Pretty sure the tenant is still hypothetical. Once the lease is signed, they usually expect to move in soon, so I doubt O.P. is quite there yet …
Besides, tenants move and change. O.P. oughta decide what HE wants.
Or what we tell him is best.
Oh, hell’s bells, is THAT why there’s this steel pipe sticking up in the backyard of the house I just moved into? Someone sawed off the top, I guess … leaving a lovely little mosquito breeding tube.
Not only that, but my dryer is electric and can’t be plugged in but the washer is fine, so I do the opposite of whoever upthread - I wash stuff here, then lug wet laundry TO the laundromat just to dry it. I’d kill for a friggin’ clothesline, dammit!
I wanna smack the Sawz-All right out of the hands of whoever decided to lop it to uselessness but leave a steel pipe sticking up for all to enjoy.
Another vote for keeping. Our neighbor has a pipe in the ground, so she can lift out the entire contraption, so the clothesline doesn’t stay out all the time. The clothesline contraption itself folds up.
I assume no HOA, because many of them ban clotheslines. They tried to ban small TV dishes but the FCC smacked them down on that. As a kid we did not have a dryer until my little brother was born.
I think the OP should decide on his own but I agree it has to be either fixed properly or removed completely, no “in between”. I’d say renters won’t be swayed either way.
If it were me, I’d take it out completely. (and I’ve done it before and it’s no easy chore)
How tall is it? It was a thing, in the neighborhood I live in, to have just the vertical bar with no cross piece. The cross piece was something like this, a retractable piece that attached to the house and hooked onto the post. They are all over the neighborhood, but mostly no longer used as clotheslines. A lot of people have removed them. They would have been very convenient as a clothesline. Unfortunately in my yard the orientation is wrong for most effective clothes drying (mine would have the lines under the patio roof and then in the shade of a tree, although I am pretty sure the tree wasn’t there in 1955. And I don’t know about the patio roof, either). I can see, on the house, where the line part used to be attached.
I don’t think I’ve ever seen clothes actually hanging on a line to dry, so I’m thinking that the chances any renter would want a setup like that virtually non-existent.
We love having a clothesline. When we moved into our house 20 years ago it was there, and the seller told us that people had told her to get rid of it, no buyers would want it, it was old fashioned and ugly. I told her to tell those people that we loved it and we were glad that she didn’t get rid of it. It’s quite possible that your tenants will be conservation-minded and will use it.
If yours is at the side of the yard and not in the way I would definitely keep it.
If you’re worried about this, you can always use some electro-glow-colored logger’s ribbon and tie it at regular intervals along the lines. Comes in orange and pink. Believe me, no one will miss it! The color doesn’t run so won’t endanger items hung on the lines.
I’d keep it. If the renters aren’t into hanging out laundry, it could be used for other stuff like to hang a hammock or slack line, or dry out a tent or other camping equipment.
I see clotheslines in use all over the place and use them routinely myself. A number of others posting in this thread say that they either do use them, or would if given the chance.
So I think the chances that “any renter” would want to use one are, while certainly not guaranteed, a whole lot better than “virtually non-existent.”
I own a home and live in the upstairs apartment. I rent out the downstairs to a nice lady. There’s a clothesline in the backyard and she uses it. I don’t.
