00:00From freezing pillowcases to straight up sleeping in the kitchen,
00:03Londoners are taking some pretty extreme measures to survive the heat wave.
00:07With a new report showing millions feel trapped in sweltering homes,
00:10we hit the streets to ask, what's the most drastic thing you've done to stay cool?
00:14I poured the water on my head, yeah, just so that I can feel the coolness from the top.
00:19I've also stuck a few, one of those ice packs under my armpits and just like
00:23held it in there for 10 minutes. I actually learned that from the NHS website.
00:28I've heard someone like leaving their freezer door open all day.
00:33I always look for an opportunity to enter into a shop that has air conditioning.
00:37I'll just walk round and round and round and round.
00:39Not that I need to buy anything, but just enjoying the coolness of the shop.
00:45We've got towels hung over windows.
00:47Yeah, so nothing very outlandish, but it's just a military operation.
00:51I soaked a towel and put it on the bed and laid on that.
00:55In the freezer?
00:56Just cold water, just soak that in about eight showers a day.
01:00Did the towel wash?
01:01It keeps you cold, but then it's not great to lie on a damp pillow.
01:05With an amber heat warning in place and temperatures soaring towards 38 degrees,
01:10London has told us the absolute worst part of this hot spell.
01:13The commute's not great when you're stuck on a train, sweating in someone's armpit.
01:17Struggling to sleep at night as well.
01:19And the fans are not really helping, are they?
01:21They're just blowing out the air as well.
01:23The air con in the office is very aggressive, so I come into work absolutely boiling hot
01:27and melting, and then I get into the office and I'm like, why haven't I got a car to go
01:30on?
01:31Because I'm absolutely freezing in here.
01:32The bit that's been the worst for me is to realise how frustrating it is about climate
01:36change and that we have to deal with better percussions because we are the causes of it.
01:40It's the train journey into London.
01:42Yeah, it's sometimes the lack of air con in the carriages.
01:46I just hate the fact that everything is just looking really yellow.
01:50We just need some rain, much as I don't like to say, you know, I love the sun, but we
01:54do
01:54need some rain.
01:55Hot weather or not, the city doesn't just come to a standstill, with Londoners left with
01:59no choice but to alter their daily routines and commutes.
02:02I usually start early and finish early to try and just cope with, you know, fewer people
02:07on the carriages and things, but I'm kind of limited in what I can do in that respect,
02:10so yeah, as early as I can get in, that's for me.
02:13I'd work more in the office.
02:15The air conditioning in the office is actually really good.
02:18At home, it's like a furnace.
02:20Yet as much as we complain, many Londoners have acknowledged it could always be worse,
02:24especially for some jobs where the scorching heat is inescapable.
02:27I think a construction job, it's tough.
02:29It's harder for them to do it because they are in hazmat suits and not very cooling friendly
02:36gear.
02:36I see the guys doing the building works on the road and that looks pretty nasty when
02:40it's like full sun.
02:42Anything that keeps you outside.
02:43I mean, there seems to be a lot of construction work, renovations going on on the roads.
02:48They are permanently under the sun.
02:50Probably street cleaning in the heat of the city, the smell and obviously having to wear
02:55the kind of protective gear that the men and women do, I really feel for them doing that
02:59job.
02:59Maybe working underground as a tube driver must be quite miserable right now.
03:03Anything that involves being in an enclosed space and underground and hot.
03:08With these extreme temperatures becoming a summer staple, it seems finding creative ways
03:12to adapt to the heat is now part of everyday London life.
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