Dora Morsch can’t beat the heat.
When her family first toured The Mica, an apartment complex in northeastern Santa Fe, Morsch remembered asking about the air conditioning.
“That was a big concern of mine, knowing that it was going to be a hot summer,” she said.
Property managers eased her worries, showing her a sample apartment with plenty of cool air blowing through its vents. Morsch and her husband, Joseph Morsch, agreed to move in with their toddler in May.
But in the months since, the Morsches claim their apartment has never had a functional air conditioning system and property managers have refused to act on repeated maintenance requests. The high temperatures have resulted in a heat rash for their son and made it tough for anyone in the apartment to sleep.
The Morsches aren’t alone. About 14% of New Mexico households don’t have air conditioning, according to census estimates published earlier this year, a higher rate than most of New Mexico’s neighboring states.
As record-breaking temperatures grip New Mexico, the heat isn’t just uncomfortable; it can also be hazardous, said Chelsea Langer, chief of the state Department of Health’s Environmental Health Epidemiology Bureau. So far this summer, state health department data shows emergency rooms throughout New Mexico have seen nearly 850 visits related to heat emergencies, a significant increase over previous years.
Heat-related illness “runs a whole gamut” of symptoms, Langer said; it ranges from the first signs of thirst to rashes to muscle cramps to exhaustion. Heatstroke, the most serious form of heat-related illness in which core body temperature reaches 103 degrees or higher, can be deadly if left untreated.
The high temperatures have been a point of anxiety for Dora Morsch, particularly for her son’s health.
“It’s concerning as a mom when you see your baby and they have this rash on their arms and their legs and their butt,” she said. “You wonder, ‘Are they comfortable? Are they in pain?’ ”
Nathan Burton/The New Mexican
High temperatures, little relief
This summer has been a well-documented scorcher — in New Mexico and across the country.
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration announced July was the hottest month on record for the contiguous U.S., surpassing a record set in July 1936 at the height of the Dust Bowl.
Observed highs in Santa Fe didn’t dip below 90 degrees for the first 12 days of August, while 98-degree days in town Aug. 3 and Aug. 5 set new record highs, according to data from the National Weather Service. Conditions were even hotter in Albuquerque, which has seen only a handful of days below 90 degrees since mid-June, National Weather Service data shows.
As temperatures rise, so do cases of heat-related illness. Emergency room visits for heat-related illness so far in 2026 already total more than double the average number in 2014 through 2024, according to data from the state Department of Health. This year’s total has already surpassed the 761 cases of heat-related illness recorded in summer 2025.
The first sign of heat-related illness is thirst.
“If you’re thirsty, you’re already dehydrated,” Langer said.
From there, it can escalate to heat rash, in which red bumps appear on the skin, typically inside the elbow or behind the knees. Heat cramps — which involves muscle spasms and heavy sweating — may follow, as well as heat exhaustion, which typically brings nausea, muscle cramps, dizziness and headache.
Heatstroke typically comes with very high fever and severe dehydration — sometimes to the point of no longer being able to sweat, Langer explained.
“We’re just not made to operate at that temperature,” she said.
Some New Mexico homes offer limited relief from the heat. The U.S. Census Bureau’s new Local Air Conditioning Estimates, an “experimental data product” that measured the number of homes with air conditioning in 2023, found 86% of the state’s homes are equipped with AC. That’s relatively consistent with Colorado but it lags behind Texas, Oklahoma and Arizona — where the percentage of homes with air conditioning hovers between 98% and 99%.
And in recent days — as the Frijoles Fire burned thousands of acres in the Santa Fe National Forest near Cundiyó — the heat has combined with unhealthy air quality for many in Northern New Mexico.
“Unfortunately, the heat season is longer and longer, as is wildfire season,” Langer said. “It is not a surprise that they overlap or intersect.”
‘It’s disheartening’
Dora Morsch said her family has been “living in the darkness” since moving into their new apartment.
The family keeps the blinds closed during the day. They open the windows at night to let in cool air, though they haven’t been able to do that amid the smoke of the Frijoles Fire. They eat meals that don’t require turning on the stove or oven, in an effort to keep things cool.
Despite it all, Dora Morsch said the temperature in her apartment easily surpasses 80 degrees in the afternoon.
“It’s disheartening when we pay $1,600 in rent, and my son’s getting heat rashes, and we’re not getting sleep. … We can’t do some of the basic activities that we should be able to do, like cooking in the kitchen,” she said.
Nathan Burton/The New Mexican
Property managers at The Mica apartments did not respond to emails requesting comment on the Morsches’ air conditioning issues.
When The New Mexican called the apartment complex seeking comment, a voice on the other end of the line responded, “We do not speak to The Santa Fe New Mexican.”
Joseph Morsch, a mechanic who spends all day working in a hot plant, said the heat at home has made it impossible to truly relax.
“Just sitting on the couch at the end of the night, hoping that you can get a little bit of respite from the day — the hot day, right? — but then you come home to an apartment that’s just as hot, you kind of can’t feel at home,” he said.
After researching the law, the Morsches are hoping to move forward with rent abatement, under which tenants can reduce their rent by a third until their landlords fix a problem causing health and safety issues.
“That would be a fair resolution: I think that our AC should be fixed, and that should be the end of it,” Joseph Morsch said.
