A pilot colleague of mine based in PEK had a nice 1 bedroom apartment in Lido. I think he was paying 1500 USD a month. 70 sq meters (about 700 sqf). The official start of "winter" was sometime around the 3rd week of November. That is when they turned the heat on in his expat building.

It was not officially cold until then.

He also said that most of the buildings had undersized heating systems. You had to know what part of the building to live in or you got no heat.

I believe this is the climate-control version of Obamacare.