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.
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