Right To Dry

I recently read about a town in Massachusetts that recently under went an environmental movement to not only ban the sale of bottled water but also to gain the right to dry your clothes outside. The town did not outlaw outdoor drying, but homeowner’s and condominium associations within the town did. Can you imagine that in uber-tidy communities in Naples Fl where you are not allowed to even park your car in your drive way (it must be in the garage)? But, speaking of Naples, the real Naples (Italy), tourists find it charming to see laundry hanging across the balconies of the Old World buildings. As a matter of fact energy hogging clothes dryers in general are much less prevalent in Europe then the US, 50% verses 75% of American homes.

In Key West there are no codes against having a clothes line any where on your property. Your back yard as well as your front yard is equally acceptable, even in the Old Town historic district. As far as the City of Key West imposing outdoor drying on home owner associations, not even in an alternate reality would that happen. Don’t worry Truman Annex or Golf Club Property Owners Associations, Key West can’t even get it together enough to do anything but a miserable job at recycling, much less make you allow your residents to hang their under wear on the front porch to reduce energy usage.

If you are further interested in outdoor drying laws you can find out more from an organization called Project Laundry List it is a nonprofit that has helped to fight anti-clothesline ordinances in many neighborhoods, and to urge the First Family to line dry their clothes occasionally on the White House lawn—visit right2dry.org.

What are your thoughts on this matter?