Only in America........WTFF.

[Frankee]

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20091118/us_nm/us_usa_laundry

Jeebus. :facepalm

[travisvwright]

Florida, Utah, Maine, Vermont, Colorado, and Hawaii have passed laws restricting the rights of local authorities to stop residents using clotheslines.
I like watching the trickle down laws.

[smiert spionam]

Putting up a clothesline has reduced my electric bills considerably.

[Trandy]

Putting up a clothesline has reduced my electric bills considerably.

Great point....that's a "green" thing that anyone can do.

[fetishfrog]

My mother is thee master of thrift...collecting coupons, bargain hunting, etc. One of the things she did when I was a child was hang the clothes out to dry in the summer, to save money on electricity. One day, I asked her if she really thought it saved money and we sat down to figure out how much she saved. The number was staggering, a nice used car amount staggering. This was over several years of course but still...it was a real money number.

[zekmoe]

We don't have anything like that, but in the 8 years + in my development, I've never seen clothes hanging and no one has a clothesline. I guess it's more because no one has the time for one. It's probably not the desire not to see them, but I'd bet 90% of the people in my area do their laundry at night when they get home. We do like 10-15 loads a week, so there's no way I'd have time to hang stuff and cart it around.
Also, we have maybe 10 to 20% nice weather. Otherwise it's raining or snowing or winter. No way I could make it effective even if I had the time.
Who are these people with all the free time?

[art_z]

don't like housing association rules, don't move to a neighborhood that has them. its a double edged sword. on one hand, I could care less if my neighbor hung his clothes out to dry. on the other hand, I would not be thrilled if turned his yard into a rat infested junk yard either.

[strat56]

I was born in the 50's and grew up in the 60's. Everyone I knew hung their clothes out to dry. A dryer was a luxury.

[MudPies]

Actually freezing the clothes on the line during winter is still very effective.

[Julia343]

Hey, if you want to hang your clothes out to dry up here, you take your chances with moss, lichen, and other stuff that might want to grow on them since it's rained for the past two weeks, every day.

Dryers used to be luxury. In the winter we'd hang stuff in the basement to dry, but now they don't build homes with basements. So it's either you have a dryer or it's off to the laundromat.

[Tonekat]

Stuff hung on a clothesline dries out, yeah, but if you don't do it a certain way, the fabric gets hard as a rock and feels like burlap.

[guitarist58]

don't like housing association rules, don't move to a neighborhood that has them. ...

Many times the rules are changed and you already live there...

These ordinances often don't apply only to housing associations as well...

[scottlr]

I was born in the 50's and grew up in the 60's. Everyone I knew hung their clothes out to dry. A dryer was a luxury.

Same here. We had a 3 wire 50 foot, perhaps.

We are probably the only house in our neighborhood with a clothesline. My wife put one up on the deck. I personally HATE my clothing and towels to be line dried. They end up hard and scratchy. But she hangs stuff out there all the time. Before I met her, I had a washer but no dryer. I had one of those revolving clotheslines, and I had no choice but to use it, or take my wet clothes to the laudrymat.

[guitarist58]

btw, So California is a pretty good place to dry clothes outside (sometimes used to in the back yard out of sight)

BUT, I've made places to hang the clothes inside... and it solves the aforementioned problems of dirt, stiff feeling fabric, etc. :)

[Midnight Lady]

It's one of those laws that's moving in the wrong direction. Just when it might be a good idea for us to conserve energy, we can't use clotheslines.

It's the SMELL of line-dried clothes that I just love. Especially sheets and pillowcases. I do this at the cottage all the time....

6% of energy goes into operating these types of appliances. That's a pretty significant number.

[HammyD]

Putting up a clothesline has reduced my electric bills considerably.

I think it may be time to put up clothes lines and hang out politicians and legislators from them!

[smiert spionam]

To clarify, the laws are being implemented to stop HOAs from banning clotheslines.

When I dry on the line (most of the year), I finish things off in the dryer for a few minutes to fluff them up. Works well.

[P90Nut]

I seems clear to me, that he is referring to "the big picture".

So it's laundry regulations that get a rise out of you? Fascinating.

[Yankee Univox]

I think it may be time to put up clothes lines and hang out politicians and legislators from them!BINGO...end of thread!!!!!!!!!! :agree

[Zelja]

This is where the US is very different to Australia. The humble Hills Hoist (a revolving, vertically adjustable clothesline) is almost as much an icon of Australia as are the Sydney Opera House & Harbour Bridge.:D

Here is an Australian reporting of events in the US, from last year, but still relevant:

http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2008/02/02/2152840.htm

[Tom CT]

No,it's the whole trend of our rights and freedoms being slowly but surely whittled away that 'gets a rise out of me'. We're paying more and more to be controlled more and more,(while the payees and controllers are living SUMPTUOUSLY,well immune to any recession,and clearly NOT living by the same rules they enforce upon us, mind you)...anyone that doesn't have at least a bit of a problem with that,I feel sorry for you. Seriously,I do! :(

You're aware that this has nothing to do with government, correct? From the linked article:

"Froehlich is among the growing number of people across America fighting for the right to dry their laundry outside against a rising tide of housing associations who oppose the practice despite its energy-saving green appeal."

Housing associations. It's apples and oranges, my friend. No offense intended.

[The Golden Boy]

When I was a kid, my Mom used to hang the laundry out all the time.


Just when it might be a good idea for us to conserve energy, we can't use clotheslines.


Just very recently, WE Energies (Wisconsin Electric) wanted a rate increase because people were saving too much electricity and therefore the power company was not making enough money...

http://www.wisbusiness.com/index.iml?Article=176766

http://www.wisbusiness.com/index.Iml?Article=177366

[michael30]

The one thing that surprised me the most when I moved to the USA was how neighbours and all kinds of people wanted to stick their noses in our personal business. And this was in 1969 when things were much more liberal and easy-going than now.

[gdomeier]

Sleeping on freshly line dried sheets is one of life's simple pleasures....


[QUOTE=Midnight Lady;7146905]
It's the SMELL of line-dried clothes that I just love. Especially sheets and pillowcases. /QUOTE]

[RichieD]

Arnold Layne....

[JB]

Everything at my house is still line dried, weather permitting. If you look at our house on Google maps you can see clothes hanging on our clothes line.

[Platypus]

Only on TGP can a thread about HOA rules turn into some twisted pseudo-political call to arms. Bravo, I'm impressed.

[It's Time!]

I believe with this neighborhood there are CC&R's that say you can't hang laundry in your yard and if the home owner signed the CC&R's then they agreed with them.

Better put that laundry in a dryer quiet'en up the piehole.

[Trout]

1st off,

I endorse line drying(unless you are bee/wasp allergic**)

However,

I was nearly killed by a clothes line at age 11.

I was pet sitting some caged animals (guinea pigs)one hot summer evening for my buddy. It was about 9:30 pm, I heard some cats breaking into the cages and ran across the yards to chase them away.

Running as fast as I could across 3 yards/lawns, in the third yard I hit the clothes line squarely in the neck.
It flipped me completely off the ground just like in the cartoons!

I woke up in the ER the next morning with a tube down my throat and bandages on the rope burns.


**Why is it that Wasps Love to hang out on fresh white sheets? I have been stung way to many times LOL

[DonW]

There is no way to describe how common sense was destroyed in favor of selfishness & foolishness in modern times.

[teletran1175]

Never underestimate the rich and their fear of the poor.

[airwarrior]

Was the woman in the article really doing it in the front yard?

[HeeHaw]

This country takes everything to friggin' extremes.

[HeeHaw]

Never underestimate the rich and their fear of the poor.

Best post of the day concerning this thread.

[Yankee Univox]

Never underestimate the rich and their fear of the poor.
YUP...be skeird and aferd,VERY skeered and afoid! :boxer

[guitarist58]

The wording in the article seems a bit tricky. It does not say she is a part of any HOA, in fact it says: "there are no formal laws in this southeast Pennsylvania town against drying laundry outside". If that photo is of her and the homes I doubt very seriously it would have one anyway.

The article says that HOA organizations are the ones fighting against laws that would limit their ability to impose rules.

And FWIW, as I mentioned earlier, people don't always "move in" to places where CCRs exist, sometimes governing bodies try to impose them on existing neighborhoods, but that's not necessarily germane to this situation.

[Mike R.]

Why would we want to encourage people to SAVE energy?

[Trout]

Why would we want to encourage people to SAVE energy?


SAVE is a smoke and mirrors word used to disguise charging more for less. Use less, then they can charge more for it.

BTW, I combed through our HOA, no clothes line provision!

[pokey]

The jeans sure came out stiff on the line. So stiff you could stand them up in the corner. I can remember shakin the heck out of my levi's to soften them up some.

[PinoyBoy]

In general, I don't see anything wrong with prohibiting the hanging of laundry... PROVIDED that there are clear rules on where you can and where you cannot. I mean c'mon... it is an eyesore if you do it in your front yard. I would not want that in my neighborhood. However, if people want to conserve energy or are just cost-cutting, then there should be a provision that says something like you can hang your laundry in your backyard for as long as the clothes are not visible from the main street.

We have a similar provision for trash bins in our neighborhood where we are required to put screens -- natural or man-made -- to hide the trash bin from public view. Nothing wrong with that rule.

[Flyin' Brian]

There are alternatives

http://i63.photobucket.com/albums/h159/brian329/deer.jpg