There is a long-lived saying in China: In the United States, it is illegal to dry clothes outdoors. The police will interfere and you will be fined.
Is this true?
In the 50 states in the United States, no state law has such a requirement, but many HOAs (owners associations) will write clothesline bans into the community manual, and HOA employees will impose fines. This is not a law. The purpose is to prevent poor people who cannot afford dryers from living in.
According to a 2014 survey by the New York Times, some Americans believe that drying clothes outdoors is a scene unique to the "RV area", that is, the way clothes are dried in low-income mobile homes. Worrying that neighbors drying clothes will lower the housing prices of neighboring houses. Some people say that the neighbors hang clothes outdoors, and they hope to see the green trees and birds out of their windows, not the pants of others.
Many Americans live in places where there is no HOA, but they still don't dry their clothes because they don't have this concept. In their minds, there is only one way to dry clothes with a dryer. If there is no dryer at home, they will go to the laundry outside to wash and dry the clothes once a week.
In 2011, British film producer Steven Lake (Steven Lake) produced a documentary called "Drying for Freedom" to explore why Americans do not like to Dry clothes outdoors.
This documentary starts with a real case: a Mississippi man shot and killed his neighbor because after many "warnings", the neighbor insisted on drying clothes outdoors. New Hampshire 63-year-old Richard Jacques (a community HOA chairman) said that he moved to this community because of its strict "bans." "It is these bans that protect me when I stand at the window Can enjoy flowers and birds instead of underwear". Jacques’s views represent the views of many Americans: Pulling the clothesline is unsightly and a symbol of shabbyness. People with status and status can’t do it.
In the documentary,Lake tells the story of J. Ross Moore, the inventor of the dryer. He is a native of northern North Dakota, where the winter is extremely cold. If the sheets are dried outdoors in winter, it will freeze into a block of ice, so he invented the tumble dryer. The use of dryers spread from the north to the south, and formed an idea: if you can't even afford the money for drying clothes, you are an authentic poor. A poor person living in the community will devalue the neighbor’s house. The vast majority of Americans have gradually accepted this view and used such an unenvironmentally friendly way to dry their clothes.
According to official US data, clothes dryer accounts for at least 6% of all household electrical appliances. The carbon dioxide emissions from dryers are staggering. Each household emits 1 ton of carbon dioxide each year due to the use of dryers .
In recent years, environmental protection concepts have been soaring, and many states have begun to ban clotheslines. In 2015, the then Governor of California, Brown, signed a bill restricting HOA's ban on clotheslines. California Rep. Patty López explained the reason for the bill. She believes that Californians use the sun to dry their clothes to protect the environment and save electricity. At present, in addition to California, there are 19 states including Florida , Maine , Utah, Vermont , Colorado, Hawaii and other 19 states that prohibit the HOA from issuing clothesline bans.
Even in states without legislation, there are very few actual clothesline bans. If you hang clothes in the backyard, your neighbors must report it before the HOA will intervene in the fine. But few neighbors are so bored, staring at the clothes in their backyard. There are many weird laws and regulations in the United States, but no one actually enforces them. For example, in Pennsylvania , the law stipulates that you cannot catch fish through any other parts except the mouth. Pennsylvania also prohibits the masses from singing in the bathroom. North Dakota It is not allowed to wear hats while dancing. These boring laws are simply ignored, and like the clothesline ban in most areas, they are a decoration.
So, you can happily dry your clothes in the United States, but for dignity, don’t dry your underwear and socks outside.
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