My mother is an inveterate BSer, so take this with a grain of salt:
As a kid in the '60s, we lived right at the end of (about a mile from) a major airport runway. You could see the passengers in the planes; they were that close to the ground at landing. We had a clothesline, as did all the neighbors. As more and more jets were making the scene, Mom stopped hanging the wash outside, saying the jet soot was getting all over the clothes. I 'unno.
use one unless I have an organizational failure. As does our neighbor on one side. (The other side has adult kids). Like so many things, speed in the laundry isn’t about how long it takes to hang things out, it’s about doing things in the correct order at the correct time.
I have a preference for hanging out because the electric dryer is so much rougher on clothes. And more expensive.
The rotary hoist was a traditional part of ordinary Aus life. Suburban houses always have fences. It’s being killed off by higher housing density, cheap whitegoods, cheap clothing, dual-income families and unskilled “home duties”.
There is a mention above about baby-boom housing, but I don’t remember any clotheslines in my Arizona late-baby-boom tract-housing suburb. My parents took all the clothes to the laundromat. Diapers went to the diaper service.
Pretty common still here in Chicago, at least in my neighborhood.
I never see it, unless I’m driving by an Amish town!
I totally love my line. I have the classic Italian line high up between apartments (https://goo.gl/images/dT9DEQ, except only two). I don’t even own a dryer and wouldn’t want one.
The three buildings in our complex all have laundry areas on the roof. Coin-operated washers and dryers, with lots of clotheslines if you want to go that route.
Had one in my old house. In this place there’s a communal rotary one for the 6 flats, but I’ve not used it yet. On the few sunny days we’ve had where I’ve been sure it won’t rain, the family in flat 3 have beaten me to it.
I generally just air dry inside, I’ve got great airflow through the place. I’ve got a washer-drier, which is fine for washing, but it’s slow and inefficient for drying, and I’d rather not waste electricity on something I can do without.
I don’t really use clotheslines any more, mostly suplexes and elbow drops
After reading some of the answers, I should amend mine.
I installed a clothes-hanging bar that runs the width of our laundry room (8 feet). It is used to dry stuff that shouldn’t be in the dryer. So it might qualify as a “clothesline”, but not outside as asked by the OP.
I hang out laundry in the basement year round. Always have. When I had a condo, I hung it on racks. So much more earth friendly.
Too many seagulls around here.
I remember we had one growing up in the early 1980s. We’d only use it occasionally even in nice weather. The pole assembly has long disappeared but the concrete and metal sleeve you’d stick it into is still there.
If you have natural gas service it’s laughably cheap now to run a gas dryer thanks to the fracking boom. A typical summer gas bill is around $25 a month which along with the dryer also includes the stove and hot water heater.
We love our solar clothes dryer.
+1, if I remember correctly it goes against our HOA rules.
I’m guessing too much work.
Random fact: They exist still in other countries! I used them when I lived in Sweden, and so did a lot of people. One told me she does it just because she prefers the smell of the clothes better than when she uses a dryer. (Can’t explain it but life is somehow “slower” there.)
What else are the kids supposed to swing on?
I put up a clothesline when I moved into my house 30 years ago. Before I had my own washer & dryer I’d wash stuff at the Laundromat and hang it out to dry when I could. I still use it fairly often when the weather’s nice, the pines/spruces aren’t giving off massive amounts of pollen, and the mosquitoes are bearable. It’s fairly wooded where I am and I can’t see into other peoples back yards so I’m not sure what other people do.
Really? Many microorganisms can thrive in boiling water. Go to wikipedia’s listing for hyperthermophile.
On the other hand, the sun’s ultraviolet light kills many microorganisms. I doubt your dryer has an internal UV bulb.
The microorganisms that infect people are mostly adapted to live at something close to blood temperature. It’s interesting that there exist bacteria that thrive at 80C, but not very relevant to laundry hygiene.
Besides, lots of bacteria survive UV light, too:
I’d paraphrase this as: “some water treatment plants just use UV, but we tested and a lot of the e coli weren’t killed, they just went dormant, but could be awakened. Water treatment plants should use at least a little chlorine, too.”
Those are exactly the reasons I used a clothesline when I had a backyard; I live in a condo now, and the clothesline is the main thing I miss.
Clothes lasting longer was the biggest plus for me. That lint in your dryer’s lint trap? That’s your clothes disintegrating from all the knocking around they get in the dryer.
I actually like that stiffness that air-dried textiles have—particularly towels. There’s nothing quite like getting out of the shower and drying yourself with a clean, stiff towel.