Sunday June 28, 2009, 6:42 pm
I was amazed when I lived in the US, especially in places in CA I wasn't allowed to hang out my washing; I'd thought that was a basic human right. I could buy an arsenal of weapons, but no hanging out my laundry.

Sunday June 28, 2009, 6:45 pm
Great comment about the weapons, John. Thanks.

Sunday June 28, 2009, 7:01 pm
Thank you to the American people for being so social elite and spoiled to death that you now have lowered yourself to such a level of human greed.
If your neighborhood commitees now have so much time on your hands, dollar signs replacing the pupils in your eyes, and now have the biggests egos, arrogance on the planet...you all need to get a REAL LIFE.


AN EYESORE?

"Opponents, however, see clotheslines as flags of poverty that create eyesores and devalue property.

“They’re unsightly by most people’s standards,” said Jeanne Bridgforth, a Realtor with Long & Foster in Richmond. “It gives an atmosphere of decline. You don’t sense you’re in a well-heeled neighborhood when you see people hanging their laundry out to dry.”

Planned communities and condos frequently have covenants that ban or restrict the use of clotheslines. In the Richmond area, restrictions vary — from all-out prohibition, as in Charles Glen in Henrico County, to restricted use, as in Chesterfield County’s venerable Woodlake and Brandermill subdivisions.

via Richmond Times-Dispatch.

Well...I hate to tell you, but I am sure that if a legal battle would to be fought in a courtroom, especially by those that have lost their homes to greedy banks and real estate bast**rd's, I am almost sure the ACLU would dearly love to fight this battle.
If I am buying my house, making my payments, and even own my home, and one of these social elite whackjobs were to tell me I couldn't dry my clothes on a clothesline....I would fight them all the way to the supreme court ont he complainers dollars.
I cannot belive just how smallminded, ignorant, slefish and stupid this is.
Bringot on. I hang my clothes out on the clothesline the minute the weather predicts it is warm enough not to freeze...and guess what? I own my home...and there inlies the rub....

Sunday June 28, 2009, 7:03 pm
Sorry...ouch...doggy in the lap...now he's a not letting me..hav my keyboard back...NOT...OucH.....LOL

Sunday June 28, 2009, 7:59 pm
Jeff Billy Connolly tells a story about David Hockney's mother coming from the UK to visit him in CA and looking out from his veranda on a beautiful day she says "It's a crying shame David" he says "What is Mum?" ; "It's a wonderful drying day and not a single line of washing out".
It was one of the things that I found most absurd in the US. I've often told people about it and they think it's so weird they don't believe me.

Tuesday June 30, 2009, 10:17 am
OMGosh... I hang my clothes out to save on my electric bill... Where will this stop when you can't even have a clothesline??? Sad

Tuesday June 30, 2009, 11:34 am
This is the most absure thing I have read for a whiel now. I have not used a dryer since my 20 year old one conked out on me forever 7 years ago. Th difference in the electricity bill convinced me not to get another one! 'Course it's a bit of a pain to have to plan ahead in winter to make sure the socks have time to dry over the bathtub or on the rack in the kitchen, so I am always happy went I can put the clothes out even if it's freezing. We also have this sort of adminstrative householder frustrations in France. This storey reminds me of my neighbor, who wanted to paint his house white. You have to get a permit to paint your house here, BTW. When he asked what was wrong with white, he was told that white is a color for the South of France and here it can be beige at the lightest. You should see the pastel houses, the range of color makes the rainbow look pale. I'm told it is "tradtional" for this area. LOL. Thanks Jeff.

Tuesday June 30, 2009, 11:34 am
PS sorry for the typos, I'm tired, it's hot and the text is real small... :)

Tuesday June 30, 2009, 2:31 pm
Back in 2000 when we were having regular brown outs here in northern California during the summer, some of us headed to the city council to demand that the city change the laws so that clotheslines and screen doors for front doors, would be legal. Businesses then joined in and demanded that solar panels be allowed on businesses. It just is so dang odd that things that save energy are illegal in so many places. Clotheslines can be placed on side yards and screen doors need not be ugly!! And it seems that solar panels would be better than massive power lines that run thru neighborhoods. Read that Colorado has finally make catching and saving rain water legal. Can you imagine having a law that makes saving rain water illegal??? Common sense seems to be a lost art to some politicians and some communities. Thankfully here in the Sierras I can dry clothes outside, have rain barrels, grey water set up and screen door. And no cookie cutter looking houses.

Tuesday June 30, 2009, 5:46 pm
OMG, places that tell you that you cannot have screen doors? Pinch me, this is unreal! And I thought the clotheslines and the rain catching was strange... lol

Tuesday June 30, 2009, 6:12 pm
Beth H.: "Common sense seems to be a lost art"... Thank the republican party and the greedy energy companies who no doubt are behind the no clothesline laws. I have heard of this ridiculous policy in some of the cities in my state, like you can only plant certain types of plants/trees in your yard or paint your house only certain colors. That is not freedom, that we supposedly we are supposed to have isn't it?

Unfortunately in my area some of my neighbors do not need to worry about the no screens on the front door law-another stupid law-as they have no screens at all in the front doors which they leave open all the time and that looks really bad.

One would think that people would be encouraged to take advantage of the "free dryer" provided by Mother Nature. Remember when the energy crisis was in full swing in the 1980's? There was a company who offered to the public a solar powered dryer for only $50.00. Many people, reported on local news stations, send in their money only to receive a clothes line and no clothes line poles. So it was okay to use the sun to dry your clothes in olden days and as late as the 80's, but it is not now? Think GREEN!

I will hang out my clothes on my porch awning and on my tent frames and clothes racks from my days of selling the things I made to the public and I might as well use them as I have them. Unless you look up my driveway-between a 2 story house which is abandoned in 2005 and my garage, you do not see my "clotheslines" unless you walk up the driveway. Besides I pay taxes on this property, so as long as it hurts no one and it doesn't, I will do what I want to on my land. And I will collect or divert rainwater to my garden spot too!

Tuesday June 30, 2009, 7:28 pm
Last year when the oil prices were quadrupled here in Alaska, you couldn't afford to run your drier cause all the electricity is produced by oil here in the Interior of Alaska, so to go to the laundomat to use a drier was not a choice..too expensive...
My neighboors came and asked if they could borrow my clothesline because the couldn't find a single place that sold clothespins. Can you imagine not finding a clothespin in a ny hardware store. They are staple in most hardware stores. I told my neighbors they could use it anytime just as long as they didn't hang their skivvies dangling across my lawn....LOL.
Here you have to watch out for the moose because they are a very tall animal, and they have the right of way thru anyones yard or lawn....*S* I just couldn't imagine a local moose wandering around with the neighbors underthings hanging from its head...the image is just to hilarious.
But I will keep drying my laundry outside, and hoping that the moose decides to take a shortcut when I'm home from work.....LOL. it would be a lovely photo opportunity......LOL

Saturday July 4, 2009, 7:34 am
I find this so funny. I do think if you hang your clothes out in the hot air they will dry faster and you'll safe on electric, meaning no use of drying machine wasting energy.You also safe money that way.

Sunday October 18, 2009, 11:27 am
I think this ado about NOT bein ALLOWED todry my clothes in the fresh air versus a Dryer is totally crazy. Don't the governement have other, much more importand things to tend to? I live without electricity, thus we don't even have a washmachine ( we goto the nearby town to do our laundry) then of course using the dryer in the laundromat adds another 30$ per wash. Thus we take our laundry home and hang it on the line. Nice fresh washed clothes with the smell of fresh air, that smell can NOT be duplicated by chemicals we have to use to soften our clothes. What is this world coming to. Hanging clothes has absoutely nothing to do with poverty? The realtor really need to get their head out of (you know where) and not persue this ridicolous law.
Peoples back yards are to their own affairs and dryin clothes are NOT a problem.

Sunday October 18, 2009, 12:08 pm
It's not the government, Lili John. The government wants you to use a clothes line. It's property-owners associations that are behind this. Real estate interests, the gentry, the rich.