Clotheslines: Harmless method of drying clothing or Harbinger of social decay

[Backroads]

Today I ordered a new clothesline system, a retractable thing I can attach to the side of the house and stretch around the yard as I see fit. My husband has buried his face in shame the past two summers we have lived at our house because he thought he escaped clotheslines when he left the ranch. I'm actually aware many a community in the U.S. forbids outdoor clotheslines on the grounds of them trashing up the neighborhood.

Where do you stand?

[my two cents]

I don't mind the look - as long as everything matches.  A hodge-podge drives me nuts!

[Guest]

We tried clotheslines.  But we got cited by the HOA.  They apparently didn't allow them.  Now we live in an area too humid to have it work.

[Guest]

Line-dried jeans are the worst. They can stand on their own, and have uncorrectable pleats where the clothespins held them.

Line-dried sheets are scrumptious.

I was responsible for hanging the laundry when I was a kid. I remember kind of liking it. I'd do it now with towels and sheets. I don't think our HOA allows it, though.

[mrmarklin]

5 hours ago, Backroads said:

Today I ordered a new clothesline system, a retractable thing I can attach to the side of the house and stretch around the yard as I see fit. My husband has buried his face in shame the past two summers we have lived at our house because he thought he escaped clotheslines when he left the ranch. I'm actually aware many a community in the U.S. forbids outdoor clotheslines on the grounds of them trashing up the neighborhood.

Where do you stand?

He doesn't get out much. 

 

Go go to Italy and get him educated!?

[Vort]

In Seattle, they were illegal until someone renamed them "solar dryers". Now they're all the rage.

[Guest LiterateParakeet]

My neighbors can have a clothes line if they want, I wouldn't care.  But for me, heck no.  I hate hanging the clothes, taking them down and then finally getting to folding.  Why would anyone voluntarily add these extra steps?  I can't imagine.    

Besides it rains too much where I live, and it's humid.  I always hang bathing suit in the bathroom and two days later it's still slightly damp.  

I say thank goodness for dryers! 

@Vort LOL, sometimes a little "re-framing" is all you need to sell something.  But it's too humid and rainy here for clothes lines!

[askandanswer]

My wife and kids returned from two weeks in the US yesterday. As she has in the past, she commented, with surprise, on the abundant use of dryers vs minimal use of clothes lines. Pretty much every stand-alone house here would have a clothes line, but not all town houses would, and pretty much all of them would be regularly used, except by the elderly and in-firm. The clothes that are on the line now (Tuesday night) have been there since Saturday night. I don't do laundry on Sunday, Monday I was busy, and today it rained so the clothes are wetter now than when I hung them out. Its not a problem because I have plenty of other clothes to wear. If it does become a problem, that's when I'll put them in the dryer. 

[Sunday21]

It is illegal in my province for housing orgs to forbid clotheslines so that makes them...mandatory? Anything not strictly forbidden is mandatory!  But no one has them where I live.

[Blackmarch]

On April 24, 2017 at 3:50 PM, Backroads said:

Today I ordered a new clothesline system, a retractable thing I can attach to the side of the house and stretch around the yard as I see fit. My husband has buried his face in shame the past two summers we have lived at our house because he thought he escaped clotheslines when he left the ranch. I'm actually aware many a community in the U.S. forbids outdoor clotheslines on the grounds of them trashing up the neighborhood.

Where do you stand?

Clotheslines are a good thing. They get you outvof the house and into the sun.... And who knows perchance youll see a neighbor walking by and greet the with a hello.

[Backroads]

Apparently the U.S. has "right to dry" states. Utah is partial in that any organization of such power could defend "right to dry", which doesn't sound a heck of a lot different than any other civil right allowance. I really am amused they can be illegal.

That being said, my parents had always just run a line that was attacked to the house over to a fence and back, which I suppose is tacky, and it was this method I copied for two summers. 

[Guest]

On 4/24/2017 at 5:56 PM, Eowyn said:

Line-dried jeans are the worst. They can stand on their own

What?  You don't like walking around like C3PO?

[Guest]

2 minutes ago, Backroads said:

Apparently the U.S. has "right to dry" states. Utah is partial in that any organization of such power could defend "right to dry", which doesn't sound a heck of a lot different than any other civil right allowance. I really am amused they can be illegal.

That being said, my parents had always just run a line that was attacked to the house over to a fence and back, which I suppose is tacky, and it was this method I copied for two summers. 

"Right to Dry".  It never ceases to amaze me to what level of detail people will go to make something legal or illegal no matter how inconsequential the "right" may be.

[Iggy]

On 4/24/2017 at 3:56 PM, Eowyn said:

Line-dried jeans are the worst. They can stand on their own, and have uncorrectable pleats where the clothespins held them.

Line-dried sheets are scrumptious.

I was responsible for hanging the laundry when I was a kid. I remember kind of liking it. I'd do it now with towels and sheets. I don't think our HOA allows it, though.

When I was growing up we didn't own a dryer. Everything went out on the lines. Multiple lines. At one house that sat at the edge of three lots, we had 10 lines. Every Saturday the sheets were changed on the beds, and the rest of the 'house' laundry was done. Bath & kitchen towels, sheets, sometimes the quilts and blankets. On Monday the clothes were washed. Shirts were hung by their hems at the side seams, pants and jeans by their hems first then by the back waist band. Dresses by their shoulders. Sheet were folded into fourths and hung by their folded edge. Pillow cases by their bottom seam. Towels were folded slightly over the line then pinned down, as were the hand towels, shaving towels and wash cloths.

Diapers were laundered on any day. When the diaper basket was full, then they got laundered. NEVER were diapers left to *soak* for more than an hour in the water solution. They were emptied of poo into the toilet, held firmly as the toilet was flushed twice, then all soiled diapers were put in the pail of solution. In an hour they were removed, wrung out, shook out and placed in the dirty diaper basket. Baby clothes were laundered separately and hung out.

When the clothes were dry, as they were removed from the line they were shook well to remove any flying insects that might be on them, scrunched up and around to remove much of the stiffness, then folded and put in the basket. Back then all of the clothes were 100% natural fibers, thus only a few did NOT require ironing. Play cloths didn't get ironed. Neither did sheets, towels, knickers or socks. All items needing ironing went into a basket together. Each bedroom had it's own basket. My Grandmother, next younger sister and I shared a bedroom. Thus ALL of our clothes went into one basket, then each of us put away our own clothes.

Mom's clothes lines were always 8 feet above the ground. She did NOT use a long stick/board to hold a filled clothesline up either. The lines attached to the house were wrapped around cleats. She would loosen them to reach the lines, and once they were full, she or Daddy were tighten the lines on the cleats. With up to 5 kids and a dog playing in the yard, she wanted the clothes up high. out of our reach.

This is how I have done my lines in yards where there has been room for them. Where I am living now, I don't have any place for even one line. I could dig in the side area and put in poles - - - but the land owner would have a Royal Conniption Fit!!! I was in the process of putting in posts for a four line clothes line in the next door neighbors & my back yard - when the neighbor had to move in with his adult Grandson. He sold the house and the new owners nixed the clothesline! The landowner would have made noises, but because the line was in the back - not easily visible when in a vehicle driving down the front road.- his noises would be just that, noises.

So, my electricity bill keeps getting higher as the rates keep increasing. Now that I have more room in the living room, I could purchase one of those expanding clothes racks  Minky Homecare Multi-Dryer  or X-Frame Folding Dryer  Could only do garments, socks, shirts, smaller items. But that would cut back on the electric dryer use some.

Regarding the OP question: I love them, use them when I can.

My two older sisters and my mom all lived together the last 3 years of Mom's life. They have always had outdoor clothes lines. All three were endowed, and all three hung their garments out. Neighbors saw their clothes on the lines, no one said anything about the garments. All three of them were XL, XXL and 6XL. The neighbors just thought they were undies for LARGE women.  LOL.

[askandanswer]

On 25/04/2017 at 7:50 AM, Backroads said:

Where do you stand?

Where do I stand? Next to the clothes line while hanging clothes. Its the most convenient place to stand while hanging clothes, because proximity to the line is important. The clothes get to sit in a basket on a chair so I don't have to bend down to the ground every time I reach for another item to hang.

[Mike]

Seems like anything left outside for a couple hours or more where I live risks bird droppings on it.  I guess I could set up a scarecrow, too. 

[NightSG]

On 4/24/2017 at 5:56 PM, Eowyn said:

Line-dried jeans are the worst. They can stand on their own, and have uncorrectable pleats where the clothespins held them.

?

You're doing it wrong.  Flip them over.

[Guest]

Then the hem looks funny. And they're still too stiff.

[Vort]

5 minutes ago, Eowyn said:

Then the hem looks funny. And they're still too stiff.

At the risk of taking a light-hearted riff too seriously, let me observe that the fundamental problem isn't that the jeans dry stiff. The problem is that the jeans don't get "softened". In a dryer, the clothes are continuously tumbled, so the fibers are constantly flexed. This results in the now-dried cloth being soft and pliable. Line-drying doesn't get this same result, but it can be gotten just by working the dried (or probably drying) cloth by hand. I bet if you put several pairs of line-dried jeans in a box and shook them around for a couple of minutes, most of the stiff-jeans problem would disappear.

[zil]

5 minutes ago, Vort said:

At the risk of taking a light-hearted riff too seriously, let me observe that the fundamental problem isn't that the jeans dry stiff. The problem is that the jeans don't get "softened". In a dryer, the clothes are continuously tumbled, so the fibers are constantly flexed. This results in the now-dried cloth being soft and pliable. Line-drying doesn't get this same result, but it can be gotten just by working the dried (or probably drying) cloth by hand. I bet if you put several pairs of line-dried jeans in a box and shook them around for a couple of minutes, most of the stiff-jeans problem would disappear.

That's better than my ideas:

1) Chew on them (I hear this works with hides)

2) Let the puppy have them for a while

3) Gale-force winds (unfortunately, these usually come with moisture, so they may not get dry with this option, plus, as we all know, "... when you're makin' plans, you can't trust the weatherman".

[Sunday21]

2 hours ago, zil said:

That's better than my ideas:

1) Chew on them (I hear this works with hides)

2) Let the puppy have them for a while

3) Gale-force winds (unfortunately, these usually come with moisture, so they may not get dry with this option, plus, as we all know, "... when you're makin' plans, you can't trust the weatherman".

Dear Zil,

Your fabulousness is unparalled. Just saying. 

Edited April 27, 2017 by Sunday21

[zil]

Just now, Sunday21 said:

Dear Zil,

Your fabulousness is unparalleled. Just saying. 

[classylady]

Once, as a kid, I pulled my jacket down from the outdoor clothes line and put it on. There were 3 bees that I didn't see that were slightly up one of the sleeves. I was stung. I prefer my clothes dryer.

[zil]

3 minutes ago, classylady said:

I prefer my clothes dryer.

Huh.  Apparently you've never experienced the "mutant-wasps-in-the-dryer" phenomenon.  Go figure.