Posted on 10/11/2009 9:17:11 AM PDT by kingattax
CANTON, Ohio — After taking a class that covered global warming last year, Jill Saylor decided to save energy by drying her laundry on a clothesline at her mobile home.
"I figured trailer parks were the one place left where hanging your laundry was actually still allowed," she said, standing in front of her tidy, yellow mobile home on an impeccably manicured lawn.
But she was wrong. Like the majority of the 60 million people who live in the nation's roughly 300,000 private communities, Saylor was forbidden to dry her laundry outside because many people viewed it as an eyesore, not unlike storing junk cars in driveways, and a marker of poverty that lowers property values.
In the past year, however, state lawmakers in Colorado, Hawaii, Maine and Vermont have overridden these local rules with legislation protecting the right to hang laundry outdoors, citing environmental concerns, because clothes dryers use at least 6 percent of all household electricity consumed.
Florida and Utah already had such laws, and similar bills are being considered in Maryland, North Carolina, Oregon and Virginia, clothesline advocates say.
The new laws have provoked a debate. Proponents argue people should not be prohibited by their neighbors or community agreements from saving on energy bills or acting in an environmentally minded way. Opponents say the laws lifting bans erode local property rights and undermine the autonomy of private communities.
Jill Saylor hangs clothes outside her mobile home in Canton, Ohio. She petitioned to get the owner of the property where she lives to reverse a clothesline ban.
(Excerpt) Read more at seattletimes.nwsource.com ...
At some of the trailer parks around here, folks can’t hang their laungry on an outside line, yet a large number of them use their sheets and old blankets in the windows for drapes.
Those clothelines are soooo unsightly.
The economic policies of this administration may send us all back to drying our clothes on the line.
hey, whoa!
i am hanging my laundry out in the sun on my condo patio..cut down on elec bill with dryer...
Hey ..this is Change I didn’t Want to Believe in!
Thanks to our Dear Leader!
On the contrary. Clotheslines are actually a sensible way to save energy. However, I would want to limit clotheslines to backyards, and keep them off balconies.
I also see this as a pushback against the tired old “lowering property values” argument.
I wouldn’t want to hang my clothes outside where I live, though. They would be gone before they were dry.
The real story here is that people are being brainwashed into thinking the way they dry their clothes is going to save or destroy the planet.
I guess America looked like a third world slum in the 50’s and the 60’s. Where I lived all the mothers hung out the laundry in the summer. My mom even had a gadget that pressed levis while they hung on the line too it left a crease and everything.
Check out all the tattoos on Jill!
People need to keep their nose out of other people’s property or we will eventually all lose our property rights.
Just what are trying to say?
You posted the article...I sort-of assumed the slant would be towards the gal hoping to dry her clothes on a line.
I'm not concerned that mere clotheslines will cause the U.S. to "achieve third world status" nor look like a "Mexico City slum".
There at least used to be clothesline attached to multi-storied buildings in say, Brooklyn, and New York City. Clotheslines didn't cause third world status for those locales.
In places where there is no natural gas utility, clotheslines make one heck of a lot of economic sense. Electric dryers are wasteful enough, that in my locality, one can get used ones for free (since nobody wants one if they can use gas instead) whereas a used gas-fired dryer will usually cost at least $50. Just saying...
I feel sorry for this woman who believes she’s trying to help the planet by avoiding use of an appliance. It will help her wallet though. Kind of a shanty-looking place she has there - why would anyone fuss over a clothesline? Myself, I LOVE line dried clothes and bedding, always have. I have a clothesline in the back yard and I use it as much as I can - really cuts down my power bill.
Hmmm... and to think, I thought I owned my property and I could hang my sheets out to dry.
Nothing smells better than sheets that are dried in the fresh air. For generations the women folk in my family line-dried their sheets, they did not live in a Mexico City slum. And even when my mother and grandmother had the luxury of owning a dryer, they still line-dried the sheets because they prefered to. Like in 1950’s America. You’ve heard of that time period of growth and prosperity, right?
Here in the NW - you know, Seattle (your source) - I love to hang my clothes outside on sunny, warm days. It simply smells fresher, and keeps a lot of heat, humidity and noise out of the house. Clothesline out back, like my mom did, and like my grandmothers did, all here in Seattle.
Not to mention it’s easier on the clothes - they do last longer when hung on a line to dry, versus tumbling.
I still dry the towels on the line because it maybe saves a little money on the electric bill. Everyone in our neighborhood used to hang their clothes out to dry every Monday. It was just part of life.
Mine was the only laundry I ever saw hanging - and when my little girl was born, mine was the only carriage and then stroller I ever saw on the sidewalks. (I had brought them with me from the east or I probably would've had a hard time finding them.)
When I got back home t’Maine, it was exhilarating, come that first spring, to see wash billowing in the breeze everywhere - and to see little ones getting fresh air and sunshine as they were being strolled down the sidewalks.
CA is having mega energy problems - if they just allowed hanging out sheets and towels - it would be a boost. And while we're on the subject, I have a news flash for y'all.
It's okay to use a towel more than once before throwing it in the wash. Just don't SHARE towels. In my house, I colored coded towels and each had their own, with their own hook to hang it, rather than throwing it on the floor.
Ditto with some clothes. A pair of genes, unless worn to muck out the stalls, can be worn a second day - that's what “underwear” is for = to keep the outer wear clean. Just change the under-stuff daily.
I have a friend who said: “But the line dried towels, if the wind isn't strong enough to soften them, are scratchy!”
“WEll,” said I, “bring them in dry, put them in the drier with a damp wash cloth or dryer sheet for about 5 minutes - and voila.” She tried it. It works.
So with the above, the amount of electricity used could be cut from 6% to at least 10%, I figure. I know it works for me. And it might be something we should start practicing because if Cap & Trade goes through, as the bambolina says, nay PROMISES, our energy cost will “sky rocket.” WE best be coming up with ways to cut down.
I was thinking along the same exact lines, myself...
We've become so "sanitized", the sight of clean laundry offends us?
I guess if I were to skin a buck while it was hanging off a home-made picking boom/hoist attached to my pick-up truck while parked in the driveway, they would really freak.
The impromptu cutting board laid across the tailgate would invoke howls of outrage, like it was their own child I was cutting up or something... The stuff of life has always been "messy".
I swear, some people I doubt have ever gotten their hands honestly dirty. They forget or have never really known where our food comes from, or how much work goes into making something as simple as a cotton t-shirt.
I don’t mind this from a property rights standpoint, but of course this is an issue for the wrong reasons.
Don't like looking at it? Look the other way.
Personally, I love to see a fresh wash hanging in the sunshine - which also disinfects it - and being whipped soft by a friendly breeze.
Not to mention, the law that mandates the use of of the screwy CFL light bulbs soon. Light bulbs use a lot less electricity than the dryer.
Saving on electricity is not what Cap & Trade and mandating light bulbs is about, folks.
It's about CONTROL. Every time we capitulate on our individual rights, we loose more freedom - until that last straw tips the balance and all is lost.
Wake up, America.
It's good to conserve and save energy, but not for the sake of globull warming. Er, excuse me, climate change. That's the new moniker since it hasn't warmed any in ten years. It's all about power, control, and money. Any imbecile should be able to figure that out.
After hurricane Ike I dry my clothes outside, I use a small tree in my backyard. Not one complaint yet. Might get around to putting up a clothes line some day. Never did replace the dryer, mother nature does a better job. lol
Dammit,we want our depression and you gotta give it to us. To hell with going green and climate change energy savings. And Y2K too.
You do realize that this a is a private community we’re talking about. She signed up for this by moving in and signing her homeowners agreement; it’s not like the homeowners association just popped up out of nowhere and started making demands on her. She signed a contract, now she wants to renege on it - and because here renege is based on the desire to save sacred Gaia she thinks she has the right.
That said, I prefer the convenience of an electric dryer. If you live in an area with a heating season (e.g. all of Canada); you can get a diverter for the dryer vent, so that it vents the hot moist are into the house. That way, you aren't using any more energy, than you would if you hung the laundry outside to dry, and ran your furnace longer. This won't work for everyone: only for electric heated dryers (gas appliances need ventilation); and only if you have dry indoor air (i.e. if you need to use a humidifier).
Interesting. In Kowloon (across the harbor from Hong Kong) one looks up to see hundreds of bamboo poles sticking out over the street, many stories high, with family laundry flapping in the breeze.
I have fond Midwest childhood memories of laundry on the line. Times sure change. It’s all in the eye of the beholder, I guess.
Energy rates are going up 30% for customers of PP & L (PA Power and Light) in 2010. I think there are going to be a lot of people hanging out clothes to save on energy costs, esp. those who do a lot of wash.
Electric driers are an incredible waste of energy.
It’s like flushing money.
When the government tells people they can’t dry their clothes outside, it’s like a big tax on that community, except the tax money is thrown away for no benefit.
If more people could dry their clothes on lines, people would have more money in their pockets for all sorts of things.
Excuse me, but that clothesline looks well maintained and compact, besides, wasn’t all the Hollyweird perverts yapping about drying clothes on clotheslines? Good on her.
There is a mansion on a hill overlooking our area (Central Texas) and a friend had a clothesline in the backyard which borders the millionaire’s mansion property. No one could see it but the millionaire on the hill behind him. He was asked if he could remove the line, friend said, “Sure, buy the place at my price and you can do what you wish with all of it”. That ended that!
Since then, several millionaires have bought the mansion, divorced and moved on, what a waste of some nice property, now we have a vacant, deteriorating mansion to look at. None of us can see our friend’s clothesline but we can ALL see this eyesore mansion.
The way I see it property values have fallen so far that hanging out clothes can’t really hurt the value any more!
“You do realize that this a is a private community we’re talking about”
After Katrina one of the most interesting things to come out of the disaster was the information that private communities will not get help. FEMA can only go the front gate and no further. This might be seen as a selling point.
I don’t give a damn about saving energy!
The clothesline lowers value, but the trailer park doesn’t. Go figure.
If you don’t care about saving energy, then I guess you don’t care about ever increasing electric and gas bills.
I grew up in the 40’s and 50’s. Everybody hung their wash out. Everybody. Most people still had wringer washers in those days as well. Monday was “laundry day”. Since everybody hung out their wash, nobody complained. But if their neighbor’s sheets weren’t white enough, that was grist for gossip.
Pretty mild, considering how complete strangers think they must take it upon themselves to tell others how to live.
I pity anyone who hasn’t slept on sun-dried sheets and pillowcases.
Just letting you know because you might be interested in the comments over there.
| From the desk of cc2k: |
“guess you don’t care about ever increasing electric and gas bills.”
No i don’t!
Your position is unclear. Are you on the side of the owner of the trailer park or on the side of the government interferring with the park rules against hanging clothes outside?
What do you do the other 330 days?
I LOVE to throw my sheets on the bed right out of dryer on a cool evening and jump into bed between them.
I also realize that we have a Constitution and a Bill of Rights that says the gov’t can't do a lot of things to us that they are - like deciding even what kind of light bulb we can use in our own houses...and soon they are going to control our very thermostats and have ready a law that will track every mile we drive = and can rationing be far behind.
I realize that times change and what may have feasible 10 years ago - like NO LAUNDY OUTSIDE = may need to be looked at again in a time when states are going bankrupt and going ‘brown.”
It matters little if you hang out your wash to save on your energy bill or ‘to save the earth’ - except to people who have a knee-jerk reaction to one or the other.
I realize that the libs are doing everything they can to shut off ANY avenue of energy Independence for our country, thereby driving up costs (the better for their stocks = like Gore's OXY oil stocks) - and soon, our high now energy costs will “Sky rocket” = so promises the anointed one = from actions he vows to take.
Times change. WE ain't in Kansas anymore, Toto
Oh yes, nothing feels as good as fresh, warm sheets. It’s turned off really cool and rainy here in the Dallas area so warm sheets sound especially inviting.
We don’t usually get weather like this until late November.
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