Questions: 4 and 5 August

[vilakins]

I'm doubling up on some of these because it's hard to expand on some answers.

4. What do you like most about winter?
That's easy: NO FLIES!
I also usually quite like winters down here as they're so much drier than in Auckland, but this one's been wet and dreary. Apparently that happens every 5-6 years. At least the rain doesn't last for weeks; you do see the sun.

5. Have you ever hung your clothes out on a clothesline?
Of course? Why do you ask? Are clotheslines rare in the US?

Comments

[imhilien]

I'll agree with no flies. I know summer is here when flies come inside as if they own the place, ugh.

I remember seeing a Tiktok or the like where an American was puzzled why Australians had clothes lines, even the clothes horse ones for inside. I couldn't understand why she was puzzled! One of those things that get lost in translation, I guess.

[vilakins]

Maybe they put everything in the dryer. You'd think if they had a garden, or yard as they call it, they'd put a line up and dry things naturally, at least in summer.

[kindkit]

It's common for folks in rural areas of the US to have clotheslines. But in a lot of suburbs and towns/cities it's not allowed due to Home Owners' Associations. I've never dealt with one, because I've never owned a house, but HOAs are private groups that . . . somehow are allowed to set rules for neighborhoods, right down to what color you can paint your house and whether you can have a clothesline. It's a very weird system.

Apartment buildings will also regulate clothesline use. Even portable ones aren't allowed outside where I live. I could have an indoor drying rack, I suppose, but I don't really want a lot of wet clothes making my apartment damp all the time. So I use the dryers at the laundromat. Nicer apartments will have a washer and dryer in the unit.

ETA: I grew up with clothes dried outdoors on a line, and I much prefer drying them in the machine. They come out soft and not all stiff.

[watervole]

HOAs sound crazy to me... (Ah, the terrifying sight of a clothes line - it might imply that someone poor lives here - bad for house prices - or maybe they just have cooties!)

Tumble dryers eat electricity.

Very very bad for carbon emissions. We got rid of ours about 20 years ago.

[vilakins]

Wow, thanks for that! I heard of those draconian HOAs only this year when a friend bought a house in Georgia and found they have all sorts of really strict rules. She has to check with them to plant anything in her garden, even where they can't see.

We have body corporates when people own a unit of a communal property, which isn't very common. I doubt they'd rule on clotheslines because almost everyone has one here, but they might demand that someone messy tidy up. Apart from that setup it works both ways here: people can usually do what they like on their own property, but that also means a few can offend with colour* or hoarded mess*, and the neighbours can't do anything unless it contravenes the law. I've never thought of clotheslines as being messy, but most aren't visible from the street anyway.

* A while back some immigrant home owners in an expensive street in Auckland painted their house in a multitude of bright colours (quite fun, really) and the neighbours got their noses in a twist - but couldn't do anything. There's a council on Auckland's north shore however that mandates paint colours on their 'heritage' houses - creams and neutrals for walls, red for roofs.

* There's one house in this town which has a hoarder's random crap all over its yard and spilling onto the street, and no one can do anything.

[mab_browne]

My US friend drove me around rural Pennsylvania and we'd identify Amish and Mennonite households by clotheslines. Everyone else uses a dryer. Everyone.

(And by that I mean a literal line like my Nana had. Not a rotary clothesline to be seen.)

[vilakins]

It occurs to me that it would be hard to count them here as most are in backyards. I think rotary lines are very much a NZ and Australian thing. I'd like one but have a fold-out. And a dryer for wet weather, but I do like things, especially sheets and towels, drying in the sun.