to be just a good practice, now we've been conditioned to believe it's about the environment.


It's all really common sense. When you're done using it or if it's not in use, turn it off!

 

[Bill in Utah]

Please do not get into anything Political!

We have had to remove a post after being notified.

Thanks! Bill

 

[JHZR2]

Its pretty funny to see the spectrum. Everyone has faults. What I've seen is that you get the tree hugger type who really do think that they are saving the world, the "green" keeping up with the Joneses type who think they are making a statement, the cost saving type who accept green technologies on the basis of cost savings but not a holistic approach... and then those who think they need to make a statement because they are so anti-treehugger that they want to try to offend and offset their actions... as if they are making a unique statement doing that.

Some folks from all those groups do actually do research and make informed decisions. Most however just make kneejerk decisions and then do what is simplest/what appeals to their lazy side that media drills into us as having everything "so tough". Maybe the small steps are beneficial for some things, maybe not.

Sounds like if some of the roomate's decisions are green-based he isnt caught in the big picture. If you can have good conversation on the basis of the cost of bills and whatnot, then great. If not, then youre just stuck with dumb folks caught in dumb situations. It is what it is.

And remember, financially, broke people do broke people things. Sounds like the kind of things this guy does. He will get stuck where is gets stuck becaue of stupid decisions... Is what it is.

 

[mechtech2]

To confirm the decline of American common sense , just look at what people drive [compared to the rest of the world].

If you have a living room, why buy one to drive??