Reading this week's PEOPLE magazine made me sad. The fact that HOAs and homeowner associations are attempting to regulate residents' use of line drying their laundry.
Like our first TV set, I can remember when we got an electric clothes dryer. Before that time, I would help my mother hang the wash on a folding tree-like clothes line that swirled as we filled it with wet laundry. When I was old/tall enough, I could go out and get the wash and fold it gently and put it in the laundry basket. It was a wonderful rite of passage into adulthood and EVERYONE DID IT!
The fact that 5 states have had to enact legislation to BAN regulations BANNING hanging laundry in yards is almost unAMERICAN. I just voted to send a message to the White House on this issue.
http://www.rhodeislandpropertylaw.com/2010/06/articles/zoning-1/is-right-to-dry-wrong-to-try/
Wallace S. Gibson, CPM * GIBSON MANAGEMENT GROUP, Ltd.
Central Virginia
LandlordWhisperer
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"...to be a Virginian, either by Birth, Marriage, Adoption, or even on one's Mother's side, is an Introduction to any State in the Union, a Passport to any Foreign Country, and a Benediction from the Almighty God...." Anonymous
This is ridiculous. I dry a lot of my clothes outside! I love the way they smell and they seem to stay in better shape! I could never live in a home where someone told me what I can do when I can do it.
Wallace - unfortunately, that's what you get if you elect to live in a community with an HOA. I find it a bit ridiculous that states would even take up that legislation. We diagree on this point.
I find it ridiculous that states like Florida have to get into the flying-the-American-flag issue as Jeb Bush had to do....Common sense does not seem to get voted onto many HOA boards!!!
HOA legislate trash cans at curbside and they can certainly regulate the placing and removing of laundry that is drying outside....NOT banning it altogether
We have very strict HOAs in Southern California. In one of my rental properties, I got fined because my tenants left their shoes outside the door. What kills me is that my rental is a private, end unit on the second floor. You basically need to climb the steps to see the shoes!
Goodness what next!!!!???? We can't live normal?!
Fresh smelling sheets right of the line. I used to look forward to it when I was a kid. Even after we had a clothes dryer the sheets still went on the line. I can understand not hanging clothes in the front yard but if you have a back yard and want to hang out the laundry why not?
What is the point of the right to own property if everyone else can tell you what you can/cannot do with it?
Satar... my neighbors leave all of their shoes in the garage. It is their custom that they not wear shoes in the house... That rule you were talking about smacks of culturalism to me. Lawsuit time.
In Hawaii, we left shoes outside and went barefoot inside because of SAND and not wanting to track it into our homes....and YES, it is cultural