What the hell are they there for? A little grid, or lattice if you will, bored through the heavy plaster of my walls. One on either side of my bed.

They let in the cold and the noise of those angry buliders yelling obscenities next door - "I may be 40 mate, but i can still pull a 30 year old root!"..Urgggh, sure you can...

They feel so 1960s for some reason - my nan's house used to have them and they blended so well with the rest of her retro decor.

Perhaps that is where the nightmares get in...

I believe these are ventilation gratings or something similar. The one in my room vents to our attic, and there are a couple that vent straight to the outside through the walls.

Perhaps they're there to make sure that even with modern tight-fitting double-glazing, there's still plenty of oxygen getting into the room, and to provide an exit path for carbon dioxide and moist air.

Various types I've seen are floor vents (possibly combined with underfloor central heating), slim metal vents in the walls, larger metal-covered ones, small ones with closable flaps built into double glazing (if you have these, keep them open at night - they stop condensation building up, especially in bedrooms) and the ones fitted to our 1967 house, which are like painted perforated bricks.

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