Do Clotheslines Really Lower Property Value?

Living in the suburbs as I do, I can testify that only households with stay-at-home consistently do line-drying. You have to be there in case wind comes up, rain begins, etc. Discrete liners typically hand the undergarments on the middle lines. My suspicion is that no-line drying ordinances are enacted as an ex-officio exclusionary tool to keep out immigrant minorities and the poor, and to discourage multiple families from domicile sharing (the situations where someone is always around to tend the lines).

Yes, clotheslines are an actual sore issue. I don't have a homeowner's association to deal with, however, when we moved into our home I was discussing with a neighbor how I couldn't wait to get my clothesline up and got the deer in the headlights look. "Why on Earth would you want to do that?" After a lengthy lecture about property value and it looking so "poor"" I realized the easiest solution was a drying rack in my house. I do take them out on the deck when the weather is nice enough. This attitude is not exclusive to one person, but several neighbors. Basically about anything that you do would be listed as either frugal or environmentally friendly. I even had one lady tell me "oh, is that how they do it in the country your from?" I replied "Yes, that's how things are frequently done in America." (We were in America, and I'm American.) She just blinked at me. Some people just don't get why we do it. And if you try to explain it to them, even with the simple phrase "It has many benefits", the way that they look at you, well, it's easier to get my kids to eat their vegetables than to deal with some of these attitudes.

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA oh thats just rich.

I am curious how it brings down propertie values.

Its in the backyard and shouldn't be visible from the street.

How daft!

Here's a simple and elegant solution: Don't move to a McMansion-filled suburb full of busy-bodies.

If someone tried to start a homeowners' group in my urban neighborhood, they'd get laughed at.

Here's a simple and elegant solution: Don't move to a McMansion-filled suburb full of busy-bodies.

If someone tried to start a homeowners' group in my urban neighborhood, they'd get laughed at.

My grandma line dried clothes and linens in the summer time and she had a clever solution to the line across the yard issue. (which I think is weird, but I guess some people are just weird.) She had a retractable clothing line. Its a nice solution for weird neighbors and small spaces. I have one in my shower from IKEA because I have no yard and a tiny apartment. I don't know how much money she saved, but the line dried linens were always so fresh and crisp smelling, it was wonderful.

Interesting.

I don't know if I buy the idea that real estate values are related to line-drying clothes. Then again, I'm currently in Hong Kong, where everyone line-dries their undies for the neighbours to see and the home of some of the world's most expensive real estate.

I usually just keep my clothesline in the backyard where very few people can see it.

But then, I live in an old, traditional city, where most houses already have clothes lines installed from a hundred years ago, and a fair number of people still use them. So I don't think anyone really thinks much of them.

I also have two wooden drying racks for using when it's raining or snowing. We don't have a dryer at the place we live right now. So all of our clothes are dried on the line or racks in the kitchen (where the washing machine is). Occasionally, my husband (who tends to like to motorize everything he possibly can!) puts a fan under the drying rack and aims the air up into the clothes, which gives him dry clothes in just a couple of hours, usually.

I know lots of people who just hang a line up in their laundry room/basement, too.

I always wonder about the legalities of banning clothes lines in communities. I imagine that some clever lawyer would find a way to have this policy declared illegal. (Banning clothes lines is not really a law, I'm pretty sure, just a policy in managed developments. Has anyone ever heard of an actual law in town or city ordinances?)

Also, something tells me that Alex Beam does not in fact live in Boston (which the article implies), but rather some more upscale suburb or planned community, where people are very protective of their fragile sense of wealth and cling desperately to the notion that reality is for the poor. Underwear is real! Wet laundry is real! Therefor it must be banished from sight. We Bostonians, on the other hand, love reality. And we may be known to parade around town in our underwear! Sometimes even in the rain. Or snow...

You have to be kidding?! Laws or regualtions that prevent a person from hanging their laundry to dry on their own property? Come on......!

Some people in the states (and probably here in blighty too, although I've never heard of anybody banning washing lines) have some very strange ideas. It's the whole form over function thing again: Some people just cannot cope with the best soultion to a problem.

I find elegant solutions to problems beautiful and I'm not offended by knickers.

Do these priority distorted prudes actively avoid lingere departments also?

Mmmkay I suppose I should fess up.

I personally don't like hanging my underwear out on the line.

I couldn't give a damn about anyone elses washing, they can hang anything they want out.
But I hate hanging out my underwear, I feel embarresed about it.

If I have too, I tend to do a load of towels too and hang them up around the underwear with sort of walls type thing happening.

I know its stupid but I just can't do it!

I don't think it has anything to do about being prude. It's about curb appeal. Many associations make you keep your garage door closed, or limit you to how many potted plants you can have on your porch, Or what kind of chairs you can have on your porch and how many. What flowers you can have in your garden, your curtain color, your house color. Whether you can have a basketball hoop, extra cars int he drive, etc. It's all about maintaining appearances. Many rules are stupid, but if you don't agree with them, don't live there. I have a feeling if I tried drying my clothes in the yard my dogs would have a field day.

It's about curb appeal. Many associations make you keep your garage door closed, or limit you to how many potted plants you can have on your porch, Or what kind of chairs you can have on your porch and how many. What flowers you can have in your garden, your curtain color, your house color. Whether you can have a basketball hoop, extra cars int he drive, etc. It's all about maintaining appearances.

euurrgh. Who would want to live like that? shudders

I've been hanging my clothes to dry in downtown Indianapolis for two years. I do put my undies in the middle. I am not a stay at home person (per first comment), I've never had my clothes out in the rain - I just pay attention to weather broadcasts. It saves me a lot on my electric bill. I have made an indoor european drying rack to use when it's raining or snowing. It's really neat, on pullies so I lower it, load it up, and raise it back to the ceiling to dry out of the way. I made it for about $13.

for those of you reluctant to put your underwear out, remember that stuff like towels and sheets and jeans are far more water absorbent and take longer to dry by far than undies. so if you compromise and dry your unmentionables in a drier and do the rest out on the line, you're still probably accomplishing 90% of the energy savings you would if you did them all out on the line. don't give up on the whole idea for a few boxers! although the "building a wall around your underwear" idea seems to be good, too.

i just wish this was something i could do in the winter here in Toronto.

My wife an I studied the homeowner association agreement before we bought our house, to make sure we could line dry our cloths. We seem to be the only people in our neighborhood who do hang out our clothes.

Another point is nothing spoils a pleasant evening like having to smell the odorizer that someone put inside the drier, to make their clothes smell spring day fresh.

- Jack, North Austin Clothes Line Radical

I hang outside during the warm months when the weather's good, and all winter long in the basement. It does save a lot of money. During the winter it helps humidify the house so that I no longer have chapped hands. After they're dry I put the load into the dryer for 10 minutes on a light heat in order to fluff things out and remove lint, but that's it.

That said, I think people who CHOOSE to live in neighborhoods governed by a homes association should be fully aware of what they're getting into. Every now and then you'll hear of somebody getting nicked for putting up a flag pole or posting a political sign in their lawn. If you can't follow the rules then move somewhere else.

Nice, glad to see people paying attention to this.

Also, I totally just got quoted on Treehugger.

Hells yes.

A few months back, our brand new clothes dryer broke down and would only dry on no heat. We got very used hanging our clothes over railings and lines in the house to get them to dry.

Now, our dryer is fixed, but I still pull my dress shirts and polo shirts from the wash before putting the rest in the dryer. I just hang up the shirts on their hangers in the closet, and by morning they're dry and wrinkle-free. The heavier turtlenecks and unmentionables just tumble dry like before, but now I don't have to run the dryer as long as before.

Baby steps, yeah?

I have to say that this topic just astonishes me. Is is really that much of a novelty to hang your clothes out to dry?! I can't think of any country in the world where hanging your clothes out on a washing line is frowned upon. Is this attitude really so prevalent in the US?

If you're embarrassed to hang out your underwear, hang it inside instead. Honestly, I can't believe this is a topic on Treehugger. Does that mean people will actually use a dryer even if it's hot outside? What an incredible waste of energy.

Astonished - you are correct. In the United States it is considered almost criminal to hang your clothes out to dry. At best you will be humiliated by your peers, at worse sued by your neighbors!

I don't think my neighbors, including the church next door, really care if I hang my clothes out to dry - I even hang them out on Sunday.

I think middle to upper class white suburbia needs to chill out and realize that by hanging out your clothes you're helping save the planet. If you don't want to see your neighbors laundry hanging out to dry in their backyard, then don't look in their backyard.

I moved out of California to another state, in part because it was not allowed to line dry clothes in any areas I could find to live that also has space to line dry. This is mostly a problem with California, New York, and Florida, where people think they can tell you what color to paint your fence, how many trees you are allowed to have. In California, one of our neighbors LOST HIS HOUSE because he put a very beautiful Japanese rock garden in front instead of a green lawn. He was fined by the association, refused to pay the fines, and the penalties doubled every month (according to contract) until his house was confiscated by the association.

When I was a kid, my mother machine dried about half the clothes, and hung about half in the basement; as a Uni student, I didn't have anywhere to hang-dry all of my clothes (I lived in a one-room apartment and the bathroom was shared with the whole floor so that was somewhat off limits) so I machine dried most and stuck some on a small folding rack in my room. Now I've moved to Australia, and my husband and I don't own a dryer. Maybe it's just because the climate here is more friendly to line drying (pretty much warm all year round, very little rain, and strong, hot sunshine), but now I can't imagine wanting to own a dryer. Oddly enough, it's against the rules in our apartment complex to line dry clothes... but everyone does it, and there was even a clothesline already hung up on the back patio. I've become very fond of the sight of clothes line drying on a sunny day with a bit of a breeze. Then again, I'm also the kind of person who finds windmills beautiful and can't imagine the kind of person who complains about their view being disrupted by the very windmills which power their town!

Yes, this is a major national issue. There is a great website dedicated to this topic, at
http://www.laundrylist.org

If any of you have any ideas for inventions that could solve this problem (such as an outdoor solar dryer), please feel free to let us know. For now we've found that spin dryers are the next best thing after a clothesline.

I love my clothesline and it is one of the reasons I bought my new home. Luckily, unlike most of my neighbors, I bought the house from the original owner who never had it torn down. I don’t hang my tighty whities outside but everything else goes up on the line. I have 1/2 acres and a rather large clothesline, which can hold five loads. I love the look of my back yard on a sunny breezy day with all my laundry hanging. I recycle and use compact florescent bulbs and a clothesline to conserve electricity and reduce my carbon footprint. I doubt the owners of today’s mcmansions can even spell carbon footprint. I wouldn’t live in a community that outlawed efforts by residents to reduce their carbon footprint. Americans are so daft!

A challege for engineers!

See this "clothes dryer"? (It's not really a 'line'):

http://www.target.com/gp/detail.html/ref=sc_ri_1/601-1993702-9274508?ie=UTF8&asin=B000LRFIM2

Note its structural similarity to a patio umbrella.

All it needs is some clever, mechanically gifted person to make the attachment point slide up the pole so that the cone can be inverted when not in use, and a fabric cover zipped onto it.

Voila, upcscale, homeowners-association-proof patio furniture, with a secret.

Maybe I'm naive having never dealt with a homeowners association, but couldn't you just tell them where to shove it? I mean it's not like they can force you to sell your house and move out, can they? It's YOUR house, not theirs. I can understand wanting to keep up good relations with the neighbors but if they have a problem with my clothesline that's their problem not mine.
____________________________________
Writer's note: My sentiments exactly, Sisk -- I've told my wife we could never move into a neighborhood with a homeowner's association -- I'd just get in trouble! Seriously, though, I don't know what the legal ramifications of this are...

Well, we just got finished putting up a 90 ft clothes dryer (line) and i can't wat to get the 1st line of clothes hung out! I love the smell of line dried clthing, especially sheets, and to see a clothesline takes me back to my childhood, I love to hang clothes out on the line! I'm in kentucky by the way!

"Maybe I'm naive having never dealt with a homeowners association, but couldn't you just tell them where to shove it? I mean it's not like they can force you to sell your house and move out, can they? It's YOUR house, not theirs. I can understand wanting to keep up good relations with the neighbors but if they have a problem with my clothesline that's their problem not mine."

Yeah, if only it were that easy... By purchasing a home in an area governed by a Home Owner's Association, you agree to the terms. We were dumb, and didn't familiarize ourselves well enough with ours (and to be fair, our HOA agreement is HORRIBLY written!) and I'm kicking myself now, cause it is written in there that you can't have a clothes line. We're in a subdivision of town homes, so you can see your neighbors entire back yard from your back porch.

Any way, if you did "just tell them where to shove it" and did something against the agreement, they are capable of fining you heavily, and as the previous poster mentioned, even putting a lein on your house if the fines aren't paid, and/or the offense is not corrected.

So yeah, I'm still using my stupid dryer, and wishing we could afford a house somewhere else.

House owners who want to become house sellers would be very concerned about keeping up appearances. A clothes line somewhere in the vicinity could cost them thousands of imaginary dollars. The issue would be more intense for those who overpaid, or are in questionable mortgages.

Not that I reject the arguments for selective inforcement. A lot of people would like to be able to vote that a certain person be kicked out of the neighborhood if enough people agree on dislike that person. The plethora of Home Owner Association rules seems to provide that service.

As for the insanity of wasting money on energy bills, I'd say:
[1] we simply have not reached high enough energy costs
[2] it's more labor-intensive to hang and un-hang laundry than to toss it into a dryer and fish it out later. People these days are bombarded with time-wasting hassles, often working long hours on menaingless jobs. Saving time is important to them, so they can watch important cable TV shows.

My drier broke recently so I began hanging my laundry outside on a retractable line. Quite frankly, I hang out my laundered underwear with pride. I at least have the propriety to wear my underwear, unlike a certain well-photographed celerity. Seriously, one only needs to look around at the vulgarity that surrounds us in this country to find the debate about hanging clean underwear on a clothes line to be farcical.

I laughed as I read all the posts regarding the clotheslines. Like most Americans, I grew up without a clothesline. Then I backpacked all over Oz and NZ and learned the value and, dare I say beauty, of the clothesline. When I finally settled down in a neighborhood WITHOUT covenants, I put up my own clothesline. And, yes, I hang my family's undies on it as well as my girls' cloth diapers(another thing that most americans don't understand)! We love our clothesline! In the winter, we have the rafters of the basement rigged so that we can hang clothes there. 10 minutes in the drier and no one would ever know the clothes were air dried!

OK, here is the problem. Most of these idiots that say, if you do this, or do that, my property values will go down, are the same ones that also tout their property rights. Just try to tell them that they have to do this or that to their property, or try to condemn it for maybe a pool or other item that will increase the value of the homeowners association. Yea, they tout property rights, until the property next door throws up a clothes line. I look at it like this, I bought it, pay for it, so I do as I please with it, so long as it is with in the city ordinances. If I want to sunbath in my back yard naked, who are you to tell me I can't? So long as a privacy fence is up. If you can see me, your peeking. Don't tell me what I can or can't do with my property, otherwise, just go out into the country where you can buy a nice 40 acre tract and have your privacy, otherwise, don't be CHEAP!!

Wow, this is late in the discussion, but I must say that since I started line drying, our electric bill has decreased significantly, and I have found there is something almost therapeutically calming about standing in my back yard, hanging clothes out to dry. There is beauty and simplicity in it. And I know that I've done one more small thing to reduce my energy use.

Thanks for the heads up about nasty property issues.

Glad to see this issue discussed. I live in a neighborhood with an association. I did read the rules before we bought and noticed the no clothesline rule, but we needed to live close to where my husband works, so we bought here anyway.

Yes, the neighbors are serious about no clotheslines. In fact, the retired couple next door are frowned upon because they dry their clothes in their garage. No one has complained to the association out of deference to the retired status but you can bet your boots its been noticed and gossiped about.

I miss the days I could hang out my clothes to dry. I used to live in SoCal and while there was a no clothesline rule, my house was on a weird lot backing up to a drainage canal. I just put the clothesline lower than my privacy fence and no one was able to see it. In the summer, my clothes would dry in less than an hour. Some days, the cotton items would be dry in 15 minutes. Nothing like 110 degree heat with almost no humidity to slow down the drying time.

Before that, I lived in military housing, where all the houses in my section had permanent clotheslines in the small back yards. It was so great to stand out there, hanging out my clothes and talking to my neighbor who was doing the same thing.

I bought a clothesrack not too long ago. I'm using it secretly but I miss the joy of hanging my things out in the yard.

I also use a clothes line. With the drought all summer long here in north alabama plus 100 degree days , at least my clothes baskets were empty. I couldn't imagine running a dryer all the time. Have you ever watched that meter spin while the dryer and the air conditioner and the refrigerator were all running at the same time?
People were asked to conserve energy and water for a few days because the power companies here were running at full capacity. My husband came home every day telling me about the sprinklers running on different lawns. We personally think it is so tacky to water a lawn while there is a question as to where there will be enough water for neccesities.
Some people only care about themselves and appearances.Tthey are the very ones that need to conserve as much water and power as possible because if McDonalds didn" take credit cards, They couldn't afford to take the little ones out to eat. You don't build wealth by wasting money and resources. I personally know a few "quiet" millionaires who use clothes lines.

I use a 40 ft. retractible clothes line pulling it through a hook on the house, through a tree branch and back to a hook below the retractible housing to make a triangular line on a small patio. To save space on the line I lay our underwear and socks out on the patio talbe and chairs, sometimes finding them in bushes or aggainst the fence when a good wind comes up. So much for modesty! One load is always dry and folded by the time another is ready to be hung. I'm more efficient than I ever was using the dryer. Clothes seem to sit for long periods of time in those things.

I see my clothes line use as a form of community education. My line is visible to "Americans" in at least three HOA's, including my own, and visible from open space and a bike path! Remember, we Americans are inventive and rebels at heart, are we not. I've already sparked interest in one neighbor and she in another. Frankly I haven't thought of the "talk" it must create for others. I'm too engaged smelling the roses, hearing the breeze through the trees, and enjoying the time spent with my kids as they can't help but ask to help. I certainly remember following mom to the clothes line and dad in the garden. I am preaching to the choir in this forum so my last thought would be to teach with every step of your life. There's always someone watching, at best, our own children.

I live in the suburbs and my Husband and I hang our clothes out to dry on the line and feel we are doing a good thing by saving energy and it saves our clothes as well. We are the only ones in our neighborhood who do this, but so far no complaints. I'm thinking of getting a chicken for fresh eggs...do you think that will push my neighbors over the edge? LOL

Perennial topic, isn't it?

When I was young (1970's) my grandmas used to hang out the laundry. To a city kid it was exotic, and beautiful, to run through the sheets as they floated in the breeze.

This is why, in almost every ad for laundry products, you see a clothesline! Has anyone ever seen the inside of a dryer on a commercial? (Certainly not the lint screen.) For advertisers, a clothesline is a common visual buzzword for "Freshness", "Springtime", "Summertime", "Tradition" and "Happiness". Don't your neighbors watch TV?

Perennial topic, isn't it?

When I was young (1970's) my grandmas used to hang out the laundry. To a city kid it was exotic, and beautiful, to run through the sheets as they floated in the breeze.

This is why, in almost every ad for laundry products, you see a clothesline! Has anyone ever seen the inside of a dryer on a commercial? (Certainly not the lint screen.) For advertisers, a clothesline is a common visual buzzword for "Freshness", "Springtime", "Summertime", "Tradition" and "Happiness". Don't your neighbors watch TV?

Perennial topic, isn't it?

When I was young (1970's) my grandmas used to hang out the laundry. To a city kid it was exotic, and beautiful, to run through the sheets as they floated in the breeze.

This is why, in almost every ad for laundry products, you see a clothesline! Has anyone ever seen the inside of a dryer on a commercial? (Certainly not the lint screen.) For advertisers, a clothesline is a common visual buzzword for "Freshness", "Springtime", "Summertime", "Tradition" and "Happiness". Don't your neighbors watch TV?