That said, if its not in the agreement you signed, or you live someplace without an HOA, I support peoples right do hang their laundry out to dry - shouldn't even be a question of being allowed or not.
To live peacefully in a society you have to compromise and you can’t just do as you please. Communities have certain standards and by-laws that should be respected. If you’re compelled then bring it up at the next town meeting and rally support for your cause.
What if someone decides they should park their car on the front lawn since the boat and camper take up the driveway? Or just set a couch up on the front lawn because I like to have a nap there?
That’s a very restrictive view of what a good neighbour should be. Those who are offended by the view of drying clothes and insist on dictating other people’s lifestyle are much worse neighbours than she is.
> To live peacefully in a society you have to compromise and you can’t just do as you please.
Exactly. Like accepting that some people hang their clothes to dry. That’s a step towards keeping a peaceful neighbourhood.
> What if someone decides they shiujd park their car on the front lawn since the boat and camper take up the driveway? Or just set a clinch up on the front lawn because I like to have a nap there?
Who the fuck cares? Whom would this hurt?
As to who it “would hurt” - it could very well hurt everyone’s property values and certainly hurts everyone’s eyes to have to see a car parked on the front lawn. Again, it’s antisocial behavior and inconsiderate of the vast majority of people in the area. It’s selfish.
We don't know if she has a backyard, so it may be just... the yard.
> What if someone decides they shiujd park their car on the front lawn since the boat and camper take up the driveway?
I don't understand. What then? Why shouldn't they?
I'm not sure what a clinch is or why it's not welcome on the front lawn...
“Clinch” was a typo; corrected to “couch”.
What if they put a lawn chair on the front lawn, and sat out to read or play on their tablet or whatever, and fell asleep? Is that so bad? Or are lawn chairs somehow better than couches, and that's what makes it OK? (Are they more expensive? Better upholstered? Comfier? If yes to any of the above - where do you buy your lawn chairs?)
People can survive without a couch on their lawn, and there are alternatives to couches on lawns that don't require the use of a particular technology. But people need dry clothes, and the only alternative to air drying is to use a particular kind of machine. It's some Black Mirror shit.
They should be able to bath themselves in the front yard by pouring water from they collected from a nearby creek over themselves because showers are slavery.
It's ok for people to tan animal hides in their front yard because the clothing store requires transportation which is just slavery.
I'm going to have torches inside and out because light bulbs enslave me.
I'm thinking about joining an Amish community because the machines I own have ended up owning me.
Can your neighbors also prevent you from putting your children sculpture or garden gnome in your garden because it's not up to their grand standards?
Neighborhood are often managed by a Home Owners Association (HOA). So, not codified laws, just a contract/rules you sign when you buy/rent in that area.
Outside an HOA (typically older or rural homes), you can often do what you want.
Inside an HOA (most suburban development since the 70s), you get rules that span from reasonable to crazy, but as a resident you know the rules up front.
Towns can have some of these rules too, but the detailed “don’t do X” that make the news are almost always HOA things.
In the primary example in the article, it sounds like there isn’t a rule, just neighbors complaining. The women correctly told them to piss off.
Wait, isn't America meant to be land of the free? Is it their front lawn, or is it not? I live in a much less "free" country according to any American, and yet neither thing would be a problem. It's your front lawn, want to a park a car there? That's your call.
What an incredibly weird argument that is.
You are possibly antisocial?
It's not something that should be foisted on people after they own their property, since "you're free to move your whole life and family somewhere that allows parking on the lawn (or hanging laundry, etc) if you don't like my new rule" is rarely practical or reasonable.
"your neighbors keep calling the police and we have told them that it isn't illegal to hang laundry. Can you hang it in the back yard so we stop getting calls?
Putting indoor furniture outdoors is inappropriate as it isn't made for outdoor use. It will grow mold and rot and fall apart and it will become a nest for rodents and attract insect colonies that can spread everywhere. It will smell bad and reflects poorly on those that live nearby. I wouldn't buy a home in an area where I saw something like that. If you were to poll my neighborhood (granted the average home is over $1,000,000) I guarantee everyone would agree. Even where I grew up which was very blue color, you wouldn't see anything like this and you could be certain a neighbor would have a talk with you if you tried.
We don't live like that.
You get it! And for me and most other people who live in cities or towns, parking a vehicle on your front lawn or other area not designed for and built for parking a vehicle (most people call them "driveways") is crossing that line.
And yes, forcing other people to do or not-do what you want, by force of law and without regard for their own agency, is incompatible with freedom.
Hmmm, I think there's a thing called "reason" here, as in being "reasonable".
no, we live in communities of people. We are not atomic units but rather a part of a community and the community decides what's OK and what isn't. If you can't abide by it then you need to find another community that agrees with you or move to a rural area where you can isolate yourself. In fact, I hope there is a community with no zoning or restrictions on what you can do on your property so people like you feel like you have a place. Maybe it becomes so successful everyone wants to transition to that.
Or maybe we've come up with these rules for good reason. Ever consider that?
Since this is a story about the U.S., I ask that you try to view it through the appropriate cultural lens, rather than imposing your own.
For instance, we don't allow "trash and debris" and plant life can't be "overgrown" and your property must be kept clean and free of garbage". Things can't be "unsightly" or in disrepair. There's a bunch of ordinances that apply to these things.
If you disagree with it you can:
1) Plea to the council and/or campaign to elect someone who will change the ordinances
2) Move
If you want new construction and are not independently wealthy, you would be extremely challenged to find a house not under a HoA.
It's eye opening when looking in some areas how hundreds of square miles of developments are 100% HoA controlled.
I would never buy such a place, but I do understand why some folks would feel forced into such a transaction.
Or it's a condominium development and you need a HOA to deal with the roof and other shared maintenance issues, and things get tacked on.
It is painfully easy to avoid a HOA if you don't want one, but once they exist they stick with the house for basically forever.
And the underlying aspect remains, which is keep poor people out (often explicitly racist, mind you): https://www.nbcnews.com/news/latino/ugly-legacy-latino-coupl...
Even though not enforceable, they often remain and people still sign them. https://www.vice.com/en/article/y3ppgw/californians-can-now-...
Also common is HOAs for 55+ year olds, who essentially don't want to deal with kids around.
>the no-hanging rules are usually included by the communities’ developers
It may be hard / too much hassle / etc. to vote them out.
I feel like people have this really funny idea that everyone should accept them and respect them for exactly who they are and that people should respect whatever it is they want to do. This isn't true at all. Your mom and dad may, but no one else does even if we say we do.
We specifically construct social systems like private clubs, HOAs, etc to keep people out because we don't want to associate with people like them. A great thing about liberty is it allows us to freely associate which means groups of people can construct social gates which keep other people out that can't or won't meet a standard.
I would pay good money to avoid living near people like that, and indeed I do.
Yes, yes please. Is it their front lawn? As in - they own the land? And they aren't causing any harm or damage to anyone, other than the fact that you don't like it? You mentioned "property value loss" in another comment - that's not a thing. Certainly not due to a car parked on someone's lawn.
Again, I find your intention to get into other people's business just.....strange.
It's not me. It's a community which agreed on a guideline, standard, by-law, etc.
> You mentioned "property value loss" in another comment - that's not a thing.
No, it actually is. Demand will suffer in locations which are unkept and trashy. I would not buy a property next to a home that had cars parked on the front lawn. I would not want to live next to someone who thinks that's appropriate and most people would agree with me.
There's a reason we stage homes when selling - we want them to be as attractive as possible. The surrounding area, if nice, will add to the value because people want to live in nice places and around nice people.
I never said it's approporiate. I wouldn't want to live next to such house either. But I find it unacceptable that you would like to regulate that away, just like I don't think it's acceptable to regulate whether someone can hang their laundry outside or not. It's a uniquely American fetishism with defining freedom as "freedom to tell others what they can or cannot do". There's a reason HOAs exist pretty much only there and hardly anywhere else. I might find the sight of my neighbour's car unappealing - but you're the one who wants to regulate what they can or cannot do with it.
If I was going to park my truck | caravan | boat out the front I'd rather have a well drained raked gravel pan than a lawn growing up through the vehicle, weeds, and dead grass when I drive awy.
Aesthetics are a thing after all.
Nothing on paint colour, lawns (required or not | having vehicles on them | etc), licenced vehicle disposition etc.
Most people are house proud, a number of people have very different aesthetic fromn others, some places are clearly butt ugly but that's largely their business.
Town only steps in if something is a rat infested hoarders paradise that might catch alight and belch toxic fumes at an second.
The super intrusive home owners association is largely not a problem here (but it's creeping in to the chagrin of many).
I'm still mystified by your dislike for parking vehicles on lawns, it's not great for the lawn but having neighbours that do this overnight every few days (so they can get spare car from the back, etc) I really cannot see the issue - their lawn is fine and I don't get a queasy feeling looking at it.
Freedom of association I guess?
Indeed. And that is oppressive.
> Otherwise she’s just doing as she pleases and that’s antisocial behavior.
Doing as we please as long as it does not hurt others is the definition of freedom and liberty.
> As to who it “would hurt” - it could very well hurt everyone’s property values and certainly hurts everyone’s eyes to have to see a car parked on the front lawn.
That is entirely unreasonable, besides the fact that it is completely stupid that drying clothes can decrease property prices. It is not more dirty than anything else you can put on your lawn, and it is not a sign that the house is poorly maintained or anything.
Also, if that is your standard, why are political posters and flags acceptable? In which way does a drying shirt “hurt your eyes” (really?) more than a MAGA banner? Does your argument apply to what people wear as well, or is there anything magical about lawns?
> Again, it’s antisocial behavior and inconsiderate of the vast majority of people in the area. It’s selfish.
Not at all, this should not be any more controversial than the clothes we wear. The selfish ones are those who impose a way of life on others for no good reason.
But the bigger point is if the community has a standard or by-law that she is just ignoring. Just doing what you want is no way to live in a society as is reflective of the selfish turn we've taken. It's inconsiderate of you neighbors and part of living socially is that a part of "who we are - our true selfs" has to be sacrificed to make ourselves bearable to others. We can't just expect everyone to accept "our truth" or whatever. Otherwise, you're antisocial.
You have to truly be in the absolutely middle of nowhere with an amazingly huge amount of land to actually be able to "do what you want" in a reasonable manner without someone telling you no.
And I'm talking about stuff that couldn't be seen from off your property line. So many county regulations and such these days - some places 100+ miles from the nearest international airport had county building restrictions nearly as bad as the suburban development I lived in.
It's been a very eye opening and incredibly sad process for me. Land of the free indeed. It seems there is increasingly nowhere left to run away from petty authoritarians.
In my county there are inspectors for water and septic. That's all. So that had to be to code.
Everything else is up to the landowner.
I'm guessing my garden might be considered substandard in many suburban settings.
I'm mostly pretty sympathetic with people doing whatever is "reasonable" with their properties including drying clothes on a line. But there's clearly some point in a suburban neighborhood where broken down cars and decaying furniture will among other things depress nearby property values which is an understandable issue for the owners.
The contractor doesn't know this, so plants to the center of the gate. Which is 3 or 4 rows of corn on my field.
Property lines are problematic everywhere.
If it's so important, just make an official law. Don't allow police or towns official to enforce whatever rule they made up. Is your hair too short/long for your gender prototype? Is the music band in your t-shirt not welcome here? Is your hallowing decoration not 100% lore compliant?
It's revealing what's considered anti-social (hang drying your clothes) and what's considered normal (driving massive, pedestrian-flattening pickups).
Who said hanging your clothing is antisocial? No, hanging your clothing in defiance of a community by-law or guideline is antisocial by virtue of most your neighbors finding it that way.
You don't get to decide if you're antisocial or not. Society does.
That's great. I'm grateful we live in a country where people that are compelled to always put themselves first and not have to consider other people can remove themselves from society and choose to live an isolated life away from society. I'm even more grateful for the people that recognize this about themselves and make the move.
Living socially involves sacrifices and considering those around you. They do the same and we live harmoniously together. There's some people that can't or won't do this and if they try and live socially they end up frustrated as they are rejected by their community. In some cases it results in violence and in others just miserable people that can't seem to get along with anyone and they have a constant chip on their shoulder. Removing themselves from society and going to the country is the best route here.
For instance, I contribute to the local volunteer fire department. The annual festival. The fireworks on the 4th.
I pull my neighbors out of the ditch when their car slides on snow in the winter. Hell, I snowplow my stretch of gravel with my tractor if the county isn't going to get to it for a couple days and my neighbors need to get to work.
Interactions are generally more cooperative, maybe even healthier, without the always-being-in-one-another's-face.
It's easy to imagine elderly people clinging desperately to what little resistance to change they have power over. It's motivated by a mix of fear and spite for a world they no longer understand. They may not be able to prevent other races from moving in next door, but remove that mat from the handrail, and stay off the lawn!
Old people are frail. The world appears frail to them. And as you age, the flaws of the world become more apparent, and the world appears even more like it is hanging on an edge.
Of course most people also have rosy glasses about their good old days, where people followed the law and things just worked.
So old people think adhering to rules and avoiding chaos is what kept everything from falling apart.
Also, as you get older, your routine becomes everything, as your neuroplasticity decreases and ability to deal with change. Rules keep things the same.
EDIT:
Also, one of my favorite explanations of popular vs nerd people in high school: popular kids spend all their free time being popular. Nerds work on school and other things.
In that vein, old people don't really have anything to do other than be nosy. They sleep less, are retired, and living off social security means "hanging around where you're at and not doing much".
They are perversely like teenagers.
It should also be noted that you don't notice the nice old people who leave you alone because they're not in your face complaining. (A type of availability bias?)
Older people probably have an expectation that you have read and understood the rules as well
I don't see them fighting for the right to hang laundry. No action has been taken against the woman, and the man was fined by an association (I don't like associations, but they have tons of restrictions that he voluntarily entered into).
If you look at that picture, it seems the woman is hanging her laundry in the front yard. It seems the article is all her side of the story without talking to others. There's a very real possibility the neighbors leaving notes may just want her to dry the laundry in the back yard, which is the normal thing to do.
You have every right to do things that are atypical or even antisocial so long as it's not illegal. That doesn't mean other people can't ask you to stop or ridicule you.
Flagging this because it's a click bait headline with substandard content that seems to be misrepresenting the situation.
Since when does this need to be a national issue anyways - "U.S. residents fight..."
> His principal opponents are the housing associations such as condominiums and townhouse communities that are home to an estimated 60 million Americans, or about 20 percent of the population. About half of those organizations have ‘no hanging’ rules, Lee said, and enforce them with fines.
Millions of Americans live under covenants that prevent them from doing their laundry outside, lest their neighbors see. That should strike you as at least a little ridiculous. It also goes beyond the normal “just live somewhere else” mantra: you can’t relocate 60 million Americans.
Yes, the evaporating cools down the room, though I can't say I ever noticed it. In terms of energy efficiency compared to a dryer, it's much better in summer, and not much better in winter, though you get a humidifier as a freeby.
Yes, it's a chore, a full load takes about ten minutes to hang, and it's real boring work.
That's a huge amount! I didn't realize it was so much!
Residential use is 39% of all electrical generation.
So driers are 2.3%.
That number doesn't surprise me in the least. Residential electrical consumption is trivial if you don't include heating. So having an appliance use 5% of all home electricity seems pretty low?
I've yet to have ever been to a location in the US where a dryer was not directly adjacent to the washing machine.
- The article is from 2009. Surely there's some more recent update to the situation described, which also offers context?
- The laundry was being hung in the front yard. This is really rare. While probably not entirely without precedent, it's certainly a significant and rational weighing factor.
- The owner of the laundry said she hung her underclothes/unmentionables inside the house, so essentially the neighbors complained about a feared outcome, rather than making a 100% evidentiary complaint. This is often a bad idea, no matter how good one's laundry prediction skills may be.
- The condominium resident thought other residents would be OK with their personal laundry hanging in a "common area"...this seems pretty cringe. Did he ask beforehand? Maybe we'll never know. After all, 2009.
There's the step of moving the clothes from the spin dryer to the drying rack, but that's really the only extra effort, and they dry nearly as quickly (~1 hour), either in the sun when it's warm or in front of my house's propane heating unit when it's cold. The drying rack I use doesn't require clips or anything, so hanging clothes is really fast.
I do need to steam certain fabrics to make sure they're not all wrinkly, but people with heat dryers have to iron certain things too.
I'm in coastal New England, so it's not like this is an especially warm or dry climate.
[0] https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B07TDP2MMQ [1] https://www.bestdryingrack.com/
This breaks the oils/soap that have remaining in the woven fabric, that sometimes harden to encourage a wrinkle pattern. I think…
The water has to go somewhere, and if it's not going down the drain or out the dryer exhaust, it's going into the air. (This may be desirable in some cases to balance humidity).
Same reason that storing wet wood in the basement can lead to water issues in the walls.
The complaining party simply thinks (correctly) that they will get more traction from their neighbors/public/city council/HoA if they wail about that vs. general clothes line drying they find distasteful.
I have nothing good to say about people like this, other than to say they are a large and growing segment of the US population.
I lived in Europe for a time where it was common to have a washer and no dryer, because the electrical grid couldn't support it (old buildings retrofitted with power with only 60A service were commonplace in two of the European countries I lived in). But even in this case, mostly people had brackets on a window that pushed out to make a clothesline towards a center common courtyard for a blockhouse/flats, not out into the street (or if it was street-facing it was well above street level). This is different than in this article where someone is hanging clothes out at street level in their front yard, rather than the back, which is considered a private space.
If you don't want an HOA, don't buy a house in an HOA area. I certainly got tired of HOA bullshit, which is why I bought a non-HOA house.
I guess it falls in the free speech category. I don't like what you say but I support your right to do it.
HOA residents also have the right to make binging agreements, for better or worse.
I don't get it; why do you care?
To the extent I care, it is a mater of aesthetics. I enjoy seeing a less cluttered and more maintained environment. Because they are my neighbor, I see their front yard frequently, as do my visitors.
This is basically the same reason that I don't like it when people litter and leave their garbage in the street, or I don't leave dirty dishes around my house.
Whether that preference is made through laws (mandatory mowing regulations), HOAs, community shaming, etc, is another question entirely.
Those who really don't care often end up moving to rural areas anyway, where the nearest neighbor is acres or miles away.
The opposite is true for many other places I've spent time in.
With not much money at all, you can live in the wilds of Wyoming and nobody may even know you exist.
That said, I also feel like that's a poor choice considering you can now get a A+++ heat pump dryer that's very economical and works quite fast (slightly more time than with a convention dryer, but your clothes will last much longer) anytime (as long as it's not stuck in a icy cold basement) regardless the weather.
Another mistake some people make is using an all-in-one washer/dryer: they are the worst option ever. Terrible at everything by design.
The main problem is creepy older men stealing ladies’ undergarments. It’s become such a problem that you can buy gadgets that secure your clothes to the line such that they can’t be pulled off by thieves using “grabbers” on long sticks.
Sure, if you're a hip cool 20-something who does a load of laundry per week air-drying is fine.
Try being a household with a couple kids and a baby under 2 and hanging your laundry everyday. It's a waste of time and frankly sucks. I've done it.
The machine was a pain in the ass. I had to check it so the clothes didn't get too hot or go too long. Once done, you have to fold or hang immediately or you get wrinkles.
Now I just put them up and forget about it until later, often the next day when I want something
Not everybody on the planet (or in the US) has selection pressures that maximize convenience. We’d probably be worse off as a society if that was our only consideration.
Not a big deal at all.
Everyone has a dryer here, either in their place of residence or in the location they do their laundry. Washer and dryer are a set pair. They're either stacked on top of each for compactness (some apartments) or they're next to each other in the same room. I've never even heard of a place in the US that doesn't have dryers where they have washing machines. Even homeless people can use dryers, assuming they can afford to use the laundry in the first place. (And no the hot humid air doesn't dump into the house/apartment, it dumps to the outside.)
Yes I occasionally hang up laundry, but the dryers are always there. It's not an access issue.
This isn't something people complain about or even mention here. It's usually only recent immigrants to the country who hang up laundry like this however.
You aren't supposed to wait there for the clothes to dry. They can dry on their own ;)
I find this hard to believe; I can wash an 8kg load and it takes me perhaps 15 or 20 minutes to hang it, and much less to unhang once dry. Folding and putting away is the same regardless of drying method.
EDIT: "just such a chore" made me think it wasn't about the drying time.
Also, why did line drying improve your sleep and reduce fatigue? This post is delightfully full of mystery.
I’ve now heard of everything.
There are a lot of different buildings and climates where you will have problems hanging laundry indoors. It definitely can cause mould, it definitely is a health risk without paying extra for dehumidifiers. And dehumidifiers are not great for the environment either as well as costing extra.
So two good reasons to hang out rather than in.
Plus hanging laundry outdoors dries them much, much quicker too. They can be dry in 2 hours most of the time, compared to up to 2 days inside.
That being said : I see what you mean. I grew up in France ( dryer don’t exists ) and it’s easy to dry stuff there. Except maybe in winter.
Now I’m in Louisiana… yeah, it’s humid. But if you put things in the sun it does dry super quick too.
Definitely not possible in the flat we live in during the winter unless we run a dehumidifier.
The dryer wears down clothing very quickly with friction.
Cannot imagine additional longevity would be worth all the work of manually doing it.
You can simply delete them.
I think this is either irrelevant, or inconsiderate if the point was to suggest "They should just be ok with this other thing I was ok with instead of what they want to do." without the excuse that what they want is somehow bad for everyone else. She's not raising chickens, and even the bit about the horrors of seeing "unmentionables" is ridiculous and deserves no consideration at all.
Just another n=1 anecdote.
Then again, if I had the space, I would definitely dry them outside. Nothing beats the smell of clothes hung outside in the sun.
How does adding latent heat reduce the sensible heat? Are the clothes washed in very cold water?
It relies on the air not being saturated (and for real effectiveness, requires relatively low humidity). It's quite popular in dry climates in the form of a "swamp cooler".
You're not adding latent heat to a room, you're adding water, which when evaporating uses up the heat energy in the room which cools it down.
Look into how swamp chillers work.
Much more common in the south and the desert where the weather is almost always sunny.
So all our appliances are gas.
It's basically someone realising one of the clauses in their deed is worded perhaps a bit too broadly and are worried if it will be enforced. As a result, they are asking for legal advice on an internet forum and various randos are chipping in with half stories.
"Ah, what fine weather! Spot prices must be low... we should do a load of laundry!"
In essence, anything your neighbors can see is highly restricted in what you can do.
And of course, many places don't have this and people have small properties so they park on the slim slice of property in front of their home.
[0] https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/12658715/prince-charles-bans-w... (I'm very very sorry that all I could find was a Sun article.)
I can only imagine how I'll be in another 40 years.
2020 US population 330 million
2020 Africa population 1.3 billion
It's harder the fifty-five thousandth time, and that seeps into everything you do.
Also the old people who give absolutely zero shits; those you don't hear from.
I am not sure if this is better or worse than my idiot downstairs neighbors that would party every weekend til 3am with zero regard for any of their neighbors. Then they are banging on the ceiling at 4pm on a Wednesday because we were moving furniture around for 15 minutes.
Everyday the country is developing new useless laws to control people. Soon there will be only one set way to live and thats it because all laws and rules will be written.
https://speedqueencommercial.com/fr/products/hardmount-washe...
https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.1922205117
So it could do something, but it's not everything.
That's the thing I don't understand.
That said, in some areas, this could be attributed to economic factors (what materials are commonly available), traditions, or building codes.
I doubt Uniqlo clothes last five years while tumble dried. I hand dry the few t-shirts I own from them and after three years I wouldn’t wear them as anything else than bed wear.
When I used to wear business casual, I wore Next brand clothing and shirts/trousers looked the same to me even after years of drying and cleaning them. The part that starts showing wear is the fold in the collar, but that only happens a long time after I have gotten my $20 or $30 worth.
I am sure there are some visual differences between top tier clothes and what I wear, but I am okay with it as long as what I have looks clean and presentable.
From my own experience + the fact that it dries at a much lower temperature.
"Please take this with an open mind. To the extent I care, it is a mater of aesthetics. I enjoy seeing a less cluttered and more maintained environment. Because they are my neighbor, I see their front yard frequently, as do my visitors.
This is basically the same reason that I don't like it when people litter and leave their garbage in the street, or I don't leave dirty dishes around my house.“
...
Nobody cares if the house next to them looks different but beautiful. What they don't like is houses that appear unkempt or ugly.
In some places this is maintained by City and County ordinances, like that you can't use your yard as a garbage dump. In other places there are more nuanced social expectations and judgments.
There's obviously a wide range to the social expectations. In some places, people won't complain if you fill your yard with cans and bottles. In other places, people might complain if your paint is ugly and your plants are not maintained.
It has nothing to do with the neighbors seeing the laundry and it has everything to do with keeping a certain kind of people (historically, poor) from living in these areas.
And there's no evidence at all that it's an issue worth addressing on a national scale. Presumably in some places a majority want it prohibited and in others a majority want it permitted, why not let them all do as they please?
Unless of course somebody somewhere draws a fat paycheck for representing "Project Laundry List" (exactly who is really funding that anyways?) and needs to justify their position by getting glorified press releases published as news articles.
Given the simplicity of the problem ("I can't hang my laundry [without people, including local officials, complaining]"), the solution is a little obvious ("I want to be allowed to hang my laundry"). I think the journalist who wrote this probably trusted us to understand that.
"Given the simplicity of the problem ("I can't hang my laundry [without people, including local officials, complaining]"), the solution is a little obvious ("I want to be allowed to hang my laundry")."
This makes no sense. The lady was allowed to hang her laundry! The other guy entered into a contract that didn't allow it. There is no problem here (other than neighbors not being neighborly).
Also, this says nothing about residents usually having some say about the regs in an HOA. Don't like something? No need to move somewhere else. Run for a spot on the board.
Yes, 60 million people (in 2009, it's probably more now) strikes me as nationally relevant. And yes: if people do like these regulations, then changes to them are also relevant.
space heating: 15.2%
water heating: 11.6%
refrigeration: 7.1%
lightning: 3.9%
television: 3.7%
computer: 2.4%
other: 40.7%
source: https://www.eia.gov/energyexplained/electricity/use-of-elect...
Bigger than that goes to gas or steam only.
Note that if you're using that, you'd use an extractor, also (big centrifuge that spins the clothes so fast you can enrich uranium with it).
https://unimac.com/product/washer-extractors/uw-series-high-...
Washing machines did not exist until recently either, but no one in this thread is advocating hand washing their clothes.
> That being said : I see what you mean. I grew up in France ( dryer don’t exists ) and it’s easy to dry stuff there. Except maybe in winter.
In the US dryers and washing machines are a set pair. If a washing machine is in a location then a dryer is there also unless someone went out of their way to only buy a washing machine. For example laundromats all have dryers as does any laundry room in an apartment complex or apartments with washing machines.
This conversation is about people being denied the right to do something, the reasons why they should have the right to do so are there to justify it. No one said people should not be able to wash their laundry by hand. It is probably because doing so is unobserved. That being said, it is also a much more challenging thing to advocate for. While hanging one's clothes is marginally more labour intensive, washing clothes by hands is much more labour intensive.
> In the US dryers and washing machines are a set pair.
I understand what you are getting to, but the presence of both does not imply that both receive the same level of use. For some people, the use of driers is purely seasonal. For others, it will only be used for large items or things that need to be dried quickly. As for the examples of laundromats and shared facilities, the complimentary pair is intended to attract customers (not to mention that hauling around wet clothes is a pain).
Yes, and most of that drying happened outside. Also, moldy rooms and people having to deal with mold were a thing in the past.
I used one for the first time when I was 30 something, that might be why.
Yes sometimes stuff don’t dry so well. Then hang them differently. Take advantage of the sun. Idk .
I caved in for the AC: the us climate is different, AC is needed. But for dryer I will stand my snobby European ground :p
The answer to your question does not really matter, cause the topic the rest of us discuss is "should drying cloth outside be allowed".
I heat my house so that I can run a freezer inside the heated house to lower the temperature back down to what it is outside sometimes. It's not entirely efficient.
For this discussion is means that in London the indoor climate is livable, but terrible for trying clothes, while in Norway the indoor climate is nice and drying clothes indoors is helpful for adding humidity.
Do you not have space for a washing machine either? In many apartments in the US the dryer is stacked on top of the washing machine. It doesn't consume any additional space.
People use combo washer-dryers.
[0] https://www.nrcan.gc.ca/energy-efficiency/products/product-i...
You are right about absolute/relative humidity, but our basement feels damper in winter than summer.
You can get a related effect with thermostats which raise and lower the house’s temperature over the day as air expands with increased temperature.
Heating doesn't remove water from the air, as you explained. But that's what people assume when they argue that "heating doesn't dry the air" as I've heard in the past. Using relative humidity is a good explanation.
Radiant heat feels somewhat different than warm air, but if radiant heat from the radiators of a steam or water system is significant, would that not make them feel dryer? Our house has water radiators, and I do not notice the radiant heat from them.
I believe Retric's explanation is the correct one, given that human activity tends to increase the absolute humidity of interior air.
Maybe you are thinking about district heating? There are a few places in the world where the heat for an entire town comes from the same plant and is piped around. This is also called central heating which makes it confusing, thought district heating is the more correct term from what I can tell. I'm talking about a single heating system that handles the whole house, not a system that handles the whole town.
I personally have a small attic apartment in Trondheim (Norway). It has bathroom floor heat and came with one wall panel: I actually just use one oil-filled electric radiator and keep a fairly cool bedroom. Wood heating is pretty common too - one of the scents of fall is the lighting of fireplaces.
That said, more central heating is starting to become popular in the form of heat pumps, but I honestly only know one person that has one - and they are on a farm in the countryside instead of here in the city.
In a smaller kitchen it’s more likely that the dishwasher will be sacrificed than the washing machine (since it can be replaced with a sink)
It would not have fit in my first Parisian flat. ( to be fair… nothing was really fitting there )
Also when you rent a unfurnished place in France it’s empty-empty.
There is no frige/oven/washer/drier combo like in a US non-furnish rental.
In my personal case I saw a drier as yet another anoying piece of furniture I would have to deal with when moving