Central heating, huh? HA! Freakin' luxury! That space heater (and about 4 of its cousins) are what keep my house above the freezing mark... That is common here in Japan.

In fact, we used to have a friend who'd keep her contact lenses in the fridge during the winter because if she left them out in her apartment they'd be frozen by morning. At least in the fridge they stay at a constant 3-degrees C or so.

Actually, electric heaters are a bit of a luxury too. They are really expensive to run. Most folks (me included) heat with kerosene. Which means, every few days I have to load 2 or 3 20L red gas cans in the van, drive down to the gas station and fill em up... Almost daily then you have to pump the kerosene into the heater tanks. It's a pain in the a$$! Friggin' dirty heaters too. They make an awful stink when you turn them on or off, and you're supposed to air out your rooms (i.e. open all the windows) every few hours so you don't poison yourself with CO gas. That's what you get for burning fossil fuels indoors.

Some of our richer, more sophisticated neighbours have a large, outdoor tank that gets filled up as-needed by the local kerosene man who comes by in his truck. Those people usually also have the closest thing to central heating as you can get around here -- except it's still dirty and it still produces carbon monoxide.