Groups Advocate 'Right to Dry' Laundry

July 25, 2008— -- Clotheslines are making a comeback as part of the latest "green" initiative to save energy.

Steve and Mimi White, homeowners in Rye, N.H., hope to cut their carbon footprint by hanging their laundry out to dry. "One of the things that you can do easily is, you can hang your laundry out," Mimi White said.

"And it smells good," her husband chimed in. "Smells better than anything coming out of the dryer."

The Whites even like the feeling of line-dried clothes.

"I think there is nothing more satisfying than when it's really coarse and rough," Steve White said.

Families spend at least $100 a year drying clothes. Electric dryers account for 6 percent of home electricity use, so hanging out your clothes saves both energy and money. But millions of Americans can't pin up their pants outside.

Amelia McKenny's Rye condominium association, like thousands of others across the country, bans clothesline use, because they are "unattractive." Condo associations say that the sight of underwear, pants and shirts outside the building is a threat to property values.

She has to hide to hang her laundry. "I am discreet," McKenny said, laughing.

Mary Lou Sayer, who lives in a condo in Concord, N.H., won't break the rules set by her association. Instead, she hangs her wash inside her bedroom, behind the door, on the light fixtures and in her dining room. When Sayer walked through her house, she dodged her laundry. Guests have joked that laundry is her decoration.

"I'd love to hang it out. If it were outside, it would be fresh and clean, sunshiny," Sayer said. "But we can't do that. The rules say no."

While Sayer thinks the association is old-fashioned and too rigid in its policy, Richard Jacques, Sayer's homeowners' association president defends the clothesline ban as a serious eyesore.

"There isn't enough room to put a place up without really infringing upon my ability to look out the door or the window and not be faced with somebody's laundry," Jacques said. "I want to look at what you see here now -- flowers and plants and trees."