Despite world-class technology in electronics, Japan makes sucky dryers. Nearly all apartments feature a veranda with hooks to slide in a long pole to hang clothes from. The nicer places make the walls of the veranda higher so folks can hang clothes and keep them from view.
Generally women are discouraged from moving into apartments on the first floor, however, because many neighborhoods feature a local Mr. Panty Thief who will pop over to help himself to your unmentionables.
Just about every house in this country (Australia) probably has one - in fact the Hills Hoist is a national icon, featured at the Sydney Olympics. Ours is more like this and can’t be seen from the street, but I would use it for every load of washing unless we’d had a few days of rain.
I have never personally owned a drier, and have no plans to do so. The bigg-ass Hills Hoist in the backyard of our current place was a big selling point with us.
I have known flats where you were explicitly not allowed to have clothes drying outside, but it would be a rare standalone house, in my neighborhood, where there was not some clothesline provision, and the idea of banning it … just wouldn’t happen. The fact that basically all Australian backyards are fenced probably helps there.
I can’t believe there’s a kerfuffle in some neighbourhoods about having a clothes line. I can understand the objection to people drying their clothes on apartment balconies but in your own backyard? What else do the fun police want to ban? Barbecues? Sheds? Kennels?
If you can’t hang clothes on the line, you’re not really home.
I liked having a clothesline too, and would always hang my sheets and blankets on it. My towels would get crunchy hanging on a line but i would still like to have one again
No, you’re in a Home Owner’s Association… :rolleyes: Apparently some folks seriously believe such visual travesties affect property values. :eek:
There are HOAs here that forbid the flying of flags.
HOAs are nothing but quasi governments with pretty much zero representation.
Same here in New Zealand. We are always astonished to learn of restrictions overseas against hanging out washing. I assume it is for aesthetic reasons but I predict that with the growing environmental awareness of our children, hanging washing will become normal again.
Growing up in the 60s many older homes still had coal-burning ranges (stoves) and above them was a clothes rack, attached to the ceiling which was lowered by pulley for hanging clothes. It gave off a nice smell.
Ah nostalgia; it ain’t what it used to be. 
I can’t use one myself, since I don’t have any outside space, but I would if I could. The people in the flats nearby all hang their washing on their front balconies and it makes for a beautiful colourful display.
Funnily enough, I was just this morning thinking about my childhood best friend whose Mum would, if line-hung washing got rained on, always rewash it because she thought the rain made it dirty.
I like hanging the clothes out on the line, even in winter. I do not understand the objections to clotheslines.
i’ve heard that some people would put pillow cases over people’s scanties to not have them observable.
There’s no better smell in the world than line-dried sheets.
I can use a clothesline where I live now, but in a previous neighborhood, they were banned by the HOA. It really sucked for people along my street, because we backed to woods, and the only ones who would have seen our unmentionables blowing in the breeze would have been the neighbors on each side.
We have a stupid ordinance in our city that says: if you have an attached garage, and you convert it to living space, you must then construct another garage of the same size as the original to hide your cars in. Oh, and keep your garage door closed if you actually, you know, put stuff in it. We don’t want to see your stuff.
Also, all boats and RVs must be parked in a garage or in the back yard out of view of the street.
No overnight street parking, either.
I hope you’re right.
Japanese driers are the sorriest excuses of appliances ever made. It takes 2 hours to dry a load, and this often won’t get them completely done. This is another reason we never use the dryer feature of our combination washer/dryer, which wasn’t a problem until we had two kids and the increase in laundry requirements hits the logistics of two working parents and the physics of doing laundry in rainy days in Tokyo winters, when it would be nice to have a turbo powered dryer.
A long way of saying that I’ve been using clotheslines for 20+ years and it looks like it will continue for the foreseeable future, along with the rest of our neighborhood, and city, and adopted country.
The refreshed smell is worthy the time. Sheets , pillow cases, blankets smell nice after air drying.
However my goofy dog will yank on something that hangs low enough.
We refused to even consider looking at homes with HOAs, partially because a lot of them around here seem to ban clotheslines, and I knew I wanted one.
Regarding the towel issue, if you want to line-dry the towels to save money but avoid the “stiff as a board” issue, just take the towels and throw them in the dryer for about 5 minutes after you bring them in from the line. It fluffs them nicely and only costs you 5 minutes of running the dryer instead of 40 (or whatever).
My family has never had a clothesline. I’ve never lived where I’ve ever seen anyone actually use a clothes line. I’ve pondered using on now and then, but I doubt we’ll actually put one in. I was trying to imagine how I’d feel I about them if one of the neighbors started using one. But that’s not going to happen.
Our HOA doesn’t have any rule about them, and is pretty benign in general, so I don’t think they would get involved.
I’ve heard that in many areas its getting more and more difficult to buy good housing without an HOA. I’m not sure the what the definition of “good” is. I think I heard that all new development in Arizona (or maybe it was the city of Phoenix) requires an HOA.
It’s a big hassle for anyone into ham radio. Many have a total ban on any sort of antennas. I’m not just talking about big ugly towers but often even the simplest wire up a tree or a thin vertical metal stick on a roof is banned.
I heard a representative from Hills on US public radio a few years back. I don’t know how well they’re doing now but at the time they were trying to break into the US market. He said it was really tough going because of the restrictions many Americans live under.
The whole situation makes me angry. I can’t argue directly with the fact that home owners sign these agreements voluntarily but… it’s just not that simple.
