I live in a fairly large south Florida apartment. In the summer it is hot (over 90 every day).

The problem I am having is that all the cool air from the small ac unit is going into the bedrooms and not the liviing room and kitchen, which is one big area. This is causing the thermostat to read the warmer temperatures of 77-78 when the air in the bedrooms is cooler at 73-75. The unit will run all day and the temp won't drop because the living room doesn't get cool.

The vent going to the living room is blocked off by a piece of foam with a tiny hole in it (as the reason was to keep the bedrooms much cooler) so hardly any cool air comes out. If I remove it, the vent blows out a ton of air and cools the living room really well, however, the bedrooms get uncomfortably warm.

I found a balance to keep the bedroom and living room temps the same (cutting a bigger hole in the foam), but the whole house is now slightly warm.

Since my electricity bill is high, how can I get it so that the bedrooms get cool, and at the same time the living room gets cool so the thermostat will shut off the unit and save money?

An AC unit can only do what it is designed to do. So I suggest that you have your AC serviced to make sure it is running at it highest efficiency. If you have already done this or if you don't want to do it there is a seat of the pants way to check to see if it is doing all it can do. The large refrigerant line going to the outside unit.( I am assuming that you have an outdoor condensing unit) is the suction like carrying the freon back to the condenser, That line should be very cold and if it is a humid day it should have moisture on it. And of course you need to always make sure that you have a clean filter in the return air duct or air handler.

I was thinking about washing out the compressor to ge all the buildup out. Will that help?

The indoor coils are fairly clean, only a little bit of dust and crap inside the fins.

The pipe is cold and it is moist.

Washng out the condenser coil is a good idea. Make sure you get all of the grass clippings and dirt out. Turn off the thremostat and either pull the cutoff on the electric or what ever it takes to kill the power to the unit. If it is possible take the top off the unit and wash the coil from the inside out.

With the suction line cold and moist and if cleaning the outdoor coil does not help I am going to assume that the unit is doing all it can do in the very hot weather that you must be having. I know we are. Ten days so far this month over 100 degrees F. Good Luck.