A rather convoluted conversation at work led to a disagreement about clotheslines. As expected, the stick-in-the-butt-I’m-right-you’re-wrong priss hates them. Apparently she is offended by the sight of other people’s scanties blowing in the breeze. I suppose such a disgraceful sight destroys the value of her home or something. (Just to be clear, she’s not a priss because of her opinion on clotheslines - there are so many, many more reasons that I won’t go into here…)
A few of us, including me, like using a clothesline. I don’t do it all the time, since I work full time and sometimes do laundry in the evening. But when my schedule and the weather allows, I set up the lines and hang out as much as I can. I like the freshness of line-dried clothes as well as the savings on my electric bill. It takes a little longer, but not enough to discourage me all the time.
I know there are HOAs that prohibit them, and I never understood that. Maybe because I grew up in a neighborhood where just about everyone used them, back in the 60s, when most of the moms were stay-at-home moms. Honestly, when I see clothes on a line, and I see it a lot in my county, it’s just part of the landscape. Unless a person’s laundry consists of sheets with obscenities scrawled on them, I can’t imagine being offended.
How about you? Love 'em? Hate 'em? Use 'em? Want one?
Love them, use them, in the winter we use the wooden drying racks in the living room to put some humidity back into the air. Not thrilled about how the towels are stiff, so we toss them in on air fluff for about 10 minutes to soften them up, but that isn’t that big of a deal. Still takes less energy to dry them.
We’re planning to put a couple up in the back yard of our relatively-new-to-us house. Having grown up with clotheslines and knowing how clothes smell that were dried outside, I want to be able to hang a few things outside. I don’t think I’d put a clothesline in my front yard, but in my back yard, who cares?
I think restricting use of them is stupid and fascist, and I’m not offended by seeing other people’s underwear.
That said, I prefer not to use them because the dryer gets rid of all the cat hair on my clothes much better and the sun bleaches out the color. I used clotheslines when I was in the Peace Corps and now I’m in America, goddammit, I want to dry my stuff in the dryer!
In most subdivisions in my area, the rule is they “can’t be seen from the street”. That includes ANY street (like the one behind you).
Out where we are now, there aren’t any covenants against them, but we butt up to a very ritzy subdivision which would protest enormously if we put one up. I’m surprised they haven’t come in the middle of the night and torn our barn down.
I love them. I used to hang my clothes on them all the time. When I was using cloth diapers it was especially nice.
I wonder, if it’s a different HOA what could they actually due short of vigilante vandalism? Actually since you mentioned having a barn that makes me think your house doesn’t have an HOA at all. I’m also a fan, but since I live in an apartment it’s not an option (indoor drying racks sound like too much of a hassle. My mother has always used hers when the weather allows. My grandmother (dad’s side) even had indoor lines strung up in her basement which she used in prefence to the dryer if it was rainy or in winter.
I dislike them, but not for aesthetic reasons. Things dried on a line are always stiffer than those dried in a dryer, and my skin is pretty sensitive…I also think they’re more likely to get pollen on them too, which is another issue. If you’d like to dry your clothes on a line, though, power to you.
At home I only use mine for beach towels, bike shorts, and swimming suits.
But I always use one when camping. On a supported bike tour last summer it rained one day. The campground made us take down our clotheslines. We used every picnic table, tent top, etc we could. I’m sure th coin laundromat on site had nothing to do with the policy…
Brian
I have some lines strung up in my basement right now, and I use them all the time. They’re great for things I don’t want to shrink or don’t care about how long they take to dry or if they’re stiffer when they’re dry. I can always toss them in the dryer for five minutes to fluff them up, anyway.
I air-dry year-round; a retractable line in the back yard spring through fall, racks in the (very large) kitchen in winter. Even towels – the stiffness, which isn’t that big a deal to begin with, disappears after the first use. I use the dryer fewer than five times a year.
I dry my clothes on the line all year round. Line dried clothes feel much fresher than those dried in a dryer.
Having room for a clothes line is a must for me. When I was last house-hunting I turned down several places because they lacked space for a clothes line.
We live on 5 acres which is part of a total 20 acres owned by family, we aren’t in a subdivision.
Mostly what they could do is to agitate for the mayor and Board of Alderman to convince us to take down the clothesline. Those guys and gals are keenly interested in votes (duh) so that if an entire subdivision’s worth of voters are distressed and angry about something, their multiple votes outweigh our 3 or 4 puny votes in this household.
Also, my hubby works for the City so he doesn’t want to get any trouble started there.
Don’t get me started! These are the same clowns who will buy a lot, cut down trees to make room for a house, then flood City Hall with protests when the man who owns the land behind them does the same thing.
A developer I know was trying to sell a little 15-acre odd-shaped piece out our way a few years ago. One day when he was out there the neighbor lady (a doctor’s wife) came over and said “You can’t sell this land! We don’t want a house built here! We walk our dogs here every day!!”
Larry looked at her and said “Ma’am, I hope you know you’re tresspassing when you do that”.
My dad strung lines in the laundry room/furnace room in the basement and my mom uses them when she can’t hang clothes outside. She has a dryer and I’m willing to bet she hasn’t used it a dozen times in the 32 years she’s lived there.
I have one of those umbrella-style lines that rests on a couple of hooks under the deck when it’s not in use. Makes mowing a lot easier. Oh, and my county is full of Amish, so lines are everywhere.
My mother taught me to hang sheets and towels on the outer lines, and then hang undies on the inner lines. This works for both parallel clotheslines strung between two steel Ts and on the square umbrella clotheslines.
I used to hang my clothes to dry, because I’ve most lived in Texas and Nevada, where sunlight is abundant. In the summertime, I used to start hanging stuff up at one end, and then as I finished hanging up that basket of clothes, I’d go back to my starting point and find the clothes to be dry.
However, I quit hanging stuff up outside when I brought in a pair of jeans, put them on, and promptly took them back off and shook the palmetto bug (cockroach on steroids, they’re HUGE). Shudder. Wince. I didn’t squeal, but if I was the squealing type, that was the occasion for it.
I’ve seen enough prison movies and TV shows to know the FIRST place the escaped convict goes is to a clotheslines where he/she steals the clothes and gets away.
Therefore in the interest of crime prevention clotheslines should be banned. Unless of course you’re drying striped clothes that is
