s/o Airing clean laundry

[ocelotmom]

Say you plan to line dry your laundry. You have a choice of three possible locations:

 

Location 1 is visible to anyone who happens to pass by, but gets good light and is very convenient (eg. your front yard).

 

Location 2 is not visible to the general public, but may be visible to neighbors or visitors, and is less convenient (eg. a backyard).

 

Location 3 is not visible to anyone outside your immediate family, but is inconvenient and/or clothing won't dry very fast (ie. somewhere indoors).

 

Assume all three locations are equally secure - you don't have to worry about anyone stealing your laundry - and that there are no homeowners' association or similar rules against clotheslines, so beyond visibility and convenience, all three locations are equally practical.

 

Which one do you choose? Would you hang all your laundry in that location, or choose to take some items (underwear, for example) to a more private location?

 

(DH thinks I'm weird for my preference. I think I'm normal. I'm curious to see what others think :))

Edited May 10, 2011 by ocelotmom

[Rosie_0801]

Location 2.

 

I'd be surprised if local laws allowed clothes lines in the front yard. Here, drying washing on a line in your backyard is one of the most normal things in the world. Nobody cares if they can see someone's washing. Or if they do, they won't find many to sympathise with them! We all move to option 3 when the weather is so bad option 2 won't work.

 

Rosie

[Peela]

As Rosie says, in Australia backyard line drying is the norm. We even have a classic Australian made washing line called the HIlls Hoist which is in most backyards built before the last few years. Most Aussie kids grew up with one- we would hang off them, build cubby houses with them- they are an Australian icon. Laundry rooms usually lead onto the backyard, not the front.

Front yard? Not legal here.

However in our home we dry indoors on racks, but it is convenient because the laundry is huge in this particular house. The Hills Hoist has been removed and a line put on the side of the house just under the aerial on the roof- where birds sit and poop on the clothes. Not practical.

[ocelotmom]

Location 2.

 

I'd be surprised if local laws allowed clothes lines in the front yard. Here, drying washing on a line in your backyard is one of the most normal things in the world. Nobody cares if they can see someone's washing. Or if they do, they won't find many to sympathise with them! We all move to option 3 when the weather is so bad option 2 won't work.

 

We're in an unincorporated area - if there's a law about it, I'm pretty sure no one cares enough to enforce it :)

 

For that matter, we're on a pretty quiet road, so option 1 and 2 aren't realistically all that different.

 

I use 1 and hang underwear on the last row where they're hidden by the rest of the laundry, but prefer 2 (though I still feel a bit weird about hanging out underwear, especially the kids', where the neighbor kids can see it). And 3 in bad weather, of course.

[Crissy]

Location 2.

Fold the underwear in half, cliping it to the line at the waistband and hang it between larger items (towels, jeans, etc.) Once everything is on the line, you don't even notice it.

[Crissy]

Nobody cares if they can see someone's washing. Or if they do, they won't find many to sympathise with them!

 

:iagree:

I don't have a problem with my neighbors knowing we all wear underwear. If they are bothered by seeing a few pair on my backyard line, they can just turn their lawn chair the other direction.

[Renthead Mommy]

When my husband and I first moved in together, before we were married, it was a two family house (converted from a previous one family). We had the lower floor. Someone had given me a washing machine, but we didn't have a dryer. I strung clothes line from the basement rafters and hung everything in the winter/rain. It dried quickly because the furnace was down there.

 

In nice weather I used the pulley line that ran from the back stair window to a tree in the back yard.

 

Then boyfriend/now husband was greatly disturbed by both these options. First he realized the upstairs neighbors would see his undies, then he realized the neighbors would see it in the backyard.

 

I assured him that both the upstairs neighbors and the backyard neighbors would be much more relived to see his undies and know he wore them, than to not see them, and wonder about his undies status! Took a few days, but he got over it!

[min]

Option 2, moving to 3 in wet weather. I'm in Australia too. I don't know of any laws about hanging laundry in the front yard, but I've never seen it done and wouldn't like to be the first to try it. Like Peela and Rosie, I grew up with the washing line in the back yard.

 

Min

[regentrude]

I dry laundry in the backyard on the patio. Visible to the neighbors, and a bit form the street, but far away. Towels, pants and shirts on the outside, underwear on the side facing our house.

I make sure that I take it in as soon as it is dry -so it won't be hanging there forever.