A Word In Defense of Florida Rooms

Are Florida rooms really that bad?

A Realtor in Arizona, Elizabeth Newlin, recently wrote a howling criticism of Florida rooms called "A Bitch Slap Regarding Arizona Rooms", and I feel compelled to write a rebuttal to her commentary, because it's obvious that she just doesn't "get it".

It's probably not her fault; after all she calls these sunny, enclosed spaces "Arizona Rooms", as if Arizona was the place that invented such spaces. Unfortunately, they're an east coast creation, and her literary barbs are slightly mis-directed.

Out in Maryland we know of these home spaces as "Florida Rooms", and rightfully so. I would imagine that the Arizona heat has probably cooked Elizabeth's brain a bit too long, or she has never experienced they joy of living in a swampy, wet region of the country. Florida rooms are an essential part of a luxury home, and quite often the only barrier between homeowner and insect during the warm summer months.

Do they not have mosquitoes in Arizona? If not, I would be more than happy to have the local population shipped to her, free of charge, so that she can enjoy the constant, putrid summer scent of bug repellant on her skin, citronella candles burning on the porch, and the incessant crackling of the bug zapper struggling to keep up with the incoming horde.

Without a Florida room, the summertime experience in Washington wouldn't be complete without Benadryl on hand to reduce the swelling from the dozens of bug bites you are sure to incur, but there's more to it than just that. I've heard that Arizona isn't exactly familiar with what 2 feet of snow looks like. No worries, we can correct that too. We'd be more than happy to trade winters with Arizona and watch them struggle to dig themselves out of the next blizzard! In the wintertime a Florida rooms acts as the perfect location to place a hot tub. Nobody like to trudge through the snow in a bathing suit to jump in, and without a Florida room, that's exactly what us in Suburban D.C. would be forced to do. Being that we're not exactly fans of Pneumonia ~OR~ Hypothermia, we like to keep our hot tubs in an enclosed space.

Arizona wouldn't know anything about that though. The weather out there has spoiled them, and just because a Florida room is wasted space in THEIR state, it's a welcome addition in OURS. You see, we get rainfall more than a dozen times a year, we see blizzards in the winter, and yes, we might have a slight insect control problem, but our Florida rooms are the salvation from all of that. Just don't ask someone from Arizona, they wouldn't understand.