Get a portable window air conditioner and do your best to insulate the room its in.

Thankfully I live near the ocean so I’ll be in there a bunch.

I’m on the top floor of a poorly-insulated midrise, and summers are absolutely miserable. I have a window AC in the bedroom, otherwise it’s all ceiling fans and ice packs. I bought a few “pillow insert cooling pads” (basically a Chillow) and just put them on my neck or in my shirt during the day. Frozen water bottles also help.

I’m saving and planning to pay a $900 electricity bill in August.

Window units are a thing, and I recommend you get one.

I live in Ireland. I’ll probably have my heating on during the colder nights, and I’ll check the roof for leaks once per week or so.

First line of defense: blocking out sunlight in all windows during the day

Second line of defense: highly active drafting, creating a cross-breeze when the outdoor temperature is lower than the indoor temperature

Third line of defense: Fan, reduces perceived temperature significantly

Fourth line of defense: Acclimatization, warm showers before bed (supposedly helps)

Fifth line of defense, in case everything else fails - basically a heatwave: portable AC

I lived in an apartment without an ac and I also wasn’t allowed to install a window ac.

I ended up buying a portable ac which got the job done well enough. They’re not perfect but they’re miles better than open windows with box fans.

The A/C

It really just depends on your climate, geography, and infrastructure.

Where is I was raised, it would be consistently 90-100 Fahrenheit throughout the summer. And one week that was always up to 110.

I had no ac, but a constant broken swamp cooler. So basically no real ac.

In the mornings and night when it did become cool, you would open all the windows and doors for the air and wind to blow through, and then about 9am you would close the windows and blinds and deal with the heat.

Sleeping through the worst parts of the heat is not a bad idea.

Fans. Fans everywhere. Sometimes ice packs. I invested in a portable ac last summer and that helped for my bedroom. I pretty much made that home base for the hottest parts of the day.

Last year we swore we were going to by an AC. We didn’t.

How’s the humidity where you live? If you live in a dry climate, a swamp cooler might be a good option.

If you live in a humid climate, window units or portable AC’s are better than nothing. A long time ago, the only AC I had was a window unit in my bedroom. It was miserable overall but at least I had someplace I could go to stay cool and sleep comfortably at night.

Not strictly cooling the apartment, but I keep a large supply of ice cold water ready to drink whenever I start to get too warm—if you can effectively cool yourself throughout the day, it raises the maximum comfortable temperature of the apartment as a whole, and it’s usually easier to cool a single body than a large volume of air.

AC mainly. I have a ceiling fan as well.

I’m in an area that cools down at night so i use that as much as possible:

Once daytime temps drop below indoor temps (usually late evening) i open all windows and arrange a couple fans and run them on low all night. My goal is to move all of the hot air out of the apartment and replace it with cool outdoor air.

In the morning, ideally just before sunrise, i draw most/all curtains, shutter blinds, close windows, and turn off all excess lights. During the day i keep everything closed and the air still, and use as few lights as i can manage.

I can generally maintain about 15 degrees (f) cooler indoors with this technique. I currently live on the third floor which is working against me; this was much more effective (20-25 degrees) when i lived on the ground floor.

If i leave the windows open it or worse forget to draw the blinds it gets much warmer indoors than outside. I think my building must have pretty mediocre insulation and my windows are all single-pane.