Clothesline bans stir rights battles

The New York Times/The Seattle Times ^ | October 11, 2009 | IAN URBINA

[kingattax]

CANTON, Ohio — After taking a class that covered global warming last year, Jill Saylor decided to save energy by drying her laundry on a clothesline at her mobile home.

"I figured trailer parks were the one place left where hanging your laundry was actually still allowed," she said, standing in front of her tidy, yellow mobile home on an impeccably manicured lawn.

But she was wrong. Like the majority of the 60 million people who live in the nation's roughly 300,000 private communities, Saylor was forbidden to dry her laundry outside because many people viewed it as an eyesore, not unlike storing junk cars in driveways, and a marker of poverty that lowers property values.

In the past year, however, state lawmakers in Colorado, Hawaii, Maine and Vermont have overridden these local rules with legislation protecting the right to hang laundry outdoors, citing environmental concerns, because clothes dryers use at least 6 percent of all household electricity consumed.

Florida and Utah already had such laws, and similar bills are being considered in Maryland, North Carolina, Oregon and Virginia, clothesline advocates say.

The new laws have provoked a debate. Proponents argue people should not be prohibited by their neighbors or community agreements from saving on energy bills or acting in an environmentally minded way. Opponents say the laws lifting bans erode local property rights and undermine the autonomy of private communities.

Jill Saylor hangs clothes outside her mobile home in Canton, Ohio. She petitioned to get the owner of the property where she lives to reverse a clothesline ban.

[ColdWater]

I pity anyone who hasn’t slept on sun-dried sheets and pillowcases.

I LOVE to throw my sheets on the bed right out of dryer on a cool evening and jump into bed between them.

[maine-iac7]

Yeah, I DO realize -

I also realize that we have a Constitution and a Bill of Rights that says the gov’t can't do a lot of things to us that they are - like deciding even what kind of light bulb we can use in our own houses...and soon they are going to control our very thermostats and have ready a law that will track every mile we drive = and can rationing be far behind.

I realize that times change and what may have feasible 10 years ago - like NO LAUNDY OUTSIDE = may need to be looked at again in a time when states are going bankrupt and going ‘brown.”

It matters little if you hang out your wash to save on your energy bill or ‘to save the earth’ - except to people who have a knee-jerk reaction to one or the other.

I realize that the libs are doing everything they can to shut off ANY avenue of energy Independence for our country, thereby driving up costs (the better for their stocks = like Gore's OXY oil stocks) - and soon, our high now energy costs will “Sky rocket” = so promises the anointed one = from actions he vows to take.

Times change. WE ain't in Kansas anymore, Toto

[wayoverthehill]

Oh yes, nothing feels as good as fresh, warm sheets. It’s turned off really cool and rainy here in the Dallas area so warm sheets sound especially inviting.

We don’t usually get weather like this until late November.