Really. I'm sure you may think you read the title of this post incorrectly, but it's true. Apparently hanging one's laundry on the line to dry - which is both ecologically and economically beneficial - is taboo in many areas. The neighbors consider it an eyesore.
How did we get here? Why is it more important to have a perfect neighborhood - with perfect lawns and no clotheslines - than to allow people to make choices about the way they want to live their lives? Our notion of sterile "perfection" is not ecologically sustainable, and it's expensive. Who gets to decide how the houses should look, anyway?
So much of what us urban sustainability & homesteading folks want ends up resulting in a fight because it runs counter to what the neighbors think should be allowed --- front yard gardens, backyard chickens and goats, clotheslines... I suppose if those neighbors were allowed to have their way, we'd all live in Stepford developments, pay a fortune to maintain our perfect grass lawns (even if we live in a desert), and buy all of our food in a package. How charming.
2 comments:
That's the craziest thing I've heard in awhile. I try to hang as much of our laundry as possible. This is just absurd.
The sad thing is that this results in MORE laws being passed to keep our right to dry our clothes in the sunshine and wind, when really what we need are LESS laws, rules and regulations taking that right away.
We pile law upon law upon regulation upon rule... Being a minimalist at heart, I wish we could just do away with the regulations causing the problem instead of regulating the regulations. It's like treating the side effect of a drug with more drugs.
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