Oregon legislation puts backyard laundry on the line

[depakid]

A back-to-the-future technique for Earth-friendly hygiene may soon be visible from over your backyard fence: Your neighbor's underwear, blowing in the breeze. That's right, it's the return of the clothesline, that old-fashioned tool for hanging clothes out to dry in the sun. The practice faded with the advent of electric and gas clothes dryers.

The problem? In thousands of Oregon neighborhoods and condo buildings, covenants and other rules ban clotheslines, even from private backyards. Homeowners using clotheslines face threatening letters from their homeowners' associations and potential fines -- not to mention simmering tension with neighbors who consider hanging clothes an eyesore or an emblem of poverty.

"People have been drying their clothes for 3,000 years," says developer Eli Spevak, who encourages clotheslines in his inner Northeast Portland condo buildings. "We should be allowed in Oregon to use the sun and the breeze to avoid using a dryer."

Clothes dryers are second only to refrigerators as the top consumers of energy in typical homes. A bill that may soon become law would prohibit homeowner associations and condo associations from banning clotheslines in areas maintained by individual homeowners. House Bill 3090 cleared the Oregon House and could soon reach the Senate floor.

The effort joins others from Hawaii to Connecticut, where state lawmakers are caught in clothesline politics. Florida and Vermont have passed laws that keep homeowner associations from banning them. Project Laundry List, a Washington, D.C., nonprofit, tracks legislation and encourages local activists. "This is not my top issue," says state Rep. Ben Cannon, D-Portland, the bill's House sponsor. Spevak explained the concern and won Cannon over.

"My view is that the public interest here outweighs the narrow private interest of a view -- or folks who would prefer not to see their neighbor's underwear," Cannon says.

More: http://www.oregonlive.com/news/index.ssf/2009/06/oregon_legislation_puts_backya.html

[drm604]

1. Good.

Anyone who has a yard can do this at least part of the year. Growing up, we hung them in the yard in the summer and in the basement in the winter.

[enlightenment]

2. We rarely use the dryer - hang clothes on the line or

on racks inside. Delighted to see the bloody covenants taking it in the chops.

[here_is_to_hope]

3. Its Oregon, the Sun is out for what, two months a year?

Yeah, thats practical...lol.
I live on the Coast and if I relied on the Sun to dry anything, I would have even more mold growing on me.

[depakid]

6. And on the other side of the cascades, for half of the year they'd freeze up hard as rocks!

In Australia, these things (called Hills Hoists) are ubiquitous:



They even have one at the national museum in Canberra. LOL.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hills_Hoist

[TankLV]

9. We had those growing up in Kenmore, New York...

Had a post hole cast into the driveway...

My mom used it often - along with the cloths line...

I use it here in Vegas - the clothes SMELL better!!! And it Vegas, it drys in about TWO MINUTES!!!

OK - but many times, by the time I was thru hanging it all up, I could take it all down!!!

[DCKit]

10. Funny. I lived in NM briefly and you'd get to one end of the line....

and the clothes at the beginning were already dry. Not so good on the colors, but UV bleaches the whites and disinfects the clothes too.

If I were one of those people who'd been fighting for a clothesline, I'd buy five packs of old-lady underwear and fly them 24/7 until the idiots begged me to take them down.

[47of74]

7. We use the lines whenever we can

Here in Iowa during 3/4 of the year we're often able to put stuff on the lines and not use the dryer then. Of course during the winter we use the dryer.

[nosmokes]

4. K&R!

Denying people access to their solar powered dryers is simply asinine.

[Posteritatis]

5. The fact that this law has to be even considered depresses me

Fuck homeowners' associations.

[KT2000]

8. It gets your clothes

cleaner too. You don't need those smelly products to make your laundry smell good.
They say that the dryer uses as much energy as the hot water heater.