I came into the bedroom today and noticed an eerie quiet. OH NOES! The box fan broke. The box fan runs 24/7. It's not that we need it on when we're not here, but rather that we just don't notice it running. We started using it because we live behind a supermarket, and it drowns out the noise at night, but now we can't sleep without it. I hope someone has box fans in stock even though it's nearly freezing out.
UPDATE: Apparently box fans are a SUMMER item. We plugged the A/C unit in and are running the fan on it, but it's pretty much not noisy at all.