Not guilty verdict in sisters' spat over thermostat setting

A 62-year-old Illinois woman whose simmering feud with her sister over the thermostat setting in their home escalated into a fight last year has been found not guilty of battery. Before returning his verdict, Will County Judge Brian Barrett said he couldn't tell which of the sisters started the brawl over whether the ambient air temperature should be 67 or 68 degrees. "Both of them seemed ready to settle the issue in front of the thermostat," he said. "I hope this is the last blowup."

Ilona Sales and her younger sister Wanda Lupina moved in together about three years ago, planning to pare back their expenses as they neared retirement. Sales sold her Tucson, Ariz., home and paid off Lupina's mortgage in exchange for a 50 percent stake in Lupina's three-bedroom Plainfield home. Sales testified that it seemed "a little chilly" when she returned home from work two days after Christmas, so she moved the thermostat up to 68. Lupina said she was in her bedroom upstairs when she heard the furnace come on and went downstairs to nudge it back to 67.



"It was too warm," Lupina testified. "I spent most of the time in my room — I'd asked her to put on additional layers of clothing. I closed the vents in my room. This is my home as well — I have a right to be comfortable here." Sales then left the kitchen, where she was making a snack, to bump it back to 68. Upstairs, Lupina was upset when she heard the furnace start again. "Leave that (expletive) thermostat alone," Lupina said as she descended the stairs, according to Sales. Lupina testified that Sales was sitting on the couch keeping an eye on the thermostat when she came downstairs.

She said she saw Sales jump up, walk over and twice shove her away from the thermostat before throwing punches that left her with a black eye. "I was in shock," Lupina said. But Sales testified that Lupina was standing in front of the thermostat when she tried to change it back to 68. A fight broke out after Lupina shoved her, Sales said. "Nothing I did pleased her — I couldn't do anything right in her eyes," Sales said. Steven Haney, Sales' attorney, said the sisters still live together and have apparently reached a thermostat truce.