A hotel room thermostat has been found to offer two functional states, described by guests as Arctic and Rumour, with nothing available between them.

The unit displays a numerical target, adjustable by a full ten degrees. The Institute for Managed Interiors reports that the display is not connected to anything.

“The number changes,” said Dr. Ferdinand Cazalet. “The guest experiences a sense of agency, which is the intended output. The air is managed centrally, on a schedule, by a system that was installed in 1998 and is not accepting correspondence.”

Guest Orin Whitlock spent nineteen minutes on the matter, setting the unit to twenty-two degrees, waiting, setting it to twenty-eight, waiting, and finally setting it to sixteen “to see whether it was listening at all.”

At 3 a.m. the room became Arctic. Whitlock removed a duvet from the wardrobe, where hotels keep a second duvet for precisely this reason and mention it nowhere.

Institute research indicates guests never adjust the unit twice on consecutive nights, instead adapting by opening a window, wearing a jumper indoors, or accepting the situation as a feature of travel.

Whitlock has since described the room to colleagues as “fine.”