This is pure classism and classist arrogance at its best.

I like clotheslines and find them very eco-friendly, convenient, easy and free. I can't believe they passed a ban on this.

"many homeowners associations insist that they are “…an eyesore, not unlike storing junk cars in driveways, and a marker of poverty that lowers property values”

What f--king B.S. I think clotheslines actually give character to homes and backyards. I like seeing colorful bloomers and shirts flying in the air, being dried out.

Huh. I've never lived in a community with a homeowner's association, I had no idea some of them banned clotheslines.

OTOH, the public housing I pass on my daily commute is identifiable as such in large part because of the clotheslines in every backyard, so it's not hard for me to see how clotheslines could acquire a class stigma.

My first thought was that this would be subject to a great deal of regional variation due to weather. (Where I live, clotheslines are a challenge for households where the person doing the laundry works outside the home during the day, and it seems like most households either use a dryer or rely on a laundromat. I try to air-dry some loads to reduce our environmental impact, but I use a drying rack inside rather than a clothesline.)

OTOH, I see they're working in New Hampshire and Mississippi (versus, say, Southern California), so maybe I'm wrong about the weather factor.

Oh, hooray. Clotheslines are something that is near and dear to my heart. I live in Colorado, where the humidity rarely gets above 20%, and we have long stretches during the summer where the temps are in the 90s. Some summer days, when I'm hanging my sheets out, the first sheets are almost dry before I've even finished hanging the last ones. On days like that, it is actually faster than using a dryer. And they smell and feel amazing, and I love the sight of clean fresh sheets hanging on the line. (Clothes don't look quite as cool, but they don't look bad.)

Happily, since 2007, we have statewide right to dry legislation. Municipal and HOA rules that prohibit clotheslines are unenforceable. Sadly, not many people know this, including some HOA officials. I've been trying to do my part to inform them when it comes up.

I do understand and sympathize with women who were reluctant housewives, particularly older ones who were told they didn't have a choice. To many of them, household conveniences like the clothesdryer represented some small measure of freedom from drudgery. So I give them a pass. I don't give a pass to uptight, classist busybodies who think that drying laundry looks trashy.

Because you know what I think is trashy? I think it's trashy when I smell hot, perfumey dryer farts coming out of houses as I walk by.

I can't imagine a world in which clotheslines are banned! Almost nobody I know (in South Africa) uses a clothes dryer, except in the few wettest weeks of winter. Even then, because of the price of electricity, only quite wealthy people make use of them. The rest of us muddle through with indoor clothes horses and laundromats.

Also, isn't this what backyards are for? I can understand not wanting to have clotheslines in the front yard in a posh suburb, but who cares what goes on behind your neighbour's house?

To reiterate, these are (for the vast majority) bans imposed by Homeowners' Associations, not local government.

Due diligence when purchasing a house includes finding out if a HOA exists, and if so, how restrictive it is. Neighborhoods have a right to create and enforce HOAs. If you don't like yours, or you don't like having an HOA, don't buy a house there. If you really like your house, become involved and try to change the regulations.

I might as well complain that the climate in Ohio doesn't allow for clothes lines.

In some cases, though, government does ban clotheslines (see http://www.roanoke.com/politics/wb/237837)...and raising chickens on residential property, another activity that signals poverty/lower property values to some and eco-friendly locavore to others.

The only places I ever see clothes lines are in the small towns and farms just outside of my city, and the public housing and other lower income homes within it. I think it is from both the fact that most neighborhoods in my area have HOAs and that (to many people) clothes lines imply that one can't afford a dryer (the the extra electricity used).

I would like to see the stigma and regulations go away though. I mean, I use a dryer, but I think it is my right to use a line if I wish (within reason). I saw plenty of neighborhoods full of clothes lines when I visited my father at his home in Australia, and the lines didn't seem to really ruin the look of the neighborhood.

Not just Homeowner's Associations. My apartment complex also bans outside clothes-drying - as well as outdoor grilling, furniture and bikes on the decks/balconies, changing your car's oil in the parking lot, and other 'unattractive' activities. From what I've heard, this is the usual way of things for apartments.
If you break the rules, you can be fined or evicted. It's EXTREMELY frustrating.

"According to the documentary, Drying for Freedom, clothesline bans affect 50 million households, requiring people to buy electric clothes dryers or hang their clothes inside their home. "

...or go to the laundromat or wash and dry at a friend's home. I know people who do both.

On the beauty of clotheslines, check out how clotheslines are being used to advertise the beauty of Newfoundland and Labrador and attract tourists. These spots are gorgeous.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8CoR7C1NepQ

Electric dryers also damage clothing over time from all the tumbling and unnatural heat. My husband and I live in Northwest Ohio and not many people use clothes lines, but we are one of the exceptions. When we bought our house last summer, the clothes line is one of the first things I had installed in the yard. We also have an in-door line in one of our spare bedrooms that we use year-round; in summer, if it is raining, we can hang clothes up to dry inside, and in winter we use the indoor lines every week. We rarely use our dryer.
This is an important story to share with younger sociology students in classes.

I make a phone call and a man shows up. I give him my stinky clothes. Then a few hours later he shows back up with them all clean and folded. I don't think he uses a clothes line. :-)

Some people are saying it is classist to object to hanging clothes outside, but the movement itself appears steeped in classism, practiced by and addressing the concerns of middle and upper class people with money, education, and leisure time. That's been my experience with environmentalism in general - it's a way for the well-off to feel better about themselves. Or, the people practicing it believe in it, but aren't interested in finding out how to expand their principles to include those that aren't as privileged as they are.

that's so...strange. pretty much everybody has a clothesline in australia. even in flats, most people at least have an indoor line of some sort, or hang stuff on their balconies. and since i live in sydney, which is one of the most expensive cities in the world in terms of housing, i'm pretty certain clotheslines aren't a "marker of poverty that lowers property values."

You make it sound like cat poop is no big deal and is the only reason some disallow outdoor cats. First, cat poop does carry disease, stinks, and often ends up in yards (like mine) other than the cat's own. Additional reasons to mandate that cats be kept indoors or on a leash are their effects on wildlife (cats may be affecting native bird populations) and cat overpopulation (unfixed kitties roaming the streets=more unfixed kitties). I hate HOAs but can get behind this rule of theirs.

As far as I'm concerned, banning clotheslines in my state should be punishable by jail time. I live in one of the sunniest, hottest, and driest areas in the world. A state, currently, which is going through an energy and water crisis, as we do every summer when people run their ACs all day when the temperature never falls below 100, not even at night.

But the HOA where I live bans clotheslines. It also bans residents parking cars on driveways, the street, or in "guest" parking. You can't have furniture in your front lawn, and not painting your house every 3 years, even if it doesn't need it or you don't have enough money, is punishable by a fine. They've towed my car five times in the three years I've lived here, once while I was in the process of moving out for the summer! We had lovely neighbors across the street who decided to forgo planting grass or putting down gravel, and instead went with native shrubbery that did not need watering but every month or so. Of course, it was an "eye sore", and they were required to rip it up and put in high-pollen trees and non-native bushes (great for allergies and water consumption!) lest the HOA put in a lien against their home. Instead they moved out, and we got this nasty lady who lets her dogs bark all night and got permission from the HOA (she's on the board) to let her boyfriend park his massive orange truck in the middle of the street while the rest of us mere mortals get towed.

I tried getting a chicken for eggs a while back. The HOA would have absolutely none of that. Funny, because I'm sure that a 5 lb chicken produces much less noise and poop than a dog.

Yeah, I really hate HOAs. The conversion of space that could be functional into cookie-cutter ornaments that are bad for allergies and the environment really pisses me off. It's absolutely a class issue, and it's all about the rigid enforcement of needless consumerism. We've basically normalized the most irresponsible behaviors as the ideal, and punish those that make responsible choices for their families and the world.

I must admit to finding this whole concept of HOAs bizarre. It's not a phenomenon that exists, to my knowledge, here in NZ. The concept of an 'association' includes, I would've thought, that membership is voluntary. The idea that your neighbours could have an enforceable right to demand certain behaviours on a property that you own is... bordering on comical, if it weren't for the negative impacts.

Forgive me, but in a country where a great number of people seem to attach firmly to the rights of the individual to take care of his own even at the expense of others (gun control, health care etc etc) this communal conformist system seems incongruous. One might even say un-American.

Strange.

No vegetable gardens! No clotheslines! Why come home? I lived in the city for 3 years, and I hated it because I was right near campus and never felt like I could hang my clothes out and trust they would still be there (and clean) by the time they were dry. Now that I live in a farm-house, I think it's really beautiful to drive home to a big garden and clothes hanging from clotheslines on the porch!

America is beyond stupid.

Seriously, banning cloths lines and visible veggie gardens etc?? You people will be the death of our planet.

Oh heck yes. I relate to this. As an urban chicknist we are simultaneously silly "food elites" to some but also trashy-looking (in the eyes of several City admins). We had a VERY SPIRITED chicken-ordinance issue last year. Thanks to some intense chicken-activism (ha) the chicken ordinance that was eventually passed was actually pretty good. Could have been worse altho' I resent redundant ordinances that have coded classist roots (IOW dirty or loud chicken-age would have been covered fine by other nuisance ordinances already in place).

American here. We're not all bad, I swear!

I am SOOOO glad that my husband and I don't live in a neighborhood with an HOA. We hope we never have to. And I especially hope I never have to live in one of those gated communities because those tend to be the worst. It's like the houses aren't supposed to lived in. You don't even see people out on the streets. It's like a scene out of some horror movie.

We don't have a clothesline outside yet, but it's on the list. We currently dry our clothes indoors. We have a pipe (above the electric dryer we rarely use) and on that we can hang clothes directly on their hangers before transferring them to the closet. VERY convenient. We mostly just want the clothesline for long jeans, blankets, and towels -- stuff that is currently still dried in the dryer.

Our next door neighbor has a clothesline, but I don't know how much they use it since they have a privacy fence (we've only seen it when visiting). That's the only clothesline I've seen, but we do live in a pretty relaxed neighborhood. We have a neighbor that parks his huge boat right in the middle of his lawn, there are neighbors with chickens and other animals (one neighbor has emus), we have another neighbor that has beautiful xeriscaping that we envy (but that would be frowned upon by most HOAs, probably). Our own yard is, well, not very nice right now but we're working on it and it's very overdue for a mow. I can't wait till we get rid of the grass, though. And all this is in a rather urban area, though not a big city.

I wish more people would use air dry their clothes. It's cheaper, better for the clothes, and better for the environment.

I love clotheslines. They remind me of my childhood. My grandmother dried clothes on the line when weather permitted despite not being poor or having any economic reasons to do so. It was just what you did. My mother dried clothes on the line sometimes when we lived in NJ. In Texas, ironically, where the weather is much better, this sort of thing has become frowned upon. I am fortunate (in some ways) to not have a HOA, but the city still bans clotheslines that are visible from the street. Not an issue if you have a fence, unless maybe if you have a corner lot.

In Italy, the clotheslines and vegetable gardens just made it seem quaint and at the same time alive, whereas American neighborhoods strive to be sterile and lifeless. My parents' HOA not only bans clotheslines, but any kind of plastic children's playsets even in the backyard.

Growing up, my best friend had an outdoor clothesline. They had one of the square ones with a single central pole and several concentric squares of line. They then just hung the wash in a specific order-- undergarments on the central two squares, then shirts and pants, then on the outside, towels and sheets, so all you saw was the pretty white terrycloth and linen squares. It was lovely.

I live in an apartment complex, and when we asked about any rules they said "Well, you can have a clothesline, but just so you know, there is a homeless shelter across the street, and we've had problems with their residents. So really we don't even recommend leaving your laundry unattended in the shared dryer." So that was that.

My fiance and I have already agreed we will put up with a lot of problems with a home, but never, NEVER a HOA. So many horror stories. I want to keep ducks (he's allergic to chicken eggs, and they're cute), I want a big veggie garden, and a small herb garden, beautifully and artfully arranged. I want a ginkgo tree with a small Japanese meditation garden around it, if I have space. He wants to build a Tesla coil in the backyard to teach our kids about science. And I want my neighbors to roll their eyes, decide we're eccentric, plant hedges, whatever-- but be able to do nothing. If the worst problem is theft, a couple geese can protect the yard. If it's a HOA, you might as well give up.

(My fiance's dad has a HOA. They ban renting your home out or selling it without HOA approval. It's a condo, expensive upkeep, and he's been trying to sell it and move in with his new wife for three years. That HOA has cost him WAY more money than ANYONE would have lost if his neighbors had a rusted out tractor in the yard.)

Well that is just plain stupid. It is very offensive that someone who doesn't even touch it's own laundry dictates how a common citizen should do it. Its a sort of 'my-playground-my-rules' sort of behavior. That's what happens when we gove power to morons.

Here in Italy there was a little talk when, in 2001, Mr. Berlusconi asked Genoa citizens for a clothesline ban. The G8 was near and clotheslines would have given an impression of poverty, not suitable with the atmosphere of a G8 summit – that was his explanation. His request was discarded as “ridiculous”, since no one ever thought at clotheslines as a symbol of indigence. Italy has many sunny days per year and a dryer would be a foolish, senseless cost. I don’t know anyone who owns it.

Project Laundry List focuses on the issue of unbanning laundry lines. Alex Lee runs the organization. Here's the link to the Blog.

A friend had this conversation with her suburban-turned-rural neighbor.

My friend: Sorry I can't stay any longer but I have to go home and put my clothes on the solar dryer.

Her friend: You have a solar dryer?

MF: yep.

HR: where did you get it?

MF: at the hardware store.

Two weeks later

HF: I went to the hardware store and they didn't know what I was talking about when I asked them about solar dryers.

MF: What do you mean?

HF: Well, I went in and asked to see a solar dryer. The guy didn't know what I meant. I told him you bought one here. He then gave me a rope and told me to hang it. I told him "no, it had to be something else."

MF: I was talking about a clothes line.

HF: (snottily) I can't hang a clothes line! What will the neighbors think?

MF: I am the neighbor!

HF: No, I can't hang one! I thought you were talking about a piece of technology. That I can spend money on, not a clothesline.

There is nothing like the smell of sheets after they have been blowing in the wind all day on my clothesline. I will only use the dryer when absolutely necessary due to cold, snow, rain...
This is one of the reasons I could never live in a place that has an "association". Who do they think they are?
I've been hanging my clothes for decades and will continue to do so, no matter who tells me I can't.
Save energy, save money and enjoy the smell of the fresh air on your clothing.

Where my parents live, most people have clotheslines - and use them. But not on sundays. It is not forbidden, but un unwritten rule.

Christian tradition.

Excuse my ignorance, but I have never lived anywhere that has an HOA (I'm an American). If you buy your house in an HOA neighborhood, what are the penalties for not following HOA regulations? I genuinely don't know! I mean, you bought the house... can they kick you out of it? How? It's yours! Is there a fine? And what happens if you refuse to pay it? Does it begin to involve civil or criminal suits? I'm just super curious!!! Thanks!

In its ideal state, i thought an HOA was supposed to be a suburban exercise in community making. It upheld a commonly shared image of what the neighborhood should look like - but it was also supposed to be governed by neighbors elected by neighbors.

I've only lived in one HOA neighborhood. We rented a house in Phoenix for several years. The HOA was pretty loosey-goosey on a lot of things - we didn't have a lot of backyard restrictions, and they turned a blind eye to child related gear in the front yard (according to my child rearing neighbors). Low water landscaping was the norm.

The houses all looked alike and for weeks, I would have trouble pulling into the right driveway if the neighbors didn't have their cars parked in their driveways. Going for a long walk was problematic b/c normal wayfinding didn't work - it was scary easy to get lost in endless loops of the same house block after block.

What maddened me was that there were never any opportunities to actually participate. Occasionally a notice would go up - a flyer at the mailboxes for a same day event. There was no way to run for office, or even contact the board of directors for the HOA.

The actual HOA management was via a hired company that was good about sending out citations, but less good about returning calls or emails ever. When it would rain, our low water landscapes would sprout weeds like crazy. There were several rental houses on the block. All of us renters could look forward to getting a weed warning and threat of a fine. Home OWNERS were not cited, even though they were frequently the worst offenders.

None of this was as oppressive as the HOAs in the news, but there definitely seemed to be a very bland type that self selected for these neighborhoods. None of our neighbors had books, but all had huge tvs. Everyone was polite to us, but made it clear that they found us to be kind of odd.

When we bought a house, we made a point to buy in a non HOA neighborhood. Our HOA experience hadn't been that awful, but there was something very numbing about being there. I've always wondered if my fellow citizens' willingness to give up more and more civil rights originated in the HOA neighborhoods mindset.

Just since it hasn't been mentioned, I wanted to point out that not all HOAs are suburban organizations where people dictate what you can do with your own house. In the city where a good portion of homes are condos, people belong to HOAs as well. At least in Boston, most of these are connected to two-family and three-family homes (usually three-deckers and/or rowhouses). Most are low-key organizations that just exist so there's a way to take care of master insurance and building maintenance and a way to handle someone living in the building who's being obnoxious.

If the neighbors are a bit freaked out by a clothesline (as a permanent addition to the yard) perhaps they would be gently conditioned to the idea by seeing a nice portable clothes drying rack like this one being used on the patio or deck during the warm months?

Then after a year or two of getting used to the concept they would be open to clotheslines and neighborhood peace would be maintained...

am about to Post a photo on my FB wall
07/20/10 a jar of the clothespin "bits" brand new, and falling apart.
Looking for wooden clothes pins, with a metal spring - those that will stand the test of time

does anyone have a reliable source??
angela

The other issue about banning clotheslines (in favour of electric dryers), on a purely practical note, is what about all those clothes that are supposed to be hung to dry and can't be put in the dryer?

(Sorry if someone else has already raised this - I haven't looked at all the comments yet.)

I am not a filthy smoker an my clothes and hair never smell bad. I dun't ever do laundry til I have to and cause Im not a filthy digusting smoker I do nut wash my hair and use a hair dryer. I do the best I can to keep the earth green an fiendly. I hate filthy smokers cause they make more need fore laundring clothes and that meens more lectric driers an hair dryers in use.

Being green or eco-friendly is coming to be a growing number of important. ... Eco-friendly products promote environment-friendly living that help to save power as well as also prevent air, water as well as sound pollution. They show to be advantage for the atmosphere as well as likewise protect against human health from wear and tear.
eco friendly products

The reframing of cloth lines is very important and we suggest that you do try eco friendly and green clothes that are best for environment.

solar cemetery lights for graves

Very interesting post about gardening and I love to do this also. I am a writer and I am thinking of writing an article on this topic. We must spread the important of grennery in our environment. You must also do some work with this.

ok

Tnx you