Ilona Sales and her younger sister Wanda Lupina moved in together about three years ago, planning to pare back their expenses as they neared retirement. Sales sold her Tucson, Ariz., home and paid off Lupina's mortgage in exchange for a 50 percent stake in Lupina's three-bedroom Plainfield home. Sales testified that it seemed "a little chilly" when she returned home from work two days after Christmas, so she moved the thermostat up to 68. Lupina said she was in her bedroom upstairs when she heard the furnace come on and went downstairs to nudge it back to 67.
"It was too warm," Lupina testified. "I spent most of the time in my room — I'd asked her to put on additional layers of clothing. I closed the vents in my room. This is my home as well — I have a right to be comfortable here." Sales then left the kitchen, where she was making a snack, to bump it back to 68. Upstairs, Lupina was upset when she heard the furnace start again. "Leave that (expletive) thermostat alone," Lupina said as she descended the stairs, according to Sales. Lupina testified that Sales was sitting on the couch keeping an eye on the thermostat when she came downstairs.
She said she saw Sales jump up, walk over and twice shove her away from the thermostat before throwing punches that left her with a black eye. "I was in shock," Lupina said. But Sales testified that Lupina was standing in front of the thermostat when she tried to change it back to 68. A fight broke out after Lupina shoved her, Sales said. "Nothing I did pleased her — I couldn't do anything right in her eyes," Sales said. Steven Haney, Sales' attorney, said the sisters still live together and have apparently reached a thermostat truce.
2 comments:
It's going to be warmer upstairs no matter what (due to heat rising), a temperature difference of one degree on the lower level would have been negligible. They were fighting over nothing.
ONe degree? Sounds like they have other problems that just culminated in this. See a psychologist.
Post a Comment