Clothesline controversy!
It sounds like an oxymoron. Clotheslines are so pleasant, so old-school, so inherently uncontroversial. Right? Wrong. In fact, clotheslines are actually banned in many American communities.
Project Laundry List, a nonprofit we learned about just last night during an NPR radio segment, is working to pass legislation that would change that.
The most interesting/upsetting stats from the news piece:
• In America 60 million people live in areas where clotheslines are banned or restricted.
• 6-10 percent of residential energy consumption goes towards the electric clothes dryer.
• 12 states have passed laws that protect clotheslines.
Clotheslines are often banned because of aesthetic concerns (i.e., homeowners worried about the look of clotheslines bringing down their property value). Is this a valid concern? Is this something you would/do worry about as a homeowner?
Here is Project Laundry List's tally of some of the American communities that restrict or ban clotheslines. Is yours on it?
Related post:
• Cool Green Throwback: Clotheslines
Image Via: Annalisa Parent
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I don't know why people are always so concerned about property value. My parents live in a neighborhood that's become super-trendy in the last ten years and their property tax, based on property value, has skyrocketed. I'd hate to see them priced out of the home and neighborhood that my family's been in since my uncle bought the house in the 1940s when white flight meant he got it for a steal. I've offered to find dilapidated old cars for them to put up on bricks...and only partially in jest.
But as far as clotheslines go? LOVE them. Beautiful. Clothes and linens feel so much better, smell so much better.
view happify's profile
If clotheslines are banned in your community, you could hang dry the clothes in the bathroom. That's what I do. I have a rod over my tub that I've installed specifically for hanging clothes. It doesn't interfere with anyone's aesthetics and I've saved energy and reduced the risk of the clothes getting wet again because of rain.
view jems's profile
I was shocked when I first learned that some communities ban clotheslines! What the heck?!?!
It's such a bizarre line of thinking... it's fine for people to pollute in our community (by using excess electricity/gas for dryers), just as long as it's invisible to the naked eye...
view tinychoices's profile
This is one of the silliest laws I've ever heard of. Using a clothesline is clearly more eco-friendly - what are people worried about; seeing someone else's underwear on the line!?
view Victoria E's profile
When I moved out of the U.S. after years of using dryers I was kind of upset, yeah. It takes a little more time to dry, and you have to be careful when it rains.. but it really makes a huge difference in your clothes!! No more shrunken shirts anymore! :)
view DreamyMoore's profile
I grew up in a rural town and my Mom always hung our clothes out in the summer. I now live in San Francisco, so didn't have this option until my parents came to visit. My Dad was really nice and installed a retractable closeline on our deck. I absolutely love it (and no one has complained)!
view ckp's profile
I started hanging up my laundry in college (admittedly, mostly to save quarters). Even now that I'm in a house, hanging up my laundry on hangers and using my doorways and shower curtain rod works well; it might take a day, but then the clothes are already hung for the closet!
view eaevansmd's profile
I've always lived in an apartment, with no access to clotheslines, legal or not. But I do have a big collapsable wire rack that fits an entire load of laundry and slips under the bed when not in use. Best green product I ever bought. But I guess it's still no replacement for the smell of a line-dried, sun-refreshed towel or sheet...
view 212gretchen's profile