U.S. residents fight for the right to hang laundry (2009) | Hacker News Reader

U.S. residents fight for the right to hang laundry (2009)

reuters.com

123 pointstarakat307 comments

Years back we rented a flat in a building that housed a lot of retired people. A regulation we weren't aware of was that you weren't allowed to hang anything on the railings of your balcony. On a day off we were cleaning and left a mat we'd washed to dry, hanging over the railing. It wasn't there an hour before we had a delegation at our door of angry elderly residents. They weren't one bit nice about it even after we immediately apologised, took down the offending item and explained that we were unaware of the regulation. Later we got an apologetic call from our landlord who said he was ringing because he'd received a complaint about us.

I'm always curious what is it about old people that make some behave in this way? Is it the way people used to be raised, cognitive decline, or simple nothing better to do? I also notice it in the comment's section where older people tend to be far less forgiving of discretions than younger people.

It's not just old people. It's idle people. If you aren't focusing most of your attention on something outward in your life, you're going to hyper-focus inwardly and let tiny things eat at you all day.

That makes sense. It sounds like people on the internet honestly. Hyper focusing on inconsequential things just to have a reason to get at others

The older you get the more the world changes around you, that rate of change is also increasing. Simultaneously your ability to adapt is diminishing.

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!

I'm 40 and the older I get, the less patience I have. I see it for example with my love of Linux. Back in my 20s I loved to fiddle for hours to get things to work. Nowadays I dont have the patience for bullshit and spending time in small things.

I can only imagine how I'll be in another 40 years.

My attempt:

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.

Also the first ten times you ask someone to stop doing something, you may be polite.

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'm always curious what is it about old people that make some behave in this way?

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?)

Some people are just rude and you see it in all ages.

Older people probably have an expectation that you have read and understood the rules as well

Life was extremely rigid not that long ago. People knew their place and did not break the rules.

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.

I disagree there was far less rigidness to life than today. People broke way more rules back then. Laws weren't taken as seriously. You could break many laws and cops would let you off the hook easily if you were nice. Now days life is very strict and there is zero room for error if you make a mistake. You can screw up once you won't get another chance in today's world. Especially with cancel culture.

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.

Retired people have lots of free time.

This is why they're the largest voting bloc.

And why their voting preferences can be summarized as 'complaining'

Territorial behavior. It happens all the time between different groups of people

I think this might be a poor article and there could be more to the story.

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.

I agree - it reads like propaganda paid for by this "Project Laundry List" organization, in the pattern of PG's Submarine article.

Since when does this need to be a national issue anyways - "U.S. residents fight..."

The article establishes the national relevancy directly:

> 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.

> Millions of Americans live under covenants that prevent them from doing their laundry outside, lest their neighbors see.

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.

They haven't established how many people actually want it. If 60 million Americans live in communities with such rules, presumably at least a substantial number of them, if not an actual majority, want visible hanging laundry to be prohibited. They don't seem to have even asked how many of those people actually want to hang laundry versus wanting to keep it prohibited, they just picked that to have a big number to put in glorified press releases.

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.

This is still a poor article. If that's really the point, then they should have focused on many other points related to covenants and not confused that point by including people who were not under covenants. They could also tell us what their solution is (make associations illegal?). Or are the just complaining without any solution or even a salient argument.

It's a human interest piece: I took the point of Carin Froehlich's story to be that it affects more than just the people who are forced to not air-dry their laundry.

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.

Even if it was a human interest piece, the good journalists get external perspectives. They don't just parrot whatever the one person says.

"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).

Yeah, a good piece would interview The Neighbors and ask what they think about it. It could be very telling or even damning of them

Does it maybe applying to about half of a fifth of the population really make it nationally relevant? Let's not forget the people among them who like this reg for some reason.

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.

> Does it maybe applying to about half of a fifth of the population really make it nationally relevant? Let's not forget the people among them who like this reg for some reason.

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.

I agree

For the entirety of my life, we've hung or clothes to dry inside. No dryer. No, they don't smell bad. Yes, even with small kids in the household. No, there is no problem with mold. No, it doesn't take forever, I'd estimate twelve hours most of the year, depending on how fast you spun them (typically 1200+ rpm).

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.

Have you only lived in one climate? One type of house?

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.

Dryer did not exists and human have been drying clothes in most climates in the last few thousand of years.

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.

> Dryer did not exists and human have been drying clothes in most climates in the last few thousand of years.

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.

> Washing machines did not exist until recently either, but no one in this thread is advocating hand washing their clothes.

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).

> Dryer did not exists and human have been drying clothes in most climates in the last few thousand of years.

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’m sorry but I can’t see a dryer as something else than a luxury.

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

It seems to me that you are trying to shift discussion from "should it be allowed to hang cloth outside" and "if I am forced to dry them inside is it good idea to use dryer" into "in a world where I am allowed to hang them inside, is the dryer absolutely necessary".

The answer to your question does not really matter, cause the topic the rest of us discuss is "should drying cloth outside be allowed".

3rd reason is that you clothes will last a lot longer (the tuble-dryer lint-tray sais it all)

I'd add that dehumidifiers are basically air conditioners they just focus on making sure the water is removed from the air before it leaves the device.

One climate, various houses old and new.

Not if it's raining

This very much depends on your local climate and the building itself.

Definitely not possible in the flat we live in during the winter unless we run a dehumidifier.

Where do you live? Winter is when people traditionally use humidifiers because the air inside tends to be dry. (Cold air outside has a low absolute humidity, so relative humidity will be low when you heat it up inside.)

London. Cold enough that anything in an old Victorian building won't dry but warm enough that the air remains humid.

I dunno about that - I live in Norway. Most folks dry their clothes inside for most of the year. They take a little longer to dry in the winter, but it really isn't an issue.

Having lived in both Norway and England, Norwegian houses are much warmer and drier indoors during the winter. Every house in England I lived in was damp, basically uninsulated and had terrible heating systems.

London has an interesting climate - despite being fairly far north it doesn't get that cold in winter. It is common there to not have whole house heating. Norway isn't far London, but it is enough worse a climate that pretty much everyone has some form of central heating and keeps their house warm year round.

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.

Note that Oslo is at 59.9 degrees northern latitude, while London is at 51.5 degrees northern latitude. Going the same 8.4 degrees south from London takes you to the Pyrenees, or Florence.

Central heating is fairly uncommon in Norway.

I haven't been to Norway, but I've been to Sweden which seems like it should be similar. All houses there have central heating.

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.

No, they aren't. Most houses that I've been in have electric heating, but not central heating. Folks heat each room seperately. Occasionally, it is baseboard heat. More commonly, it is portable heaters or electric panel heaters hung on a wall and plugged into a socket. Heated floors in the restroom are fairly common.

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.

I lived for years in Paris. Dryer don’t exists there. You just don’t have space for one … Is the weather THAT different in London ?

> I lived for years in Paris. Dryer don’t exists there. You just don’t have space for one … Is the weather THAT different in London ?

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.

I can't speak for Paris, but often in UK apartments the washing machine will be in the kitchen under the counter, so above them is counter-space.

The washing machine is in the kitchen? Where's the dishwasher supposed to go then? In the US under the kitchen counter is where the dishwasher sits.

In a large enough kitchen you have both!

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)

Yeah I actually have one like that in my US flat.

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

Dublin is pretty similar culturally and climate-wise to London.

People use combo washer-dryers.

It’s worse if you live in a well insulated energy-efficient building. In winter it’s cold so nobody wants to open the windows. The lack of ventilation means that the moisture has nowhere to go and just accumulates.

Shouldn't be if your building was designed properly, with a proper Heat Recovery Ventilator (HRV) e.g. [0]. The long and short of it, fresh air is slightly heated by stale outgoing moist air.

[0] https://www.nrcan.gc.ca/energy-efficiency/products/product-i...

We're in central Europe. A few degrees colder than London in Winter, I doubt it matters. I've done it in houses built a hundred years ago (though they were modernized since, obviously) and ones that were build recently with high degrees of insulation (almost but not quite passive). Not an issue. I usually did open the windows for a couple of minutes.

A lot of EU heats by steam/water radiators. These don't dry the air the same way forced air heating does.

You are right about absolute/relative humidity, but our basement feels damper in winter than summer.

Forced air and radiators dry the air equally. Steam radiators sometimes can add humidity to the air it is limited and only when they are initially heating up before the valve closes. What causes dry air in the winter is the act of heating air up. Relative humidity is based on the temperature of the air, so if there is a fixed amount of water in the air, as you heat it the relative humidity goes down. So in the winter cold air slowly comes into the house via air leakage. This air is heated up which drops its relative humidity down. I have lived in houses with baseboard heat and with forced air, and recently converted my house from baseboard heat to forced air. There is no real difference in the relative humidity in the house.

Forced Air generally increase the exchange of new air from outside. Individual rooms will tend to be above or below ambient pressure which causes an exchange of air with the outside. Carefully balanced systems can minimize the effect, but homes are rarely built with this in mind.

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.

That is definitely an issue that is out there. Sadly cheap builders try and get away with a single return per floor in a house which is simply not enough. My point is mostly that forced air versus hydronic isn't what causes a difference in dryness of air. It largely comes down to the quality of the install of each and the tightness of the home. Hydronic is typically more expensive and tends to be found it better built homes. My house is an exception to that rule though, I am still working on sealing up air leaks from where all the pipes ran for our baseboard heat.

The way I understand this at the gut, conversational level, is by noticing that hot air can carry more water, therefore it will dry your skin faster, which is what "feels" like the air being dry.

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.

Even so, it does not explain why one method of heating the air would feel different than another, unless there is something physically different in their effects.

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.

Steam radiators absolutely dry out the air.

Likely Laketown, near the Lonely Mountain.

You can use a drying rack. They fold up and can be put away. As long as you don't live in the tropics chances are good humidity will always be low enough to dry in a day.

https://www.thespruce.com/best-clothes-drying-racks-4154471

Clothes last much longer that way, too.

The dryer wears down clothing very quickly with friction.

I wear ASICS/Uniqlo/Next/Adidas/Express/etc level clothing ($5 to $30 per item) and it lasts many years (5+) even though I use washers and dryers constantly.

Cannot imagine additional longevity would be worth all the work of manually doing it.

That’s mostly sport wear brands. You can’t wear that at work in most of the world.

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.

I am wearing a Uniqlo undershirt right now that I bought before 2018. I don’t see any wear and tear.

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.

When you collect dryer lint out of the filter, that is all material that has worn off the clothes.

it depends on the fabric materials used. not all of them are prone to degradation from dryer heat. i didn't notice it until my wife told me about it so now i make an effort to dry my nicer clothes on a stand rather than in the dryer.

Washing does, too. I launder my clothing grouped by fabric density to avoid “pulling”. Works reasonably well.

Your message would be much better without all the combative yes/no assumptions that the reader had any one the assumptions you thought you were dispelling.

You can simply delete them.

This story is about hanging laundry outside.

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.

I find my clothes smell nicer after having hung outside rather than inside, and e.g. towels are softer due to blowing in the wind. I only hang them outside in summer. No need for a dryer of course.

Just another n=1 anecdote.

I hang my clothes to dry inside as I live in a small appartement in the city. It goes quite quickly even you spun normally. Tumble drying and fast spinning destroy clothes and it’s a big no with wool. Is it unusual in the US?

Then again, if I had the space, I would definitely dry them outside. Nothing beats the smell of clothes hung outside in the sun.

When I lived in the Czech Republic for two years I didn't have a dryer, had to air dry my clothes. There wasn't a smell issue, but my underwear felt like sandpaper compared to how it felt after going through a dryer.

Goes quite a bit faster if you point a fan at them in my experience.

> Yes, the evaporating cools down the room, though I can't say I ever noticed it.

How does adding latent heat reduce the sensible heat? Are the clothes washed in very cold water?

Water evaporating absorbs energy - the transition from liquid to gas takes more energy than changing the temperature of the water, so drying the clothes is a net reduction of energy in the surrounding air.

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".

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evaporative_cooler

Thanks, that makes sense. I should have realized this given removing latent heat adds sensible heat.

> How does adding latent heat reduce the sensible heat? Are the clothes washed in very cold water?

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.

Adding water to the air is literally adding latent heat. That's what the term means. Point taken about how that decreases sensible heat, though, thanks.

Pro tip: when outside, have the white items get direct sun. It's a (lite, no pun intended) natural bleach of sorts.

> dryer use accounts for about 6 percent of U.S. residential electricity use

That's a huge amount! I didn't realize it was so much!

At home we stopped using the dryer and the electricity bill got reduced like a 30%. It's impossible to dry all the cloth in rainy winter weeks (imagine 10°C(50°F) and 90% of humidity), so now we are hanging towels, bed sheets and similar stuff and using dryer for small stuff, probably 50% and 50%.

Get a heat pump dryer and you'll have the convenience and it'll probably cost only 30% of what it used to cost you.

Get a spin-cycle front loader that bolts to the floor or a water extractor and hardly need to even use the heat pump!

https://speedqueencommercial.com/fr/products/hardmount-washe...

Hang your clothes outside, and you don't have to plunk down for any dryer, heatpump or conventional.

Nope. I waste barely no space with my heat pump dryer. I can have my clothes dried outside quickly. I still can use my balcony for recreation rather than as an extension to the service area. I probably spend €15 a month drying everything I use, no big deal.

I thought for SURE that was going to be one of those made up stats from stupid magazine... nope... seems like that's actually true!? That's WAY higher than I would've ever guessed.

It's 6% of residential use.

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'm actually struggling to figure out the remaining 94%. I guess AC is like #1, fridge, tv/computer.... lights ... ?

space cooling: 15.5%

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...

I know it's an average, but I'm somewhat surprised that refrigeration is half of heating/cooling. I suppose gas heat offsets much of the heating requirement in some areas and some parts of the US have minimal cooling needs.

If you include gas heating, heating alone becomes twelve times the energy use of refrigeration: https://www.eia.gov/energyexplained/use-of-energy/homes.php

Remember that we have a box that makes the inside cold inside a box that makes the inside warm (or cold) half the year in many places.

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.

I would guess AC (on average across the US) is a big one. Electric heat where it exists and is needed, refrigerators/freezers, over/stove, washer and dishwasher often heat water some. With LED lights/monitors and a general shift to more mobile electronics, I imagine that sort of thing is pretty far down the list.

Oven, and stove are the major ones. Not everyone has electric oven/stove, but those consume way more electricity than a drier (because they are on more often). Microwaves, space heaters, and hair driers are also major power users.

There are commercial dryers to consider too

The figure is residential use. But sure, some commercial use would be dryers, but I assume compared to say aluminum ore electrolysis, it's pretty low.

I do not think I have ever seen an electric commercial dryer (hotels/laundromat/etc). The electric costs would be insane in comparison to gas.

Here's one: https://unimac.com/product/tumble-dryers/industrial-tumble-d...

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-...

You want a crazy stat? US uses more energy just for its AC usage, than the entire continent of Africa uses for literally everything combined together.

It's probably more meaningful to compare energy usage per-capita. IMO it's hard to understand what it means when describing energy uses by land masses.

2020 US population 330 million

2020 Africa population 1.3 billion

I guess they're mostly using old dryers without a heat pump

Every house with a washing machine has a dryer in the US. Also many are gas powered instead of powered by electricity. Similiarly for any laundromat or laundry room in an apartment complex.

I've yet to have ever been to a location in the US where a dryer was not directly adjacent to the washing machine.

I've seen a few cases, but they're rare.

Much more common in the south and the desert where the weather is almost always sunny.

NOt mine! I live in the country, but the county gas pipeline crosses our property. The easement (written 50 years ago) permits us to connect as a customer.

So all our appliances are gas.

Okay, so your dryer uses zero electricity, but the carbon impact is presumably still substantial?

Probably worse. Gas will always have a carbon footprint. While electricity is getting greener every day!

Isn't there consensus that the industrial sector's carbon footprint is multitudes greater than residential so even a net-0 residential would barely put a dent in reducing carbon impact?

Residential energy use accounts for roughly 20% of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions in the United States.

https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.1922205117

So it could do something, but it's not everything.

Bad choice nonetheless. Get a heat pump dryer and you'll save a lot and your clothes will last longer.

Saving depends on the cost of gas and electricity, so you might be right for some locales and wrong for others (to the point that a heat pump dryer will cost more than gas dryer), but how do you imagine clothes will last longer? Do you think temperature causes more wear than a spinning drum?

> how do you imagine clothes will last longer?

From my own experience + the fact that it dries at a much lower temperature.

I am questioning that fact. In my experience temperature is not destroying fabric, people used to iron their clothes for decades. Spinning in an underpowered dryer for longer will put more wear on the fabrics and stitching.

You can kind of compare the amount of lint you get, but often that is caused by the washing machine and not the dryer.

I imagine the mechanics of wear are very similar between a washer and a dryer. If temperature was the main contributing factor then ironed and dry-cleaned clothes such as uniforms would deteriorate much quicker than machine washed/dried ones.

Some aspects that seem kind of strange to me:

- 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.

For those thinking about going no-dryer: You can also get small, indoor, foldable clothes drying racks for around $20. I used one of these my entire adult life and pretty much never needed a dryer. Later on I got a house that came with a dryer, but only use it for large items like bed sheets.

I've been using a 1300 RPM spin dryer[0] and drying rack[1] combo for the last two years and, at least as a single person, I can't come up with a good reason I would want to do anything else.

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/

I must be doing something wrong, but whenever I dry clothes on a rack they end up with weird wrinkles and feeling a bit "starched".

Give the cloth a good whip or two before hanging it. While drying: constant airflow from a fan (make sure it’s not depositing dirt from the floor / wall / window-ledge to your clothes while it is on).

This breaks the oils/soap that have remaining in the woven fabric, that sometimes harden to encourage a wrinkle pattern. I think…

Be aware that if you are in a more modern "tight" house, that drying indoors like that can increase the moisture load tremendously, and if the house isn't setup to handle it, you can get moisture damage from drying clothes.

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.

I'm more interested in the rationale given about being offended by underwear (aka 'unmentionables'). American puritanism is so pure that someone will find a way to weaponize it

From personal experience it almost assuredly has nothing to do with feeling offended by underwear itself.

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 can’t imagine such a freedom limiting law in any European country or here in the UK. Utterly absurd a country that prioritises freedom so much also dictates how people are allowed to dry their laundry. I’m sure if the wind could be taxed they’d not restrict it though…

Try parking a 'work van' (think Ford Transit or similar) outside your new build house on my new estates in the UK. You will swiftly find this is against the terms of ownership and may be liable to a daily fine: https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/297654/no-co...

The discussion you posted is not nearly as bad as you make it sound.

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.

What kills me the most is the electricity is increasingly solar and wind. It's basically putting your clothes in the sun with extra steps.

"Ah, what fine weather! Spot prices must be low... we should do a load of laundry!"

You certainly can find areas in the UK where this isn't allowed. You may not be privy to them but I know they exist because I've been to them. In many places in the UK you must paint your home a particular color (black is common in farmhouse areas) and you must use materials that are appropriate to the listed status of your home. Some communities of people have by-laws as well such as where you must park your vehicle and if you can hang dry things in the front - which you can't where I know people that live.

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.

There are certainly places in the UK where you aren't allowed to put up washing lines. I'm pretty sure Poundbury is one, but I can't find any evidence, but there's also Nansledan [0].

[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.)

There is no national law on laundry drying in the U.S.; this issue is always one of local law or social customs. Freedom isn't our top priority either, that is more of an established mythos of the U.S., many many things take higher priority, especially in subsets of the population.

These aren’t national laws. They are passed by local communities. Local communities have always been given wide latitude to implement housing regulations.

Laws are one thing, enforcement is another. I’ll do whatever I want, including line drying my laundry if I want to.

Did you even read the article? There is no law against it.

UV / sunlight exposure also helps with sanitizing the laundry.

I hang my laundry sometimes, I've never been bothered about this in a string of rentals, owning houses in HOAs, owning houses outside of HOAs. Mostly you just don't do it in the front yard, which seems like basic common sense? Also, in the US nearly everyone has a washer and dryer, so the only time you need to hang laundry is for delicate clothing that is drip-dry only.

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.

Why is this article from *2009* being posted some 13 years later? I would want to know how things have changed (or haven't) since that time.

An advantage beyond the climate and household finances is that clothes hung out in the sun often smell better than those from a dryer.

This is of course subjective. I really dislike the smell, but I’m sure I could get used to it with time.

I was visiting Monaco once and noticed that no one had laundry hanging on the balcony. In Beausoleil, France, literally on the other side of the street from Monaco, they had hanging laundry. I'll bet there was a law against it in Monaco. Maybe someone on HN who lives there can confirm.

I love hanging my laundry, but wouldn't appreciate it it my neighbors front yard. It is a jerk move if they have another option.

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.

>wouldn't appreciate it it my neighbors front yard.

I don't get it; why do you care?

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.

Most people who live in non-rural areas prefer their neighbor's houses to look "somewhat" like theirs.

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.

>Most people who live in non-rural areas prefer their neighbor's houses to look "somewhat" like theirs.

That's the thing I don't understand.

Do you have an example where that's not the case? Jumping around on Google maps to random cities the world over shows buildings that look "kinda like" the ones they're near. Every once in awhile you find a immaculate mansion in the middle of a favela but it's rare.

While I'm sure there's exceptions I'm not aware of, I'm not arguing that it's the case, I'm saying I don't understand the desire for this.

That said, in some areas, this could be attributed to economic factors (what materials are commonly available), traditions, or building codes.

Copying from my other response:

"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.

Even the American one falls into "traditions" basically, people want their neighborhood to look like it always has.

The land of the free sure has a lot of strange rules.

From my traveling I've come to the conclusion that the US has a lot of political freedom, but very little personal freedom.

The opposite is true for many other places I've spent time in.

It entirely depends on where in the USA you are.

With not much money at all, you can live in the wilds of Wyoming and nobody may even know you exist.

Good grief! So much for the land of the free.

It must be a property owner prerogative to decide whether or not hang laundry to dry outside their houses.

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.

I feel that a good middle ground would be to allow for outdoor / balcony clothes drying, as long as they’re covered by a tinted glass enclosure (those types used in office buildings where you can see one way, but not the other (the reason is so that some sunlight/UV can come in to heat to dry the clothes, without making them visible to surrounding people)).

Interestingly, hang-drying laundry is widely used in Japan, where people prefer it to using a machine when weather conditions permit; the sunlight kills germs and dries fabrics more gently. Saves energy, too.

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.

Drying without a dryer sucks big time. They call appliances "modern conveniences" for a reason.

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.

I find it to be less time consuming than the machine. I dry most of my clothes on hangers and store them on the same hangers.

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

What does this have to do with the article? It doesn’t claim that hanging your clothes to dry is more convenient; only more economical and environmentally friendly.

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.

We have two kids and we've never used a dryer. We just hang it up in the basement and it's dry the next day, or we hang it outside on the summer and if it's sunny.

Not a big deal at all.

Does she not have a backyard, preferably with a privacy fence? Is the front yard her only choice?

If you really want to know, contact mr. Hurdle via Reuters. I think we can assume that indeed she has not.

Maybe the backyard is in the north side and in deep shadow from buildings most of the day...

I'm in this thread as an American confused about why everyone cares about this.

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.

Using a dryer costs unnecessary energy, which is something environmentally-conscious people want to save. That should be enough reason. It's also just freedom in action, something which I thought Americans like.

I've sat in at a couple anti-dryer meet ups in my locality (big city, east coast) out of curiosity. Most of the points are valid some are a little outrageous; (dryers sheets disrupt sea turtle populations?) But after reading Sally Heathers book 'The Doomed Dryer Nation'; I decided to give line drying a try. I will say that my sleep improved and some of the daily fatigue I struggled with when I lived with a dryer mostly dissipated. BUT hanging line drying is such a chore it just wasn't sustainable; a big load could take upwards of 3-4hrs a day. So I went back to the dryer. The book is good, looking forward to the doc this fall.

> 3-4hrs a day

You aren't supposed to wait there for the clothes to dry. They can dry on their own ;)

>a big load could take upwards of 3-4hrs a day

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.

Used to do it as a kid, I also find it hard to believe. I suspect they mean the entire dry, not just hanging it up.

maybe they meant it would take 3-4 hours to dry? thats how I read it anyway.

Their wording seems to imply it's a chore that lasts that long. Maybe they thought they had to watch it dry?

How exactly did not using a dryer improve your sleep?

What do you mean 3-4 hours per load? That seems wildly outside my experience.

Several responses to this, but nobody's asking the obvious question... there are anti-dryer meetups? Do people just spend an hour talking about how bad dryers are?

Also, why did line drying improve your sleep and reduce fatigue? This post is delightfully full of mystery.

anti-dryer meet ups

I’ve now heard of everything.

HOA is the problem, taking away our unmentionable freedoms

HOA don't take away any freedoms - you give them away when you sign the contract.

Stupid people who don't read the HOA agreement they signed, and then whine after the fact that some things aren't allowed - I have no sympathy for them (and for the record, would never live anyplace that had an HOA).

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.

Stupid people like the first person mentioned in the article, who apparently doesn't live in an HOA and was asked by a town official to stop hanging laundry?

There is nothing wrong with asking.

I don't know if I necessarily agree with that when it's someone in a position of authority like a government official who is doing the "asking" since that typically carries the implied threat of some sort of repercussions

I don't think you can assume an implied threat here.

"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?

Similar "voluntary" deed covenants were used to keep neighborhoods white, before they were overridden via state laws. While on a drastically different moral scale, and with some legitimate uses for HOAs, the world would be a better place if most types of their bylaws were similarly nullified.

Yes. Contract law can and is frequently used to undermine property rights. As you know HOAs are indirectly mandated by municipalities.

I don't understand how "HOAs" are legal.

You agree to the contract. As simple as that.

Why would anyone do that, then?

Because in many areas these are almost the only homes available in certain price ranges and sizes.

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.

People like HOAs. The HOAs can vote to disband, but people don't care enough to do so. Many people feel they protect property value, and they are probably right.

Because developers sell to people who like "new houses" and to make those more desirable they add a HOA that says that you're safe buying your house because the HOA prevents others from changing their houses to look different from the pristine perfection that is the American Suburb.

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-...

Because they might want to live in a place without laundry or rotting cars in the front yard.

Also common is HOAs for 55+ year olds, who essentially don't want to deal with kids around.

There are literally stacks of papers that get signed when you close on a house. I imagine 90% of people just sign everything in front of them without a second thought.

Presumably the majority of the people living there like the rules, otherwise they wouldn't have been voted into the rule book. Democracy in action.

The article says not:

>the no-hanging rules are usually included by the communities’ developers

It may be hard / too much hassle / etc. to vote them out.

You could say the same about any democratic action - if people are too lazy to vote then yeah they won’t get what they want.

Because, and you may not know this, some people have standards they live by. They like "nice things". And there's large groups of them that feel this way and want to ensure they don't attract an antisocial person that has different values.

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.

One of the standards that I live by is that I don't want to live around people who think they have a right to tell others what colour they can paint their fence, or if they can hang washing out or not.

I would pay good money to avoid living near people like that, and indeed I do.

It also nicely keeps out people with the wrong skin colour.

I haven't seen that any modern HOA contracts.

That's correct. It's very popular today to have "affinity groups" on college campuses that only allow people of certain skin colors in. For instance, a PoC affinity group disallows white people from being a part of it. They even have special graduation ceremonies where only people with certain complexions are allowed to participate. There's numerous examples beyond skin color like sexuality and gender.

Freedom of association I guess?

You know full well that it works much stronger the other way around.

Although I get her point I think she’s antisocial and being a bad neighbor. Especially by insisting to hang it in the front yard.

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?

> Although I get her point I think she’s antisocial and being a bad neighbor. Especially by insisting to hang it in the front yard.

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?

The town has a standard where you don’t hang laundry though. She’s the odd person out here and should appeal to the people of the town. Otherwise she’s just doing as she pleases and that’s antisocial behavior.

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.

> The town has a standard where you don’t hang laundry though.

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.

The OP's attitude is one that can't be logically argued against as it's not a reasonable position. They have no real reason to be against hanging laundry other then "I don't like it" and so will come up with BS reasons to obscure that fact.

Actually, I don't necessarily mind it. It should be done in the backyard or sides if possible though as it's probably an eyesore to numerous neighbors.

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.

Would lower property prices compared to a similar neighborhood without clothes hanging in the front yard be a real reason?

Exactly why I live in the country. No neighbors, who almost by definition exist to constrain my life. By making up laughable things like "hurts everyone's eyes to have to see a car parked on the front lawn".

You'd think this. I've been Looking for some land to build some interesting projects (larger than usual personal-use solar farm with mechanical outbuildings, small wind turbines, various experimentation with hoop houses, etc.) lends me to believe the NIMBYs have made it to most of the country.

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.

I learned years ago, that if there are no inspectors then there are no regulations.

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.

That's how it is in most of WV south of, say, Hampshire County.

Separation does go a long way to preventing disputes about whether a property line is exactly here or 3 feet west. Or whether the garden and lawn upkeep are sufficiently in keeping with the neighborhood standard.

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 property line thing: not so much. My neighbor hires out the working of his field. The gate into both fields in in common, but it entirely on my property.

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.

Fair enough and certainly access right of ways can be an issue requiring lawyers especially if a property is being sold. That said, issues relating to a tree branch being over some property line tens to be less likely to become an issue when everyone has a fair bit of land.

Great, please do stay away from the rest of us. You’re happy being alone and we’re happy to not have to be around you. Everyone wins here.

True about the first part. You actually have no idea what it's like being around me. So I have one up on the rest of you there.

> You actually have no idea what it's like being around me.

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.

That's not quite it. Those in the country live socially and harmoniously. But without the pressure of breathing at the neighbors armpit, it's far easier.

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.

Rural communities are great and I'm grateful for them as they are the breadbasket of our nation. Having real communities that come together to help and to celebrate things is great and I'm grateful I live in a town that's like that too. But yeah, where I live I think you need to keep the automobile on the driveway lol.

> Although there are no formal laws in this southeast Pennsylvania town against drying laundry outside, a town official called Froehlich to ask her to stop drying clothes in the sun. And she received two anonymous notes from neighbors saying they did not want to see her underwear flapping about.

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?

Oh no, won't anyone think of the property values! I'm a house owner and I want them to crash hard since we're in a socially unsustainable period right now. If a car parked on the lawn makes a considerable difference in the price, I'm happy to watch the bubble burst. Thinking in terms of white picket fences and constantly rising property values is what's selfish.

Land of the free.

It's revealing what's considered anti-social (hang drying your clothes) and what's considered normal (driving massive, pedestrian-flattening pickups).

> It's revealing what's considered anti-social (hang drying your clothes)

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.

> Especially by insisting to hang it in the front yard.

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...

I have to explain why people shouldn’t park their car on their front lawn? Seriously? Aesthetics are a thing and I can’t imagine anyone that lives in my town (or most towns) finding that acceptable.

“Clinch” was a typo; corrected to “couch”.

>>I have to explain why people shouldn’t park their car on their front lawn? Seriously?

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.

> 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 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.

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.

The community regulates it. The community is sovereign over the individual. The individual can either accept this or leave the community. If they continue to violate the community then the community will shun them or exile them. This is how social systems work. Some people call it "cancel culture" but that's just the same thing at a larger scale and with new rules.

Yes but that's kinda my point - these sort of oppressive communities which have this level of control over their members only really seem to be common in America, the "land of the free" which I find incredibly ironic. I would have thought that not being told by your neighbour what you can or cannot do in your own front lawn would be a core principle of American life, but clearly I'd be wrong.

It's not strange here, even if uncommon and I could not care less what people do in front of their houses. Utility over aesthetics. (also whose aesthetics?)

You might start by explaining why they have to have a lawn.

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.

You don’t have to have a lawn. I’m sure your town has codified what is appropriate. Where I live some people have u-shaped driveways on the front and they are “to code”. But you’d be making an appropriate place to park a vehicle. The lawn, if you have one, is certainly not appropriate in most towns.

The town limits here codify setbacks from boundaries for building, maximum height for building, bans on buildup of flammable materials (overgrown dead trees | waist high dead garden grasss), storage of toxic waste (tire dumps, etc) .. and that's pretty much it.

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.

You examples sounds reasonable enough? I'm a huge proponent for strict building codes etc, but don't really see the problem with turning your front yard into a parking lot or whatever you'd like as long as it doesn't actually cause harm to the neighbours in the form of stealing sunlight or making lots of noise.

I’m grateful to not be your neighbor.

As long as you and your neighbors all had the same understanding (in writing) before buying the property, that's fine.

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.

What if they do? It's their lawn.

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?)

Living peacefully in society is fundamentally at odds with the position you're advocating for, which is enforced slavery to a particular technological innovation.

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.

Yeah people should be able to have bon fires on their front lawn to cook the animal carcass they have hanging in the front yard tree because they shouldn't be enslaved by fridges and stoves.

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.

Actually, yes, in the absence of hurting other people, people should generally be free to do what they like on their own property, even if other people don't like it.

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.

OK I'm going to buy property next door to you and store hundreds of drums of crude oil on it. That's OK?

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?

I actually agree. When people can't abide anti-freedom attitudes, they should part ways. Luckily, that's exactly what my country has done.

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.

I am an American and I am currently residing in America. And where I live and everywhere near me, there's no way they'd allow you to park on your lawn, etc. We have a democratically elected council which is empowered to create town ordinances and things like this fall under these ordinances.

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

Yeah slavery is definitely the best word choice here. And it’s actually enforced slavery, you say? Even worse!

It's strange that Americans have decided that drying clothes on a line is as much an expression of antisocial tendencies as keeping trash in your front yard.

Are those things that are not possible to do in the US? That just seems so absurd. I'd be pissed if I couldn't put a sofa or a car where I want on my own property!

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?

The US doesn’t have national rules on these things. Being a federal system, the rules are mostly decentralized at the state, county, town, and neighborhood level.

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.

In some lower class places or college town neighborhoods I’m sure people wouldn’t care but in most middle and upper middle class places, people take pride in their homes and communities and something like that would be considered outrageous.

I've noticed that you haven't actually delineated why you think this sort of thing is bad. Could you elaborate please? Not trolling I sincerely want to know

Simply put, it's trashy.

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.

>>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?

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.

I should be able to build a giant ferris wheel on my front lawn because it's my property after all!

If you can't see a difference between parking a car vs building a giant ferris wheel on your front lawn, then I'm afraid that's on you. There is a line with what's acceptable - but luckily in most places and in most people's minds it doesn't lie anywhere where you think it does.

> There is a line with what's acceptable

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.

The vast majority of people in the Hacker News community clearly take offense to your view. Perhaps you should take a moment to consider your own antisocial behavior and quietly not express your opinion. After all, we need to compromise and can't just say as we please.

My comment is perfectly within the community guidelines of this site. You’ve unwittingly proven my point - communities have guidelines and by-laws.

You misunderstand me; I agree with you, which is why I think we should quiet down and not upset the sensibilities of the majority in the community. I understand why you would assume my comment is not in good faith, and I do not hold it against you, but this is not the community to air such concerns, as that violates the community guidelines.

If anything, your side is the far my anti-social position. A bunch of busy bodies should not have ANY legal leg to stand on telling people what they can't do just because "it doesn't fit the character of the neighborhood".

You call them busy bodies but I call them neighbors.

You are possibly antisocial?

What if they do? I'm always being told that the US is a free country.

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