Is it stealing to read by the light of your neighbour’s lamp?
I have the thermostat in my apartment turned to about 19°, which is a bit lower than is usual here, to save money and the environment, and I'm still perfectly comfortable at that temperature. At some point, after I had rented it for a bit, I had to be gone for a few weeks, so I turned the thermostat and all the radiators completely off. The outside temperature was about 5-10°, which I what expected to find on my return. Yet when I came back, it was still at 19.5°. I have only rarely had to turn on my radiators since, even during Winter.<p>Of course, the place can't be that well-isolated, and I regularly open the windows to let in fresh air, so that energy must be coming from somewhere. I assume it's heat leaking in from my upstairs, downstairs, left and right neighbors. They probably have their thermostats set to a balmy 21-22°, and the heat flux through my walls must be enough to keep the place at around 19°.<p>I often wonder whether this constitutes stealing. It's not exactly parallel to the light of my neighbor's lamp, since due to the temperature differential their thermostats are working harder than they would be if I heated my place to 22°. In effect, they're all paying for the energy to keep my place at 19°, and I'm presumably paying only a pittance for heat. But on the other hand, I have no need for a higher temperature, nor do I want to pay or incur the environmental cost for unnecessary heating. Nineteen degrees seems like a perfectly reasonable temperature to me, and it's their choice (again, I'm assuming, but where else can it come from?) to keep it a few degrees hotter.