No air conditioner installed no matter how hot
The boarding house of Ms. Nguyen Thi Vien's family in Dinh Du village, Ngai Duong commune (Van Lam, Hung Yen) is divided into 2 areas: the room with air conditioning and the area without air conditioning.
According to Ms. Vien, the row is equipped with air conditioning with an area of about 12m2/room, she currently has 8 rooms, for rent at 1,400,000 VND/month; the row without air conditioning has an equivalent area of 6 rooms, for rent at 900,000 VND/month.
Currently, all rooms have tenants. In which, the rooms with air conditioners are mainly rented by workers' families with young children, the rooms without air conditioners are the group of male workers. "Although the rooms were cramped and not air conditioned, some rooms had up to 3 male workers. That is why I have announced that each room only has a maximum of 3 people, and some rooms are even recommended for 4 people to save money," said Ms. Vien.
According to Ms. Vien, during the peak summer heat of 2024, she discussed with air conditioning rooms to see if there was a need to install them or not. However, all 6 rooms do not want to be installed with the reason that they will have to increase room rates and cannot bear the electricity bill. Most of the workers renting a room at Ms. Vien's house are workers working in Pho Noi A Industrial Park.
The workers' boarding house near Yen Nghia Industrial Park (Ha Dong, Hanoi) also has many boarding houses that are not equipped with air conditioners. Most rooms, workers and laborers are only equipped with electric fans, rice cookers and light bulbs. Very few rooms for rent are equipped with additional refrigerators.
Mr. Nguyen Van Thanh, 52 years old, from My Duc district (Hanoi) is currently working as a security guard for a consumer goods manufacturing company in Yen Nghia Industrial Park. Mr. Thanh rented a room with 2 colleagues who also worked as security guards in the company.
"We rented a room of 14 square meters, priced at 1,500,000 VND/month. There was very little time when all three of us stayed at home because we were on duty, so the room was not too cramped. To save money, we do not dare to rent a new room or install air conditioners because including electricity bills, each person will increase by about 400,000 VND/month, said Mr. Thanh.
Boarding house owner announces electricity price increase
This is a concern and savings, so when receiving the notice of an increase in electricity prices, many workers are upset and intend to tighten spending to avoid affecting savings or send them home to their families and children.
Mr. Thanh said that normally, he and his two colleagues divide the rent and electricity and water each month, each person about 700,000 VND. Recently, the rental landlord announced that from May 10, 2025, the average retail price of electricity has been adjusted up, so each rental room will earn an additional 100,000 VND from the electricity bill collection period in June 2025.
"The amount of money has increased not much, but with this momentum, I am afraid that I will receive a notice to increase the water bill, because we are currently using water pumped into the common tank, using pumps to pump", Mr. Thanh shared.
Mr. Nguyen Ngoc Duc, a worker renting a house in Van Lam district, said that his family rents a room for 1,400,000 VND/month, and has about 1,200,000 VND/month in the summer because his two children are still young and have a lot of air conditioners on hot days.
"We have just received a notice from the homeowner about how to balance the specific increase in electricity prices in June compared to before the increase in electricity prices to divide among rental rooms. Although we do not know the specific increase, each dish adds money, and my wife and I have an additional burden," said Mr. Duc.
