I think it’s a lot easier than most of us realize to idealize a certain place before we get a chance to visit it, let alone live in it long term.
- Lots of my friends wanted to move out to the pacific coast after college, but only one of them actually stayed in that state.
The rest couldn’t handle the high cost of living coupled with the earthquakes and wildfires. I was so sick of living in a humid swamp that I kept dreaming of a contrastingly dry environment like a desert. That’s what got me looking at homes and apartments in the southwest in particular. After a troubling experience with mold in an old house, I was ready to go anywhere that I perceived as being safer. Now that it’s years later, I know that ironically some of the metropolitan cities in the southwest have reported indoor mold levels. I think that could be in part from the prevalence of swamp coolers in the deserts of the southwest. They lower the temperature in the room by pushing air through a wet medium and forcing the water to evaporate into vapor. This process lowers the temperature of the room while the moisture evaporates, but it also raises the humidity. Normal air conditioning gets rid of humidity while it lowers the temperature of the indoor space. That’s why they’re called “swamp coolers” because they produce a wet and swampy environment compared to how that space feels under normal conditions of abnormally low humidity. I prefer living in an environment where traditional air conditioners are used for indoor cooling opposed to swamp coolers.