The dispute over the second-floor thermostat has entered formal mediation, with both delegations arriving in cardigans.

Talks collapsed on Tuesday after one party opened a window unilaterally.

“That was not an escalation,” said Dev Rasmussen, of the warm faction. “That was a signal.”

The cold faction, which favours twenty degrees, characterises the window as an act.

The thermostat currently reads 22.5, a figure nobody proposed and everybody has agreed to resent. The Institute for Shared Air classifies this as a phantom compromise: a setting reached by successive small adjustments, none of them admitted.

“Nobody set it to 22.5,” said Institute director Dr. Constance Amabile. “It arrived there. Fourteen people moved it half a degree at a time, each believing they were correcting an error.”

Mediation has produced one point of agreement: there will be a laminated sign. Its wording remains contested. The warm faction proposes “Please do not adjust.” The cold faction proposes “Please do not adjust without asking.” Both sides understand the difference to be the entire matter.

The sign will be produced on the second-floor printer, which is asleep.