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TechnoratiClothesline Rule Creates Flap In New England States
CONCORD, N.H. - They say they only want to protect their "right to dry." And in three New England states, advocates for clotheslines - yes, clotheslines, strung across the yard, draped with socks and sheets - are pushing for new laws to liberate residents whose neighbors won't let them hang laundry outside.
Homeowners' associations, which enforce bans on clotheslines at thousands of residential developments across the country, say the rules are needed to prevent flapping laundry from dragging down property values. But in an age of paper over plastic, as people try to take small steps to protect the environment, more residents are chafing at the restrictions. And some lawmakers in Vermont, New Hampshire, and Connecticut are taking it a step further, seeking legislation that would guarantee the freedom to let one's garments flutter in the breeze.
"People think it's silly, but what's silly is to worry so much about having to look at your neighbors' undies that you would prevent them from conserving energy," said Vermont state Senator Dick McCormack, a sponsor of "right to dry" legislation. "We're not making a big deal over clotheslines; we're making a big deal over global warming."
If successful, the measures in Vermont and Connecticut would be the first in New England, and among the first in the country, to protect the age-old custom of air-drying laundry. (The proposal in New Hampshire died in committee, but proponents say they plan to try again next session.)
In a society where most people own dryers, the idea of clotheslines seems to have retained its broad popular appeal. Tide detergent comes in a "clean breeze" scent, described as "the fresh scent of laundry line-dried in a clean breeze," and the signature creations of Yankee Candle Co. include "clean cotton," a scent that evokes "sun-dried cotton with green notes, white flowers, and a hint of lemon," according to the two companies' websites.
In some minds, though, clotheslines connote a landscape of poverty rather than flowering fields. Opponents of the proposed legislation say homeowners' groups have the right to protect property values by forbidding practices they consider unsightly, such as storing junk cars in driveways - and hanging wet laundry outside.
"If you imagine driving into a community where the yards have clothes hanging all over the place, I think the aesthetics, the curb appeal, and probably the home values would be affected by that, because you can't let one homeowner do it and say no to the next," said Frank Rathbun, a spokesman for the Community Associations Institute, a national group based in Virginia that represents thousands of homeowner and condominium associations, many of which restrict clotheslines.
The institute encourages environmentalism, "But we believe the homeowners in each association should determine the rules under which they live," Rathbun said.
Mary Lou Sayer, an energetic grandmother in Concord, N.H., used her electric dryer for years without a second thought, but vowed to stop after hearing a talk by her friend Alexander Lee, the founder of Project Laundry List, a group based in Concord that supports clothesline drying.
Inspired by the thought that she could curb her consumption of energy, Sayer asked the board of directors at the senior housing complex where she lives to relax the restriction on clotheslines, but they voted not to change the rule, she said.
"Our generation doesn't understand," said Sayer, who described herself as "over 85," but declined to give her exact age. "People are uneducated, or they don't believe in it. They've been told there's an unlimited supply of oil, or they're just too old to change. I hope they're teaching it in schools, but I think it's too late. I have a granddaughter, and I don't know what her future will be."
Determined to stick to her plan, Sayer stopped using her dryer and started hanging her clothes inside the house to dry. On Monday, a pair of red flannel pajama pants dangled from the ceiling fan in her office, pillowcases were draped over the fan in her living room, above the coffee table, and multicolored socks hung from metal lighting fixtures in the sunroom, with its view of 4-foot snowbanks and towering pine and hemlock trees.
Her new method is more work than machine drying, and her towels are not as soft, Sayer said, but she has noticed a drop in her electric bill. In the typical household, said Lee, the dryer is the second biggest household user of electricity, after the refrigerator. Electric bills for dryers vary widely, said Lee; the Rocky Mountain Institute has used an estimated average cost of $85 per year.
Project Laundry List, which keeps track of neighborhoods where outdoor drying is banned, has found no-clothesline zones across the country, usually in subdivisions or condominium complexes. A handful of towns throughout the country also prohibit outdoor drying within their borders.
Diane White, owner of CB Property Management in Keene, N.H., said clotheslines are not allowed at the 11 condominium associations the company manages in New Hampshire and Vermont. She said the restrictions have sparked few objections.
"None of them allow it, and it's always been that way," she said. "Most people who live in condos don't want to see other people's clothes."
The sponsor of the failed New Hampshire legislation, state Representative Suzanne Harvey of Nashua, said she faces similar rules in her neighborhood.
"We live in a detached condo, and we can't even shake out a rug on the back patio," she said.
She said her measure did not falter because legislators oppose clotheslines, but because some legislators did not want to interfere with homeowners' associations. Harvey, a Democrat, said she plans to file a version of the same legislation again if she is reelected.
Lee, the director of Project Laundry List, said Americans' aversion to the sight of laundry is not shared by other countries such as China and Italy, where electric clothes dryers are far less common and clotheslines dot the countryside, offending no one.
What the American clothesline needs is a new image, he said.
"We want Martha [Stewart] and Oprah [Winfrey] to make the clothesline into a pennant of eco-chic," he said, "instead of a flag of poverty."
Jenna Russell can be reached at jrussell@globe.com.
© 2008 Boston Globe
107 Comments so far
Show AllI think its great that we are hanging our choneys out to dry again. However, I have a neighbor that hangs out clothes (on a wire)on our common fence. We live in a fairly breezy area and their clothes often blow over onto my side of the fence when I am out enjoying my newly landscaped personal space. I don't think its unreasonable to ask them to stop this practice, as they could also use their own deck railings (which they do) to hang their belongings. When I bring it up, they pretend not to understand (even though they have lived in the U.S. for over 20 years...) What to do?
Who needs any underwear anyway? Who in hell ever sees it, unless you are hit buy a truck and taken to a hospital or the morge. Besides, it's all made in China now.
I know I never thought of my underwear as being unlucky.
I don't trust people that are affraid of thier underwear.
KEM,
I just finished reading the link-incredible information! Thanks. I was just joking about the clothes sparkling at night. Forget about the kids. The article scared the heck out of me. What have we become? You know more about DU than I do but the great Helen Caldicott from Down Under has written, and lectured about nuclear weapons and DU. In fact I've got one of her books. It is scary.
The link above mentioned Serbia/Yugoslavia many times as well as Iraq and other MIddle Eastern countries. Have you ever read Michael Parenti's book, 'To Kill A Nation' about Clinton's campaign to bomb Serbia? I highly recommend it.
Anyway, CD removed another one of my posts on the article, by David Kreiger. I guess I'm in Poindexter's sights. Remember the 'Total Information Awareness Program'?
Peace and Harmony
Hi ~Peaceman~.___ No sparkles, DU is microscopic, a silent death, blowing in the wind. And DU is everyplace now.
For any unfamiliar, print this rather long article and sit and enjoy it. Better yet, read it aloud to your children, it's a real scary bedtime story.
http://www.uraniumweaponsconference.de/background.htm
RadicalColin,
There's a few of us in this country who care. We do have two extremes in the US but slowly more are coming over to our side. They're starved for the truth.
Even the dirty city air dried clothes have a fresher scent to them than the dryer.
Will the DU cause the clothes to sparkle in the night?
And let us allow the airborne DU to cling to the wet clothing.
peaceman:
'Fraid I pulled out the Hills Hoist in my last home, but in our newly built one we will have an outdoor clothesline, probably retractable and we'll probably mask the more private things with towels or sheets in front, more to save our faces than the neighbours sensibilities though! Nothing beats the freshness of country air dried laundry. I'd have thought that in New England which I loved to visit from PEI Canada as a young man would rejoice in the benefits of its fresh air. All power to good Americans who, through Common Dreams which I read daily, seek to preserve goodness and common sense, and to fight for the truth which sets free.
run your undies up the flagpole, right under old glory.
RadicalColin,
Good post! Unfortunately most countries in the world take our worse "values or ideas, and products" instead of the good ones (I can't think of any ) we are famous for.
Clotheslines ugly? "Beauty is in the eyes of the beholder." Nothing wrong with them, Colin.
You're right. Our biggest export (maybe weapons for death and destruction is first) is the philosophy of selfishness and greed.
What a tragic indictment of the selfishness and greed of American society; not as tragic as the global bullying that pathetic nation engages in, but symptomatic of the deep rot which pervades its every corner. Here in Australia people are proud of their Hills Hoist clotheslines. Ugly though they are, they are a part of the culture. Thanks to our recent change of government and the departure of our Bush-clone psychopath, the copying of American sick values which might see similar idiocy here is marginally retarded
Judging by the length of the comments to this article, line-drying our clothing actually is a common dream.
In the winter, do you run it under hot water?
atelios:
That's a trick I use all summer long!
Hey, while we're on the subject of doing more with less, I have this great way to cool off without the use of any air-conditioning. If it's a really hot day and you are really hot and sweaty, what you do is, take your undershirt off and run it under cool water. Then wring it out and put it back on. It works great! The evaporation of the water makes you SO cool it amazing! When if finally dries out, do it over again. Try it.
I dry my clothes in the bathroom on the shower curtain rod because:
1. The wind tunnel where I live would send every article of clothing a mile away. It's been known to send the industrial garbage cans tumbling down the street!
2. The apartment complex owned dryer will fry anything put into it.
3. I've gone one step further on several occasions, and forwent the washing machine, using a bucket to wash light items of clothing. (I'm an admitted cheapskate, and a little scrub and dish soap gets the light stuff clean.) Washing machines are for washing heavy items like pants, blankets, and large towels. They are danged expensive!
Here in the U.S. Southwest (Albuquerque), drying clothes inside the house works very quickly and provides some humidity - though hardly enough to notice. In summer humidity can be eight percent so we don't have a mold problem. Our daughter living in Brooklyn suggested we do it and we took her advice. It's really nice but we didn't know about running certain items through the drier w/o heat to ...fluff 'em up, or whatever. Thanks folks!
Sounds like the rules are developed by the majority of residents. Isn't this democracy? This is why I do not live near anybody. However if I did and needed to sell my house, I would not want my property value reduced by things commonly considered undesirable. What is undesirable is subjective and is determined by the community (democracy in action). It is a question of your property rights vs. the property rights of your neighbors. If you live with other people, there are always rules and you won't like some of them. Even in the country, I am not happy when my new neighbors let their trash blow into my farm, but I pick it up and go on. It is ironic that these neighbors moved to the country and are organic evangelists, but I have to endure the smell of them burning their trash, including the plastic.
just hook up the old solar powered clothes dryer and dry your damn clothes or wear'em wet fer godsake.
I think that property values will be more influenced by unregulated capitalism than underware on the close line.
namaste, Hey, that's funny. I needed to laugh.
… bring the subject of underwear in, and you never know what might come up
grumpyoldlady,
Ya' hit another homer with that one. Very good. My father and I used to watch the roller derby on tv. He'd smoke a whole pack of cigarettes and drink a gallon of beer during one game and I'd eat a half-gallon of ice cream with Hershey's syrup and gooky carmel sauce with a half can of whipped cream on top. Meanwhile, my mother was taking the clothes-pins off the sheets, underware, bras, panties, towels, chinos, pants, dresses and everything else on the clothesline and then out came the ironing board.
KEM,
Maybe I'm losing it but they but my posts back on the other article, still with the moderation thing. Weird!
There's been a wide range of comments on this article about clothesline rules from indoor/outdoor lines to nostalgic moments of the past to bestiality in the southern states, to arresting Bush for peace. Never a dull moment with the CD'ers.
Araquin,
"What's wrong with seeing underwear????? What is so embarrassing about it? I don't get it."
Me, neither! I sit down to watch a Red Wing hockey game and I'm inundated with images of barely-covered Victoria's Secret girls, smiling Bob and his "male enhancement" pills, a bunch of perfectly functional guys sitting around singing "Viva Viagra," and ad's for "intimate lubricant," and yet I'm supposed to worry that someone might have their delicate sensibilities offended at the sight of my spanky white granny panties hanging on the line?!
Give me a break.
Judi, you write that you find the sight of underwear out in a yard "tacky". Someone else also admitted to feeling uncomfortable about the sight of it.
What's wrong with seeing underwear????? What is so embarrassing about it? I don't get it.
Queen Victoria died in 1901, for heaven's sake!!!! Where does all this Victorian squeamishness come from?
Did anyone else notice the number of responses to this article? This is an important subject. I live on a boat in northern Puget Sound, drying clothes w/o a dryer would be a huge challenge, however, I am thinking of how it might be done. Humidity in a boat is high and it is always fairly damp from the amount of rain we have and from sitting in water up to here. I also remember helping (reluctantly) my Mom do the wash with an old machine with a hand cranked wringer and filling and emptying the rinse water in big old wash tubs. We lived in Miami and had no real winter to put up with, it did rain a lot at times but the clothes just stayed out on the line longer.
I lived in one of those developments that had a covenant in the mid=80's and we could barely breathe outside without getting crossways of the committee.
My wife was living there when we met and we only stayed a year or so before moving to a place without such dumb rules, where we hung out our clothes and waited for them to dry,
sometimes in a few hours, sometimes a few days (rainy season in the tropics) and it was good.
I'm watching the rain that has been falling almost steadily since yesterday and trying to figure out a way to dry a load of wash on the boom and maybe hanging off the forestay and bachstay. Maybeee.
KEM PATRICK
thanks for the clarification. so if anyone gets caught, they just say they are 'practicing'.
Back in the late 70s while in college I had a great touring bicycle and used to go out for a week at a time riding around Kentucky and Tennessee and sleeping in little league baseball dugouts, etc...
One fine morning I was up bright and early riding through eastern Kentucky. The nicest thing about a bicycle is that it makes no noise, so you can pass through an area without disturbing the natural ambiance. I was riding down a country road past a little white farmhouse, and an old woman, wearing one of those old-style bonnets, was out back hanging her just-washed clothing on the line. The sun was just peeking over the horizon, and she'd already done her wash and was hanging it up on the backyard clothesline.
UHHHHH, Oral sex is not the same as hanging sheets and bras in the back yard.
It's not illegal to 'practice' doing it COCO. It's illegal in some states or the Oval Office to do it, __ even with married spouces, practice is alright. Funny, in some of those same states, it's Okay to have sex with an animal, as long as the animal is of the opposite sex.
a far worse sight in anyone's home/garden are those bloody satellite dishes. i hate them. they are the most offensive pieces of junk i have ever set eyes on..................
i also understand that in some states it's illegal to practice oral sex.
Don't hold your breath while waiting Peaceman.
Once again, freedom is trumped by property concerns. People aren't "anti-environment," they just don't want their property values go down because the neighbors use a clothesline. Just like how people aren't racist, they just don't want their property values to decline because "those people" moved in down the street.
Someone above mentioned how we USAmericans love our "staged communities." I say we love staged EVERYTHING and have gotten so used to fraudulence that we now prefer shit to Shinola when polishing our shoes.
Is it going to take a fucking Greater Depression and the rest of the world handing the US its ass to wake this nation up to what really matters?
arkitekton,
I wrote to Common Dreams asking them and await their reply.
Might be my remarks about military personnel. On both of the deleted/censored posts, I said that if the government decides to wage another crime against humanity by bombing Iran, our people in uniform should refuse to participate. And working men and women need to stay home from work. WTF said maybe the computer censor picks up certain words. I hope CD responds with an adequate answer. Thanks for your concern.
My mother used to hide her undies by hanging them between folded sheets on the clothes line. Someone had been stealing her panties and bras.
Hey, has anyone done this study: If everyone in the U.S. stopped using their electric dryer and hung their cloths out to dry, how much energy would we save and how much global warming could we prevent? Oh, but wait, then my property would be worth less. Never mind!
grumpyoldlady,
thanks for reminding me of some of my own good memories.
peaceman: can you tell us why your comment might have been censored?
I think hanging clothes outside where passerbys see them is a bit tacky. But you should be able to do as you wish in your backyard. As for condos, apts., there should be an area surrounded with a fense where all can hang their clothes outside to dry. My Mother owned a condo and they had an area where you could do just that. And my Mother always preferred hanging clothes outside, especially the sheets. So use commonsense, condo and apt. owners and try to pass laws that are more in tune with preserving the environment instead of filling the landscape with more concrete. Grow trees and shrubs and provide a small park. Everyone needs more nature.
drying clothes inside on a line ect. is just dumb, the moisture you put inside the home will turn to mold sooner than later. How's that for a reason to GO OUTSIDE!! when it is all said and done we will have to accept that you can't eat money, so all the "acceptability" from greedy, home renters from the bank, will not fly in the long run. when you exist for the "bottom line" you just don't get it sorry about that.
grumpyoldlady,
I agree with jclientelle, nice post and quite nostalgic. I grew up in Newark, New Jersey and had similar experiences as you. I remember walking nine blocks to school and during the winter months when there was snow on the ground, we were terrified walking in a "two-block danger zone" where a couple of older kids hiding behind parked cars across the street bombarded us with snowballs. (they were the bad kids in those days).
Ah, and the hot, humid summers. Nobody had air-conditioning, just the window fan blowing hot air around. Everybody would sit on the porch and converse. Real conversation. Remember the punks? We'd light them and the odor was supposed to repel mosquitos. And now we have "gated" communities and a false sense of security.
More important than this is the fact I'm being censored on Common Dreams. My post on yesterday's article on the top left was removed. The picture of the two Iranians, tittled, 'Six Signs The US May Be Headed For War In Iran' was removed last night. I just posted a similar one and the "your comments are awaiting moderation" is on again.
I feel honored if my comments are feared by this corrupt, diabolical regime in the White House.
grumpyoldlady - nice post.
Someone I know did some work in Caracas Venezuela years ago. She showed us photos. She said she felt sorrier in a way for the rich kids who were isolated and protected in their sterile high rise apartments than for the poor kids skipping around together and laughing in the filthy puddle streets.
We are heading in that direction with the third-worlding of our incomes and neighborhoods. We need an alternate vision that combines safety with serendipity, freedom and caring, nature and esthetic human construction.
Whoever doesn't allow clotheslines are MUGGLES just like the Dursleys in the Harry Potter stories who exist in a sterile environment and forget to live.
peaceman,
Well, my garage has a back door as well as the garage door, so I figure I can open up both and let the air flow through. No sunshine, but we can't have everything! I can even use it in rainy weather and in winter (my garage isn't heated, but never gets as cold as the outdoors). I'm fairly excited about this!
I'm with you...I feel bad for kids growing up today. We're so disconnected from our neighbors and communities. Folks go to such lengths to isolate themselves from the people around them...big stretches of property, big fences, gated communities and security systems. Everything about modern "developments" screams "KEEP OUT!" I grew up in Detroit (7-Mile & Evergreen!), when there such things as neighborhoods. We would have neighborhood parties in the summertime...fill a big tub with ice, beer and soda pop, cook burgers and weenies on the barbeque, hang a big sheet on the side of the garage and play films or folks would bring along their instruments and we'd have a sing-a-long. It was all great fun (although I do recall the police showing up on a couple occasions!). Back then, the kids were told to go play and come back at dinner time, so that's what we did. We built "forts" and "clubhouses," climbed the trees in the schoolyard across the street, rode our bikes, and somehow managed to entertain ourselves (without benefit of television, video games or DVD's) until mom called us in for dinner. When I started school, we waved goodbye to mom and walked nine blocks to the neighborhood grade school, lugging our book bags and lunchboxes. Mom watched us go and went about her day, with no reason to think that we wouldn't come back safe and sound. We walked the same route every day, and almost all the folks that lived along those streets knew us by name and where we belonged.
Oh, and those fresh sheets on the clothesline made a great hiding place!
So typical of our cultures obsession with the superficial over actual substance. We make me puke.
hybridoma2001 wrote:
"Because of the way most homes are built here, it is common to have a very wide door - almost as wide as a garage door -somewhere on the ground floor. These wide doors also have a metal door, which you slide down at night to protect the house from any potential burglers."
Hy, if you're still reading this thread, can you tell me the reason for the very wide door? I'm an architect and am always interested in this kind of thing.
"Right to Dry" -- I love it!
Ok so yes having your obese 80 year old neighbors hanging ou there undies right infront of your window is a little gross, close the curtains and MAGIC no more undies as wide as you are tall flapping around. Amazing isnt it
This is so ridiculous. If all it takes to offend your tender sensibilities is seeing some clothes hanging outdoors, then you really need to get a grip.
Sorry folks, but Homo Sapiens has not yet made it to the level of Perfect Being...though some like to think they already have.
Coming from the land of the rotary clothesline (Australia) I found this article highly amusing. I remember reading years ago about the number of communities in the US banning clotheslines and wondering if anyone there had heard of global warming.
I would never, ever own a dryer (although I do plead guilty to going to the laundromat a couple of times in winter to dry when I can no longer stand my little bedsit having wet clothes all around it).
Sun and wind dried clothes and linen are the best. They smell good, they feel good and they don't wrinkle as much. It keeps you connected to the world when you wake up, see what the weather is like and think 'ah, a good drying day'.
And where I live you also have the excitement of having to gingerly handle the clothes as there is a slightly poisonous type of spider that also seems to be fond of sundried cloth and will lurk in the folds of sheets. That keeps you close to nature!
I have read somewhere that dryers are the second most common cause of house fires. They go up when people don't clean out the lint filter often enough.
Sunshine-1111 - I CANNOT believe that the police in your area don't have better things to do than come and check out your backyard. Bet knowing that could happen puts you off having the odd dope plant hanging around.
So don't feel bad about being unable to hang laundry. I guess flowers are unsightly too.
After those annuals grew back and passed on I haven't really gotten into it the way I did in previous years. I just don't want to be told that I would have to get rid of them again.None of my neighbors could figure out why they made me get rid of them. Maybe cause they could?
I was the oldest out of ten children. My mother used to do all the laudry with a wringer washing machine. I remember the piles of clothing on the floor all seperated. I was responsible for hanging and taking down the clothing. One of the things that I used to love hanging and taking down were baby diapers. They would be easy to hang and especially in the winter time they would smell so good. In the winter I would take the diapers off the line froze solid and then drape them over a clothes rack aside of the woodstove. I used to like the feel of them quickly softening up when I would hang them on the rack and in no time they were dry.
What I used to hate was hanging socks. What I love besides diapers was putting my quilt on the line. I used to hang it outside for a couple of days to let it air out then pack it up for the winter then put the bedspread on in the summer.
Oh my have things changed. I too am not allowed to hang out my laundy at the place where I currently have resided for the last 22 years. We are not allowed to have a washer in our apartment. Somehow doing laundry after someone else has done their laundy just never felt right. But hey right, the electric company has to make profits, who cares about conserving energy.
I truly want a place where I could move where I could hang out my laundry again. I miss it.
The only problem we had when I was a kid is that someone used to like to steal all the woman's undergarments off the clothesline, then later it was jeans.
I am half Native American and this way of life doesn't sit well with me. I still take all the heat regarding my heritage. People really try to demean people who live with the land. That is taboo! It doesn't make a profit for anyone accept for the person putting in the effort. I personally feel working with nature keeps me physically, emotionally and spiritually happy and healthy.
The one thing I can't do without is planting. I have to put my hands in the earth. I don't have a place here to have a garden of any sort except for my patio. Each year I start my plants. A few years ago my plants just florished. They were huge and full of beautiful blossoms. All my neighbors used comment how beautiful they were. Then one day in their peak I got a letter from the complex manager to get rid of them. I couldn't believe it. I was absolutely crushed. They didn't look encompassing or gaudy or anything of that nature. He told me they were going to clean the patio's. I asked if I could just take them inside then when they were through cleaning I would put them back out, he said no, get rid of them!
I belong to a local organization so I decided to bring them there instead of just putting them in the trash. I put them in my car and then went up stairs to get my purse. When I went to open my door with the key the door wouldn't open. . I was locked out of my apartment. I called the manager and told him I couldn't get into my apartment with my key. Well, they told me they would come and it would be no problem for them to get into my apartment while I was away so I left. I dropped off the flowers and I came back to find 5 police cruisers in my driveway. I just kept on driving. Whatever was going on I didn't want to be a part of it.
Later when I returned I found out the reason they were here was that the maintenance guy tried to open my door and he couldn't. Along with the lock on door being broken, the knob on my door broke at the same time. So he drove his truck onto the lawn and tried getting into one of the windows. Since he was a new maintenance man none of my neighbors knew him and saw him breaking into my apartment and called the police. After what they put me through I didn't take pity on him, actually I felt good. From what I heard the first cop that got there actually drew for his pistol. After all that trouble nothing was ever done to the patio.
I was so discouraged as to what had happened I decided I wasn't going to grow anything the next year. Why bother? I brought back my containers after the season was over. My son was distraught. He had never known me not to grow flower since he was born. Low and behold those came back on their own. There are not words to express how I felt. Nature is indeed miraculous and beautiful.
Some say the reason my door broke is that my flowers didn't want to leave. I actually believe that to be true.
grumpyoldlady,
Good hearing from you and your comments are a delight to read. This gentrified antiseptic sterile society will eventually collapse and we'll have no choice but to live in a more natural setting. Even with a single garage, the clothesline will work, but nothing like Mother Nature's wind breathing on those clothes. You are so right about neighbors. I wouldn't give my childhood days up for a hundred million bucks. Most of the folks on the block knew each other and would visit and have coffee at each others houses or flats. (apartments) My family was mostly blue-collar and nobody was the least bit interested in keeping up with the Jones.
Good comments from all you CD'ers. Time to greet the Sandman.
Well, I can understand why no one would want to see junk cars stored in driveways but how does that compare to a clothesline full of clothes? I live in one of those neighborhoods in Clearwater, FL where the homeowners assoc tries to really rule. They tried to pass the rule that you cannot leave your garage door open, you cannot have a swing set in your back yard unless it is painted in earth tones (they were voted down). However, I did get a warning ticket from the city because my tree next to the sidewalk was not cut 7 feet above the walk. It was only 6. I drove around all day until I could find a city walk with a low hanging tree and gave the warning back to the city. These are actions of little minds that have absolutely nothing to do all day. Is it against the law to have a swing on your front porch now?
F**K PROPERTY VALUES
Since I worship Ra the Sun, the known source of all life on Earth, the homeowner rules restricting my religious freedoms are unconstitutional, and the 1970s laws allowing my electrical production (in this case through nonuse of electricty or other energy source) to be added to the grid and compensation to me for same, are being affected. I can only say civil suits under our Seventh Amendment, public court record petitions to redress grievances, are needed. Elected officials are sworn to protect my rights also. One cannot sign their rights away and no one can give you your Freedoms, except
you. Peace Now, no nukes.
"Solar Hydrogen", cleanly kills coal, oil and gas and nuclear energy production and produces fresh water.
Stop the killing.
ARREST BUSH ET AL FOR PEACE
Since I worship Ra the Sun, the known source of all life on Earth, the homeowner rules restricting my religious freedoms are unconstitutional, and the 1970s laws allowing my electrical production (in this case through nonuse of electricty or other energy source) to be added to the grid and compensation to me for same, are being affected. I can only say civil suits under our Seventh Amendment, public court record petitions to redress grievances, are needed. Elected officials are sworn to protect my rights also. One cannot sign their rights away and no one can give you your Freedoms, except
you. Peace Now, no nukes.
"Solar Hydrogen", cleanly kills coal, oil and gas and nuclear and produces fresh water.
Stop the killing.
ARREST BUSH ET AL FOR PEACE
Oh yea, I forgot about my time in the fire department, back in the 80's when they thought women were just a fad and there weren't separate bathroom facilities for men and women. Me and the other one would ride the exercycles in the late afternoon while most of the guys would play basketball or do some other sport outside. After our "bike" ride we'd rinse our bike shorts out and hang them in the battalion chief's bathroom (because he would share it with us). One day when the other one was off on vacation, the BC called me into his office, with my captain, and told me he didn't want to see my "underwear" hanging in "his" bathroom. Since I couldn't put them in the women's bathroom I asked for a clothes line. He about fell off his chair! Needless to say, at that moment I alone started to push for separate facilities. I figured that if the men could hang up their jockstraps in our shared locker room, I could certainly hang a pair of cycling shorts in his bathroom. Five years later we got separate bathrooms & locker rooms, as well as separate sleeping quarters to shield us from the morning gas explosions which filled our dorm.
I can give some examples of how messed up we are ~GEO 522~. For one, there is a TV ad for "HEAD ON", apply directly to the forehead. That ad runs daily on most channels and has been running for over a year. Those TV ads cost tons of money to advertise a product, which claims to do nothing for anyone and is probably totally useless, it's a hard salve of some type. People must be buying it, because the ads stay on, day after day.___ STOOPID.
Another jewell? "Tic-Tacs" cost $.99 cents for 5/8's of an ounce. A lttle hard candy mint, green or white, and it's over __ $20 a pound plus tax.___ Butttt, it has been selling very well for years and that's really STOOPID too.
Another? When Gasoline and diesel hit $1.65 a gallon a few years ago, we had shit fits. Truckers went on strike and blocked major highways and the roads around the US Capitol in Washington, DC. The price dropped to $1.40 almost overnight. Then, over time, at a penny or two a gallon, it finally got to #3.25+ a gallon. No real bitching and now if it drops to around $3.00 a gallon, we are happy as pigs in shit.
We Americans are funny people. Just "messed up", is a compliment.
I use a dryer. The wind is gusty, strong and unpredictable at my house. A gust of wind on a fairly calm day snapped off the top half of an ash tree about 10 feet up about 6 inches in diameter. Had to screw down the porch swing because it kept blowing off the deck. One day a full and very heavy trash can blew away. I found the can about 1/2 mile away. No one ever complained about the trash so who knows how far it went. I have a clothesline we use when we are outside to chase fly aways. Have to use about 3 times as many clothespins to keep clothes on line.
It is a weird micro-climate, the storms always divert and clouds shift heading out either NE or SE seldom directly east.
I wear my clothes for five days. Then I take a bath and soak my clothes in the tub while I'm bathing my body. Then I take a quick shower and rince the clothing. After I dry myself, I hang the wet clothes on the curtain rack, pants, shirt, sox and shorts. I have my other set of clothing I wore five day prior, washed dried and ready for another five days. Sometimes durng the hot summer, I just put on the wet ones and go out and sit in the sun until they dry. Works great and the neighbors don't bitch at me. ___ Actually, they don't ever even talk to me.
Let's see... oil is $110 a barrell, gas is well over $3 a gallon and rising, the economy and the dollar are going down the drain... and people are actually worried about looking at their neighbors clothes drying outside!!! No wonder that this country is so messed up...
I live in a West Virginia trailer park. We've never been allowed to hang clothing outside to dry;it's in the lease. The new owner lives in Missouri and hasn't fixed the potholes since he bought the park four years ago. Since he took over the place has turned into a real dump. Maybe I should sue HIM for lowering the value of my double-wide.
What a lovely change, such an harmonious long line of comments! Feel like I've found 'my people'. I've had the obsessive compulsion all my life to hang clothes to dry outdoors and have rigged up some kind of line everywhere I've lived for all the reasons above and because it makes me feel content. As for beauty in the eye of the beholder: my current landlord demurred when I asked to put up a line and mentioned "look like a tenament' etc. Meanwhile this apartment house has siding fallen off, mould down the side because gutters and drainpipes are missing, no yard care except the grass mowed within an inch of it's life in drought or deluge, and a garbage man who smashes recycling containers de rigeur and strews them around the dumpster first thing that hits the eye on turning into driveway - for starters.
Anyway, brilliant of CD to give us a reprieve from war, torture, scandal.
miketheham - love that "Hange free, or die!"
I've never had a dryer and never will. And I live in the Pacific Northwest. We just hung our wash inside the house in the winter. It got dry in just a few hours.
The Japanese never have dryers, either. Every home, apartment and condo has laundry hanging out on the balconies and yards everyday--it's normal in a sane country!
I've never had a dryer and never will. And I live in the Pacific Northwest. We just hung our wash inside the house in the winter. It got dry in just a few hours.
The Japanese never have driers, either. Every home, apartment and condo has laundry hanging out on the balconies and yards everyday--it's normal in a sane country!
my first summer job was in upstate new york, and my mother wanted me to pack a clothesline. i told her we were the only people that used them. to my surprise, in the catskill mountains where i worked we had a clothes line for the employees. my aunt still hangs out the clothes in the back yard. but now my mother (nearing her 89th birthday) uses a dryer.
Now these left-wing crazies want to hang their clothes outside in order to let them "dry in the sun"—what's next!
Haven't they heard our crafty, perspicacious and successful weapons and oil executive vice president inform us quite succinctly I believe, that solar energy is not viable, it just does not work:!
Do these people listen?
Why should we Patriotic Americans be paying any attention to wrinkly-faced old woman from Vermont anyway? General Electric makes wonderful energy consuming machines to do the job faster and far more profitably than the obsolete clothesline.
Hello lefties, we are in a recession, stop with the friggin' socialism crap. The next thing you know you will be SHARING the F ' n clothesline with a neighbor.
If I hear one more idiot environmentalist tell me, "the Earth is warming because of human activity", I am going to run them over with my eighteen cylinder Hummer. I will tell you why the Earth is warming, it is from all of their open left-wing mouths yapping trying to take away my freedom.
Go John McSame.
Uniformity = monoculture = centralization = authoritarianism = conservatism = money-power concentration = dictatorship
If I had to make a prediction, I'd say that in 10 years everyone (who isn't obscenely rich or an idiot) will be hanging their clothes outside. Same thing for lawns. Both will be relics of a cheap energy era that will never, ever return.
And I say good riddance. I empathize with folks sensitive to the petrochemical fragrances - I had a neighbor at my last place that used this god-awful stuff that forced me to close all my windows, and what really surprised me was that she actually WORE these clothes next to her body afterwards. Yuck.
Since dryers use a ridiculous amount of energy relative to the function they perform, they will be among the first wasteful appliances to go the way of the dodo. Home owner associations will look pretty stupid in short order, since eliminating the costs of running a dryer is such an obvious way to reduce the costs of energy. And the environmental benefits of reduced coal consumption will be a welcome bonus.
Oh how utterly ridiculous that a HOA would make such inane rules! Both my sisters live in condos and have given me many outdoor items that they're not able to hang from their balconies due to the need for uniformity! They can't hang clothes outside either. How gross! The argument against outdoor drying is simply arbitrary, what's next, no ugly people can live in the condo!
I'm spoiled by living in the country and EVERYONE can see my laundry hanging in my backyard as they drive up the hill past my house. It's such a sad commentary on our culture that we would judge property values by something as transient as wet laundry!
If I lived in a condo with rules such as these I would find out what gender most of the Board of Directors was comprised of and hang some of the sexiest lingerie I could find and see how much they harass me. Of course, I think this would work better on men than on women. What man is going to complain about my hanging a few sexy bras and thongs?
I really enjoy these comments. We bought a small farm out in the country that is slowly turning into the suburbs. The new people see our clotheslines, so some of them are starting to follow suit. One problem we have, though, is that we have a giant mulberry tree in the back yard, and when the mulberries get ripe, it attracts a million birds. If we were foolish enough to hang out our laundry then, it would get caught in the purple rain!
I say, Let the Undies FLY!
I am experiencing a similar thing in Asheville,NC. A battle of the eco-hippies versus money-hungry property value-conscious yuppies!
Before we bought our recently renovated house, it was a rundown mess with no one in it and kudzu all over the yard. This neighborhood is being cleaned up, but is still small, homey and colorful. There are young and old folks here, some with nice yards, some in progress, and some, downright a mess. We picked the neighborhood because it was not a "CC&R's" kind of neighborhood and most of the cars are old-not Hummers.
My neighbor up the hill, from NYC, moved to town and built a brand new huge house on a tiny lot, three years ago, in this neighborhood full of old homes. She muste have looked down at the time on this mess of a place and she bought up the hill anyway. She moved into this old neighborhood, with her sparkly new plastic house,and since then has harassed everyone around her with the help of the city police, about the ugliness of their homes, consistantly telling the city that several of us are "harboring rats", etc.
When we moved in we set up a completely legal chicken coup. Chickens, with license are legal in the city of Asheville. We had yet to get our chickens, and then about 3 weeks ago we met our neighbor.
Her first conversation was to tell us our yard was a mess, and what did we plan to do so she didn't have to see it. The second conversation was to ask us to go in half on a tall fence so that she wouldn't have to look down on our "mess" and after 1 week of no answer she called in the police to inspect our chicken hutch, which we had already begun to dismantle and had decided to give away, due to probability of troublesome neighbors.
Now I ask you, WHY don't all of those kind of folks move into ONE neighborhood and leave the rest of us to air our clean laundry (and our chickens) in PEACE! The officer told me "I am surprised she didn't call about your clothes line!"
I don't understand why all the wealthy yuppies who love A/C and dryers and million dollar homes for two, are moving to a "hippie" town, building 2 million dollar mansions and 2nd and 3rd homes. WHy dont they all move to Texas or Utah? Actually I DO know. It's called making a profit. And it's why there is a housing crisis all over America.
I say let the undies, chickens, goats, old cars, and whatever else we CHOOSE fly and if some don't like it, let them go somewhere with million dollar rules. When the STUFF hits the fan and there's no more power for their dryers, they can call me and I'll charge all those wealthy snobs to show them how to put up a clothes line!
One note about fabric softeners: I used to drive from home to work every day past a factory near Augusta Georgia that made fabric softener. For MILES around the place on 3 different roads, everything everywhere smelled like fabric softener.
I once read that if you can smell something it is actually tiny particles getting into your nose. Can you IMAGINE what those chemicals are doing to the streams, and soils and air and people around that factory?
peaceman,
"When I bought my first house I put up a clothsline in the garage and it was fine. Dungarees and heavy towels take the longest to dry but the line did the job and took no energy from the utility company.
Boy have Americans become jaded."
Thanks for the great suggestion. I've always loved the fresh smell of clothes dried outside. But my current home has a backyard so small you could stand with your back against my house and spit on the house next door! But I do have an attached, single-car garage the could easily accomodate one of those retractable clotheslines. Someone else already covered my other objection (stiff, scratchy towels), too.
I, too, was surprised to hear clotheslines equated with poverty or squallor. Like other posters, they remind me of warm days, white sheets baking under a summer sun, colorful socks flapping in the breeze, and burying my face in my pillow and smelling that fresh, outside scent (I have yet to find a laundry soap or dryer sheet that even comes close to duplicating that wonderful smell). "jclientelle" said it beautifully...seeing those items of clothing hung lovingly on the line gives us a little snapshot of the folks that inhabit the homes in our neighborhood. Somewhere along the line, our energy has become more focused on presenting a picture-perfect, value-oriented asthetic, rather than viewing our domiciles as a home where real people live. Many of us rarely even see our neighbors, much less know them by name.
Freedom is on the march! What a person considers to be important tells so much about that person. As another poster stated, enjoy the colors of your neighbors' clothes flowing in the breeze. Has anyone ever been harmed by the sight of underwear? I don't think so. And, bask in the knowledge that you have neighbors whose practices in daily living are saving energy resources, and values that and prolonging the life of their appliances (bad in an economy that thrives on planned obsolescence).
I hang clothes out on every day that practically permits; I hang them in the basement otherwise; I use a fuel-free old-fashioned push mower, do dishes the old-fashioned way, and walk and bicycle wherever and whenever practical. I don't want a medal. It just seems natural; and i am grateful for all of the technology that am fortunate to have.
But, recall our founders, "Waste not, want not;" "a penny saved is a penny earned." I have no sympathy for anyone who values their selfish property rights over the rights of humans and the environment. What needs to be changed is the mind-set that even leads to the possibility of clotheslines devaluing property values.
And, ah yes, to turn in after a busy meaningful day to the smell and feel fresh air dried sheets and pillowcases!
Of all the strange things I've observed in America, nothing has stunned me like that one.
In Europe - well, you never know with the Brits, but in the rest of the continent - hanging clothes out to dry is not an issue at all. The thought that this action might "reduce the value of the property" comes across like straight out of the funny farm. Like "call 911 but make sure you have a straight-jacket on board".
Ever smelled the fragrance of air-dried clothes compared to that of drier-dried clothes??
I mean, how removed from nature can any nation get?
Let alone the inane waste of electricity.
My family didn't have a clothes dryer until the late seventies, and didn't use it regularly until my brother and I were in high school. Today my mother still uses her clothesline. It's bizarre that people will get all bent out of shape over someone's underwear hanging in their backyard but will rush over to the TV to see "news" about some celebrity who forgot to wear hers.
I grew up in the country with a phenomenal amount of freedom as a child. Got out of college and moved to various cities, where I chaffed under the rules, regulations, and volume of humanity. When I couldn't stand it any longer, I moved back to the country where I can grow my own food, make a living at my PC, and hang my laundry out to dry or anything else I want to do on my time and my land. I can't see my neighbors from here, and we all mind our own business unless someone calls for help. Even though my neighbors worship the perfect lawn and lots of it, nobody gives a damn that I'm returning several acres (that the previous owner mowed 2-3 times a week) to meadow and native forest. I don't have much conventional grass now, but nobody trys to tell me that I have to because people around here figure it's none of their business. There's a lot to be said for that, people.
Oh I've lived in neighborhoods where everybody has at least one abandoned car in their yard and that is usually because of some mental inability to deal with or make a decision about something that is of negligible value and sits as an emblem to all the things they plan to do one day.
Laundry otoh, the clothesline variety, is the opposite- given that they are removed in a timely fashion (not left out in storms and such or like christmaslights that stay up all year round.) Today's fashions are tomorrows laundry as the saying goes. This washing and hanging out to dry is a productive side of humans. Windmills and clotheslines people, c'mon!
When I was growing up in the 1950s, no one had clothes dryers, so every house had a clothesline. After dryers became popular, it wasn't long before petrochemically-scented laundry products were being sold to emulate the smell of clothes dried in the fresh air. It was a futile exercise, but there are many people who have never smelled naturally dried clothes, so they don't know better.
In Japan, every apartment has a balcony for drying clothes. As far as I know, it's primarily for the purpose of energy conservation, but it also seems to be based on common sense that using the sun is simply a better way. Because of the population density in the cities, I can't even imagine the dismal air quality if everyone there used dryers and scented laundry additives.
I've never been able to use scented laundry products myself. In fact, when my neighbors run their dryer, I have to close my windows and stay indoors unless I want to have a serious headache and constricted breathing. I welcome the move toward clotheslines, but I'm sure the makers of dryer sheets do not.
Life is too short for such nonsense.
Hardheadedwoman (10:54am) LOL!!!
This discussion makes me homesick for tucking myself in at night between sheets that smelled like sunshine (and not fabric softener).
How silly, of course people should be able to hang their wash out to dry in the fresh air!
I used to work in a hospital lab. I can remember one of the techs coming in every Monday, announcing that she had done "two fences of clothes" before coming to work. She lived in the country and used sections of the fence wire (between the posts) as clothes line. Two fences of clothes was a pretty big wash!
Lawns are the cemeteries of nature to me, and I don't understand why some neighborhoods insist on them. It's about time we looked hard at the places we live and honor them in planting our gardens with truly compatible plants. I live in California, and the object of developers here seems to have been to make it look as much unlike the chaparral around us as possible, and as much like some wetter, greener land as possible (without having to put up with actual RAIN!) What's the point?
I haven't had a clothesline for a long time, but I just might put one in - our back yard is very private and no one would object. Reading this I remembered putting up sheets in a mild breeze. It must have been work - as we were all happy to get dryers - but from here it smells and feels good...................
I have always hung clothes outside to dry. An RN neighbor told me it is a very beneficial form of exercise, but I do it because I enjoy it.
When I was working and raising a family, it was the only time I was ever alone - our sons would only take the trouble to come out to the clothesline in dire emergencies!
Best of all, it's a great opportunity for bird watching. The only black collared hummingbird I ever saw was sitting on the fence right in front of me one day while I was hanging up wet clothes.
Fresh air, exercise, bird watching, and energy saving - what more could anyone want?
In my gentrifying neighborhood in Chicago, one of my neighbors moved into a new gated townhouse from a suburb. They were outraged that another neighbor parked his old rusty camper/pick-up on the public street in front of their home -- they thought it made the area look like a ghetto. They made a point of saying that the suburb where they used to live had laws about parking old cars and pick-up trucks on the street or even in your driveway. The subuirb also had rules governing how may people could gather on your front lawn, and how many people could live in your home. I asked them if they had lived in Stalingrad, but they didn't get the joke. I'd bet that their class-conscious suburb probably also had laws against hanging the laundry outdoors to dry.
Sophia1729 (March 13th, 2008 12:05 pm), if you are out jogging in certain neighborhoods in Chicago without expensive exercise clothes, the police will stop you on suspicion. Consequently, I have heard that muggers are now safely plying their trade in mathcing jogging outfits.
In regards to the NH license plate comment, how about:
"Hang free or Die"
I defend the the wild plants in my yard, the bees and butterflies use them for food and reproduction. If I lose that right, I will move because all around me is a dirty city, it means I have been here too long.
REF: # militantliberal March 13th, 2008 11:38 am
I never even knew that hanging laundry outside is a sign of poverty or that it could bring down property values. I grew up in a house with a clothesline in the back, and I'm way under 85.
Me, too!! I grew up in a relatively prosperous neighborhood in the fifties and sixties and if I was at home (not in school or at piano lessons, etc.) my job was hanging the wet clothes on the clothesline to dry. Later when they were dry, my job was to take them off of the clothesline, fold them and put them away - unless, of course, they needed to be sprinkled with water, rolled up, and set aside in a plastic bag in preparation for ironing. Remember, back then almost everything other than towels and underwear had to be ironed.
I think I'll ask my condo association if we can put clothelines on the roof!!!!
I'll also ask my city council rep to propose ordinance making any HA regs forbidding same obsolete.
You can dry clothes indoors, but watch you don't get the humidity too high over long periods of time -- you could give mold a chance to take hold.
Here in Denmark it used to be common to hang the bed quilts out the window -- it freshened them up. You don't see that much any more. When there is snow on the ground and frost (don't see much of that here either any more!) my wife insists on putting the carpets out on the lawn.
In any case I'm sure both sunshine and frost kills house mites.
I have dandelions, wild carrots, wild geraniums, wild camomile, milk weed, and a host of other wild plants that have beautiful little flowers in the spring. I use no chemicals (never have). A lot of people are zero scaping around there...they kill everything with pesticides, cut down the old fruit trees, and cover the ground with plastic and put rock or cement on top of it.
I grew up in the '40s, and we didn't have electricity or running water. With a family of seven, it took the whole day to get the clothes washed in a gas washer with the pipe stuck through a hole in the wall for venting. We had four clothes lines about forty feet long. In eastern Washington's snowy, cold climate, the clothes were stiff almost before we got them hung. Sometimes those lines didn't get emptied until mid-week. We had clothes lines strung up in the kitchen, where our only source of heat came from the wood burning cook stove. We dried a few pieces at a time on those.
I loved drying clothes in Texas. There was always a strong breeze around Fort Worth, and the clothes dried almost immediately.
I've always thought this thing about clothes lines not being allowed was stupid. But then in a nation that has turned a woman breast feeding her baby into indecent exposure....