Tripoli residents have complained for weeks of dire petrol shortages. Now power and water cuts have made their daily lives even worse during the summer months, at a time when the price of a cooking gas canister has shot up 50-fold.
This is excruciating during Ramadan when observant Muslims abstain from food and drink from dawn to dusk before families get together for "iftar" sunset meals, a time to socialise and give thanks.
"Since the start of Ramadan (last week), we have been breaking the fast by candlelight," said Ahmad, as he shopped in a market in a western area of the capital.
"We can live without air conditioning but not without a fridge," he said. "The power cuts sometimes last 24 hours."
Even before Ramadan started on August 1, Ahmad, who declined to give his surname, stocked up on food to try to ensure there would be plenty to lay on the iftar table.
"But much of the food we've been keeping in the freezer has rotted," he said.
Across town, in the eastern suburb of Janzur, 20-year-old Khaled complained of the water cuts.
Tripoli residents normally receive mains water a few hours a week that is stored in tanks on the roof, with a pump system to ensure a steady flow inside the home.
But power cuts mean the pumps are idle and the faucets dry.
And to find a gas canister for cooking in Tripoli is no easy task. The few available fetch the equivalent of $50, compared to the one-dollar price tag before Libya's anti-regime insurgency broke out in February.
Food prices have also skyrocketed.
End item/ 149