When I first moved into the District of Columbia, I rented a room in a very old, large group house in upper Northwest that housed as many as eight different people at any given time. The rent was fantastic. But one of the many, many drawbacks was that, during the winter, we couldn’t really heat the place. (Of course, whether that was worse than having to battle two other guys for bathroom space in the morning is arguable.) See, the house wasn’t really in the greatest shape, and so turning the thermostat anywhere above the low 60s was a recipe for a gas bill a mile long. Yeah, it sucked — especially when one of my former roommates almost burned down the place by leaving his space heater on all night. With that said, it warms my heart to see that the District’s Department of Consumer and Regulatory Affairs trying to get the word out to the public about heating regulations for apartments in D.C.