I used to live in a condo near Metrotown in Burnaby. It was very high up and had glass all around from ceiling to floor. It faced south. When the sun rose in the east I would get the morning sunshine. When it was the afternoon, I'd see the sun in the sky. When it was 9 or 10pm, I'd see the dusk rays and the sun on the horizon because I was that high up.
Being in it in the summer was like being in a greenhouse perched high up in the sky so that it would be exposed to the sun even more. Though the sun would be gone by 10pm the condo remained hot until 1am because it was heated all day. To make matters worst, the inside of the condo had to be painted white or off-white (no other colors allowed), which reflected the light and absorbed none of the heat. It made it impossible to nap in the afternoon or sleep in late in the morning. The cement balcony would be so hot in the day that I could not walk on it barefoot. The vinyl vertical blinds would literally stretch and melt off their rails. The metal frame surrounding the windows was so hot to the touch from the inside that scotch tape would melt off of it in minutes. In the summers I would get no sleep from the heat, and eventually developed all kinds of health problems and fever from the persistent heat and lack of sleep. I couldn't turn on the stove because it would just add to the heat. The contents in my fridge would spoil overnight because the fridge would not work very well in the intense heat. I couldn't do laundry insuite because of the added heat. My computers would shut down in the daytime in the den because they overheated. A $2000 portable air conditioner would not work very well because the heat inside was so intense. Only the first 15 feet near the air conditioner did you feel any effect. Eventually I taped black plastic bags from ceiling to floor covering the windows (on the inside) to block out the sun. That got me some relief, but I had to get special heat-resistant tape to make sure it would keep sticking to the window frame.
For the light of me I don't understand why strata councils are filled with such fucking idiots that they would not allow air conditioning units to be attached externally, which are the only effective ones. Nor do they allow a severely dark or reflective film on the windows to block out the sun's rays. Those assholes only think about property values and their wallets, never about what it's like to be tortured in a greenhouse in the sky.
When I was selling it in early June a year ago I would tell would-be buyers about the lovely view being so high up, and how glorious the sun shine was in the mornings and how lovely it was to see the sun at dusk on the horizon. I remarked how great it was that the windows were so big, that you really felt you were living in the city without being down deep in it. The elevator ride up was like a ride to heaven in the skies! I sold that fucking thing in 10 days with a healthy profit to boot, and just in time for the new owner to enjoy being cooked alive.
