I live in one such subdivision and I just put a rack on the back porch and hang most laundry if it can take the bright sunshine. After all, the back yard has a high brick wall across the back and wooden fences between homes. When finished, I bring the rack to the laundry room and store it. Some things are hung on a shower curtain rod in the back hall near the the sewing room. I can't remember when I have ironed anything, although I do press patterns & fabrics if they are too wrinkled after pre-wash if stored for any length of time. Emily
All you can do, Juno, is to make sure you don't buy a house in such a community. There's one here that dictates thw color of the lining of the drapes!!! And you must hang drapes, not blinds, or any other window covering. They specify what kind of fence you may have, as well as many other things. All in the name of "protection of property values." To me, that devalues the property when you have no say in how you decorate or even live in your own house.
That's just why I live where I do. There are no dictates. I just can't live that way. I want my property neat,and clean. My house reflects my taste, not a group that thinks I should follow what the group feels appropriate. I would be the outcast in any other type of neighborhood. I'm not ornery,just feel that I should be able to express my individuality. We had a next door neighbor, years ago who collected clocks,he put a huge street clock at the end of his driveway. It broke my heart when he moved and took his clock with him, It was a beautiful time piece. His wife did concrete sculptures, she left us several of her pieces and they now sit in among my trees. My hope is that when we leave this house my son can take them. It would be a shame to have them destroyed and that's what I'm afraid will happen to them if he can't get them on his truck. Juno
singerlady.reno.nv.us.earth.milky-way.comhttp://members.tripod.com/~bernardschopen/And, it's NOT easy to find a neighborhood that doesn't have a HOA.Especially if you want a newer home in a planned development. Myunderstanding is even in historic neighborhoods where they want topreserve the "look", HOA's are quite common.
We dislike them as much as you do and got into trouble for trying to change some of the policies. I guess when it comes down to compromising, this is a relatively less painful one to bear. More important things like school district, proximity to work and safety etc took precedence in our case.
Yes, our town has a street (perhaps more than one, not sure) designated as an Historic District, and its rules are very stringent. It's beautiful to drive down, but I'm so happy to live in the woods. I wouldn't trade with anyone.
I live in an older sub-division. We never had an association, never had rules. We do have woods all around. Everyone here keeps their homes in good condition. Lawns are always mowed, leaves are cleaned up and the yards are very individual and pretty. There are also many clothes lines. In the 45 years I've lived here I have never seen a messy house or yard. I just don't feel that it's necessary to have a board or group to enforce a lot of restrictions. I'm not saying it's wrong. I just don't like it. That's why I live where I do. Juno
I buy plain cotton or pure linen and don't iron it anyway.
Linen musses so easily that you look better not ironing it -- linen is gorgeous fresh off the board, but every crease in ironed linen jumps up and down yelling "look at me!" Get *enough* wrinkles in linen and they start canceling each other out.
But to me, "work clothes" are for cleaning the beach, digging the garden, cooking supper.
Property in *that* development would have very little value to me.
When it's raining, or too cold to go outside, I fold my sheets in half and drape them over the shower-curtain rod in the bathtub room. (There being only two of us, I have only one sheet per washday.)
Stuff that I dry on hangers goes on a shower-curtain rod that my late father-in-law installed across the "laundry room" [washing-machine closet]. Since I put more weight on the rod than my late mother-in-law did -- she didn't have a fabric stash -- DH cut notches in a couple of squares of wood and nailed them to the wall to keep the shower-curtain rod from sliding down.
I *still* haven't gotten around to putting a piece of chain in a line between two trees so that I can dry stuff on hangers outside. Used to hang them on limbs of a tree, but we cut that one down.
I can get an astonishing amount of stuff on a folding wooden rack. A drying rack is particularly useful in iffy weather -- I can air a load of wash on the patio, and get everything inside in a few seconds if it starts to rain.
I never dry my hand-made clothing by tumbling it in a bumpy barrel. (Well, I tumbled a pair of hand-knitted wool tights until half dry in the middle of a bike ride once; I really, really wanted to be sure they would be dry in the morning.)
The first time I glanced at your post I parsed HOA as an acronym for "Hateful Old A$$hole". Those are pretty common, too.
In my parents' subdivision you can choose any color exterior paint as long as it's beige. And you can have any kind of roof you want as long as it's red clay tile. I still have to check house numbers to make sure I'm at the right place.
My mother actually likes it. Says it keeps people from "just doing any old thing they feel like".
Years back I decided that my brown cedar siding and brown roof and brown trim and doors needed some color. So I painted our front door bright blue. Over the subsequent months, red doors and green doors and yellow doors began to appear up and down the street. One neighbor told me she'd never even thought of painting her front door but when she saw how cheerful ours looked she decided to go for it with a bright emerald.
Could you buy a standing clothes dryer and use it on your patio, then put it up when you are not using it? I got large-sized ones at Vermont Country Store for my children, who didn't like hanging things on the clothesline, and they work well.
Or you can put a clothesline up in your garage -- we had one for a number of years until the children got so tall they kept running into it.
i remember living in Pennsylvania, near Philly, we were in a developement also. the HOA said we could NOT have a clothesline. i then proceded to put 4 lines up in the garage. it worked really well, and the HOA couldnt say a thing because it was in my house. Each of our Townhouses were all sided in brown, beige or cream. Boring.
I'm so glad i have my little brown house with Squash/pumpkin doors and buttercream trim.
Sheets fresh off the line are the best. i have yet to try the Egyptian cotton ones, they say they are really soft.
Excuse me for butting in here, I'm new to the group, English and old. That means I'm arrogant and opinionated :-)
It's not pathetic, it's disgraceful. If people don't like to see underwear on lines they don't need to look. The carbon footprint of electric driers is high and it costs the user as well as the Earth.
Has anyone tried line drying in the face of such silliness? Surely, if everyone did it the HOA wouldn't be able to take everyone to court?
I've learned an aspect of US life which I didn't know before. When I've stayed with friends in Puget Sound they hung washing out.
There used to be by-laws here, locally, which banned hanging out laundry on Sundays. It was ignored and I don't know if the law has just lapsed or been removed but I certainly don't know of any convictions. It would make a laughing stock of the authorities.
If you read the quote on that page from the woman in Poughkeepsie you will note that she was speaking about the ordnance to restrict laundry to the backyard only. Poughkeepsie is an old city, it's about 10 miles from where I live and has problems a lot worse than laundry hanging someplace other than the backyard. Many elderly people live in the city and have hung laundry on the front porch for years, because they live on the second floor, or there are no clothes poles and landlords can't be bothered putting them up or they are just afraid they may fall out the window trying to hang laundry. I have always thought there is a kind of charm to seeing laundry hanging outside. It certainly is a lot less expensive than drying it in a dryer or lugging it to the laundromat. Juno
If you were considering buying a house in an established neighborhood which *required* a large pink flamingo or three (or a Model T Ford, or ...) in *every* landscaping scheme, but *you* did not want to purchase or display pink flamingos (or a model T Ford), would you still buy a house in that neighborhood? (And if you did, would you bitch-and-moan about the flamingos/Fords?)
No? So if you really want to line-dry your laundry why not shop around for a neighborhood which has drying lines in every front yard/porch/garage, and be happy?
Beverly, whose neighborhood does not have a HOA, but respects those that do.
This discussion reminds me of growing up in Miami, where year-round residents didn't ever go swimming in the winter *brrrrr*, and didn't sunbathe, either. We all tended to have some color, though. My aunt called hers a "clothesline tan" that she got while hanging out the laundry. The South Florida sun is so strong, a brief exposure would result in some tanning, and the sun went through most clothing, so there was some tan "all over." You could always tell the residents from the snowbirds and the tourists, though. Residents were lightly tanned, while the others were either flaming red, or brown as a nut.
Indeed! It's a little amusing to remember my young adult years, too, when between the tendency to stay out of the sun, and my unfortunate "MacGregor skin" that never tans, only burns and freckles, certain young men found me attractive. Especially lifeguards and men who were around sun worshippers, darkly tanned. My lovely fish-belly white skin was so different, they thought it attractive. Go figger.
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