This sounds like another planet to me. In Australia it's completely normal to put clothes on the line for anyone that doesn't live in a building of at least several stories. Every house has a clothes line and most apartment blocks have communal ones. Not using them (weather and time permitting) is usually considered laziness. The closest I've come to rules like this is one apartment that didn't allow small lines on the balcony.
Many management types will attempt to tell you that you can't hang clothes on a line. In nineteen states, such rules are explicitly prohibited by state law: http://www.sightline.org/2012/02/21/clothesline-bans-void-in... . They have the cheeky name of "right to dry states".
A related thing often banned is external over-the-air antennas, protected by US federal law.
A lot of developments in America these days specifically ban clothesline drying because it's associated with, well, being poor. Never underestimate the zealousness of American HOAs, condo boards, and landlords in wanting to keep up appearances.
Re clothes dryers - many Americans don't have much choice. Most apartment buildings in the US prohibit drying clothes on the balcony (to avoid giving the impression that poor people might live there). And some towns and neighborhood HOAs prohibit outside clothes lines even for residents of single family houses.
Well it depends on what part of the "West" you mean. Lots of people still hang clothes out to dry in Italy, France, Germany, Spain, etc.
In the USA, we don't hang clothes out because we changed our cultural norms with the introduction of convenience machines. Once air conditioning became affordable, we all bought it. Same for refrigerators, dish washers, garbage disposals, washing machines, and of course dryers. Having a machine to do your work for you was seen as a middle-class status symbol, in addition to relieving housework.
Once line-drying became passé, people began to dislike the sight of line-dried clothes (it reminded them of being lower-class) and so was now "unsightly". Neighborhood association bylaws were passed to ban line-drying completely, and many apartment buildings also banned the practice. So now around 80% of homes in the USA have a washer and dryer, and people in apartments use laundromats or apartment facilities.
Serious question, do Americans use clotheslines? Our dryer is only really used for towels/sheets in wet weather.
The rotary clothesline [0] was standard in Australia and New Zealand for decades, although with the move to smaller sections, people tend to install compact linear lines instead.
I don't have a source other than to say this is what my real estate agent mentioned to me if I recall correctly, but at least in the ACT in an apartment block it's a requirement to provide a dryer if you don't provide a proper area for a clothesline.
Machine washing is a significant labor and time saver.
People are usually opposed to line drying clothes because of aesthetics and feeling like it makes their neighborhood look “poor”. Luckily quite a few states have passed laws making it illegal for landlords or HOAs to ban putting up clotheslines.
Every apartment complex I've lived in has had rules banning hanging clothes (no idea about enforcement). Also, for any group larger than 2 I imagine the clothes would not dry fast enough to keep up.
And most bathrooms are small and often without a window.
Not a complaint, just pointing out that sun-drying is often not a real choice. Often it is.
So long as those of us in the northern climes' buy a few extra months worth of outfits to run through while we wait for the ice to sublimate out of the last batch during winter.
What's crazy is that there are cities that outright ban outdoor (line) air drying. In my city, they don't actually mention clotheslines, but a former neighbor of mine was given a fine for erecting a 'structure' without a permit, in the form of a single line (on which she hung her laundry) running from the house to the detached garage.
I have a similar clause in my rent contract in Germany, forbidding line drying, and first I didn't really understand why people care about this (I planned to use the communal dryer anyway).
But to be explicit, it's because the optics of visible laundry makes people associate to poor people who have no other drying options. They don't want the neighborhood to look like poor neighborhoods.
Maybe it will become one of those environment-conscious hip modern things and then they will start allowing it again...
It's strange that Americans have decided that drying clothes on a line is as much an expression of antisocial tendencies as keeping trash in your front yard.
Banning line drying is the kind of thing you do when you're afraid your neighborhood might be mistaken for poor if there are a few backyard clotheslines. It's a middle-class class anxiety thing.
Generally no. Line drying has a connotation of poverty in the US and many cities have ordinances like this that make it tough to do. Also houses being generally larger and detached in the US we have an easier time installing them compared to row houses in Europe. They're also just built more recently so they have accommodations for them built in already.
"No person shall place or allow to remain exposed to the elements laundry, clothing, rags, or other cloth items hung or stored on a front porch or front or other street yard of a dwelling."
>Many (most?) households don't have clothes dryers, using clotheslines instead.
We have a clothes dryer in our home (in Australia), and have used it about once a year over the last 10 years. Usually only in an "emergency". Generally speaking it's always warm enough to dry laundry naturally here, which is why dryers are not so common.
> opting to just layer up when it's cold or try to use fans in the summer.
Insulation in Australian homes is generally terrible. I wish it were different. But I have rarely seen people hesitate to use a heater or AC.
> Though I do think that Americans uses clothes dryers _much_ more than they should.
There are many reasons for this. Some of them are cultural, and other are legal.
Many Americans simply don't remember drying clothes on a clothes hanger outside, and aren't used to hanging them indoors as many Europeans do. And to be fair, indoor clothing hanging is time consuming in comparison to "transfer clothes from one machine to another".
But what many don't know is that it's often banned in many home owners' associations, and banned in many apartment leases, meaning that hanging your clothes outside is actually a luxury that many simply can't partake in.
Plus, banning clothes lines would ruin one of our most sacred traditions (possibly NSFW) : https://duckduckgo.com/?q=goon+of+fortune&ia=images&iax=imag...
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