What should happen to this law-breaker?

[Miss Chicken]

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You saw one story on here last year about a homeowner not being able to hang her laundry on her front lawn due to either a housing association rule or a city ordinance (I don't recall which). It's not like there's some nationwide laundry fascist movement. Lots of people still hang their clothing on a line and it's not the norm across the country for there to be laws against it.

Not quite true. After reading the story last year I spent a few minutes doing some research and found out there was 35000 HOA in California alone that didn't allow washing to be hung out.

Maybe I shouldn't have used the word 'shocked', maybe 'surprised' would have been a more apt word.

It is possible that the energy conservation message is getting through to Australians more as most Australians do try to cut back on power and will probably try even harder once the new Carbon Tax is introduced next year.

Even in wet and cold weather many Australians choose not to use a dryer instead drying their clothes on clothes hoists inside.

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

What a mis-carrot of justice!

Lettuce alone...we just want to leek out a living!

On my celery I can't afford the price of groceries!

How dare you turnip at my house to press these charges? Beet it, before I squash you like a bug!

Who pead in the city's Cheerios?

I'm sure concerned property owners are peppering the city with complaints.

Somebody's probably already been beaned on the head.

 

[TEACAKE'S PLEATHER DOME]

I used to hang out every single item of clothing, of which at varying times there was considerable. It's quite a task, all the running outside to feel stuff to see if it's dry, the bringing it in in stages based on what's dry and what's not, the running home because it's going to rain.. and where I live it is potentially going to rain 3/4 of the year. Then there were the wasp summers when all the wet clothes were covered in wasps so even though it wasn't raining it was still a huge PITA to go out there.

Anyway.. one day it occurred to me that paying for the dryers electricity was like paying a person to do this very annoying task and now I use it exclusively. My friends with their 2 or 3 cars, central heating, swimming pool heaters, AC and other shit think this is both lazy and a terrible sin which makes me laugh.

 

[Trelane]

I say, unless you can "PROVE" the users of the urban vegetable patch are selling (possibly tainted) fruit/vegetables, leaf them be. As long as they're on their own property & the produce is for the family's own consumption, it's no-one else's business. Prove your case or move on. It's overkill in an already touchy economy and I find this a terrible waste in a country based on self-reliance & taking initiative.

Quit the waste, quit charging kids fines for front lawn lemonade stands & wasting a variety of courts' time/resources on really stupid BS when there's civic / municipal-level officials walking away with millions of dollars (having accomplished next to nothing during their term,) in golden (pension) handshakes in a recession being compared to a great depression, as community pools are being closed & schools can't afford effective teachers or new textbooks.

Quit hiring stupid texan cops that attack squirrels on school-grounds for fear of rabies in full view of young children, while there's idiots out there leaving small dogs in their car trucks in airport garages for six months to starve to death. Quit the nonsense. PERIOD.

 

[CuttingEdge100]

This is absolutely absurd

 

[Itisnotlogical]

I need a button like the Staples "Easy" button, but instead of "That was easy" it should say "What the hell, government and/or government official?"

 

[Deckerd]

I used to hang out every single item of clothing, of which at varying times there was considerable. It's quite a task, all the running outside to feel stuff to see if it's dry, the bringing it in in stages based on what's dry and what's not, the running home because it's going to rain.. and where I live it is potentially going to rain 3/4 of the year. Then there were the wasp summers when all the wet clothes were covered in wasps so even though it wasn't raining it was still a huge PITA to go out there.

Anyway.. one day it occurred to me that paying for the dryers electricity was like paying a person to do this very annoying task and now I use it exclusively. My friends with their 2 or 3 cars, central heating, swimming pool heaters, AC and other shit think this is both lazy and a terrible sin which makes me laugh.

We've got a big pulley in our house. My mother always had one. When we bought an old house it was already there so that's what we use. In Scotland you don't get much opportunity to hang washing out and a tumble dryer (and fabric conditioner) is just flushing money down the drain. We don't have swimming pool (heated or otherwise) or AC. We do have 3 vehicles but two of them are commercial.

 

[Ninjacore]

Just watch in ten years america will be just like the movie 1984, a repressive, bleak country with made up/dead enemies to scare the public into submission, big government can almost be laughed at till the point it gets so big it becomes scary.

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

So use the damn back yard already.

 

[B.J.]

[X-Files reference]I think she should put a "reflecting pool" in the front yard.[/X-Files reference]

 

[getham]

hi thanks for your information i am new to this forum

 

[Deckerd]

Welcome.

 

[Lindley]

I have on occasion had reason to try air-drying clothes rather than tumble-drying them. Never actually on a clothesline, but close enough. It always seemed like they came out much stiffer after air-drying. I'm not sure I'd want to wear clothes dried that way if I didn't have to.

 

[Miss Chicken]

So use the damn back yard already.

I can think of several reasons why she might not want to use the back yard.

1) the back yard might be small
2) the back yard might get too little sun
3) she might want the back yard for the children to play in
4) she might have a dog/s in the backyard
5) she might already have veggie gardens in the back yard

 

[RJDiogenes]

Or she's one of those NIMBY folks.

 

[Avalon]

So use the damn back yard already.

I can think of several reasons why she might not want to use the back yard.

1) the back yard might be small
2) the back yard might get too little sun
3) she might want the back yard for the children to play in
4) she might have a dog/s in the backyard
5) she might already have veggie gardens in the back yard

6) the back yard is already full of weed (the front yard garden is just a clever diversion)

 

[scotpens]

I was at the bus-stop talking to a woman I often speak to while we are waiting and I just happened to comment on the new fence that had been erected on the property behind us. The woman said that the fence was higher than the allowed height and that she was going to report it to the council. This woman could not see the fence from her own house, she only saw it when at the bus-stop so I can see no reason why she would need to call the council, she was just being an interfering busybody.

Reminds me of the old joke about a woman who complains to police about her shameless neighbors who parade around naked in front of their open windows. When the cop arrives, he says, "Lady, all I can see from here is that house two blocks away." She says, "Try using these binoculars!"

As for the clothesline-vs.-dryer thing, in America, hanging your laundry on the line is like cooking on a wood-burning stove or having an icebox instead of a refrigerator. It's what the Beverly Hillbillies do.

 

[farmkid]

The alternative is using a clothes dryer all the time.

In Australia, people who always use a dryer are labelled 'lazy' (this is if they have access to a clothesline). I gather, that in some areas of the USA lines are regarded as an eyesore or else as a sign of poverty.

I thought about that, but then figured a law that basically forces you to buy a dryer would be pretty silly. I wasn't sure if people hang up their clothes inside or something I hadn't thought of. But people I know with dryers only seem to use them when it's either raining, or they need something dry quickly. And since clotheslines are typically in the backyard, I don't see how any eyesore law could apply.

There aren't usually laws against using a clothesline, or most of the aesthetic issues mentioned above. It's much more common that such things are banned by the homeowner's association, not the government. In many neighborhoods you agree to abide by certain rules when you buy a house there, and you are bound by those rules as long as you live there and your HOA wishes to enforce the rules. That's why I'll never buy a house in such a place.

 

[Miss Chicken]

I was reading that some HOAs in Ontario had similar rules about hanging out washing. In its wisdom, the government of Ontario passed a law that made such rules unenforceable.

I also read that some HOAs in America have rules against solar panels on the grounds that solar panels are an eyesore. I have never considered such panels to be ugly at all.

 

[Tora Ziyal]

What a mis-carrot of justice!

Lettuce alone...we just want to leek out a living!

On my celery I can't afford the price of groceries!

How dare you turnip at my house to press these charges? Beet it, before I squash you like a bug!

Who pead in the city's Cheerios?

I'm sure concerned property owners are peppering the city with complaints.

Somebody's probably already been beaned on the head.

Aren't these awfully corny? They're making me feel kind of meloncholy.