Beat the heat without melting away

If any of you have lived in Sacramento, or otherwise known as Norcal, you know very well around this time, when summer is in full swing, it's so hot you could probably fry an egg on the pavement. This would be everyone either results to their trust air conditioner, which then racks up their living expenses and some wonder why their bill went sky high out of nowhere. I speak out of a whole different ball game, from someone whose AC was potentially broken for a month and whose AC system takes 45 minutes to actually get going( don't believe me ask the repairman who promptly told me like it was no big deal). Broken AC is telling me you can forget about breathing normally, and sleeping at night, just sweat it out, you'll be fine. No, thank you. I took some steps to not only save some money, but kick the AC on only when guests are coming. I bought two floor fans, one in my room and in one in my living room with the sliding glass door nearby. I take the living room fan, and face it fan wheel facing outside and pull back shades and let that run either all night or first thing in the morning for a half hour before I leave. The bedroom fan, I run and then proceed to open all windows at night and close them up before I leave including the blinds to block out any sunlight. If that isn't enough I jump in the pool, take cold showers, through off the comforter, sleep on the floor, sleep in my swim suit, or flat out sleep right near the fan. Usually works out very well, and is pretty easy to maintain, just remember to close and turn off everything upon leaving. My apartment just so happens to be upstairs. If you live in a house, it may take awhile to cool down or maybe it cools fairly quickly. Since I am upstairs, (as nice as it is) in the summer it is an oven! My downstairs neighbor explained her apartment is ice cold since not a block of sunlight comes through...imagine.  I am happy to be away from the noise and if someone were to live above I would hear their footsteps through the night, so that was a no go. In the winters though, this place is great, so it's a tradeoff. I have to remember to drink cold water, hydrate as much as possible, and if all else fails and it's 105 out, forfeit and turn on the AC for an hour or two, it won't kill you, unless you forget to turn it off when you go to sleep. Moxie signing off to bring down the temperature, cause it's getting hot in here.