Hey, there! Log in / Register

In the North End, if it ain't broke, why fix it?

Clothesline in use in the North End

Some residents still use the old ways to dry clothes in the North End. And why not?

Neighborhoods: 


Ad:


Like the job UHub is doing? Consider a contribution. Thanks!

Comments

up
Voting closed 0

Solar or Wind Powered clothes dryer. It just reeks of Cambridge smugness to me.

Its a clothes line. Nothing else.

I grew up with clothes drying this way. It was just how it was. My mom still does it this way. If its not outside hanging up, its in the basement hanging up because its too cold outside or raining.

I use a dryer because its convenient and I live in a condo. No other option.

If I lived in a single family I would have a clothes line.

up
Voting closed 0

Science hater! :-)

up
Voting closed 0

Solar or Wind Powered clothes dryer. It just reeks of Cambridge smugness to me.

It's a joke. Just a joke. It doesn't "reek of" anything, your projections notwithstanding.

up
Voting closed 0

The point is that it's often the "smug" Cambridge liberal-elite types that throw fits over people doing stuff with their own private property that they disapprove of, and support city ordinances and HOA rules against this kind of thing. So coming up with a green-guilt term for clotheslines such as "solar-powered clothes dryer" is a way of trying to sell the idea to such types (or at least highlight their hypocrisy).

up
Voting closed 0

The point is that it was a joke, and you turned it into an ax-grinding session. It seems obvious the "'smug' Cambridge liberal-elite types" really own you, don't they? Seems like anything you even imagine them doing (by mind control, from across the river) sends you into a tizzy.

up
Voting closed 0

The people who make unfounded claims of "the people who do X are the same people who hypocritically do Y" are the same people who get on my nerves.

up
Voting closed 0

Especially nice for sheets and towels.'Would never live anyplace where they are outlawed. And, good for the environment, too.

up
Voting closed 0

We should work on getting a Right to Dry law in Massachusetts.

up
Voting closed 0

I'm not sure what the situation is around Mass., but, in lots of places that have homeowners' associations, outdoor clotheslines violate HOA bylaws because they're considered "downmarket"--a vestige of the time when line-drying clothes meant you couldn't afford a clothes dryer. It's an outdated notion that needs to go away.

up
Voting closed 0

I live in a converted triple decker that is now a condo building. We have one of those clauses.. I suppose we could elect to change it.. but we haven't (yet)

I'd love to have a clothes line again. The back porch even has the eye hooks for one, I just need string. There's nothing like fresh sheets that have been dried on the line in the spring. Mmmm they smell so good.

up
Voting closed 0

today IS Wednesday.

up
Voting closed 0

Anyone who has line-dried socks knows why the old ways have fallen out of favor.

up
Voting closed 0

IMAGE(http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/41fB0W2t8DL.jpg)
     ( There are less expensive multisock dryers, but they're not as Adorable! )

up
Voting closed 0

Adorkable!

up
Voting closed 0

Since I started wearing more wool socks and got tired of draping things over hangers in the laundry room, I got one of those about a year ago. It's awesome. Sometimes I wish I had two. Mine is beige so I didn't even notice the eyes when I first bought it. five stars.

up
Voting closed 0

If you insist you can half line dry, half machine dry. Play with the %s and see what works for you. Less power consumption is better than no conservation.

up
Voting closed 0

Nothing was more embarrassing as a kid then my tightie whities flying on the clothes line as all the kids walked by on the way home from school.

up
Voting closed 0

Pigeon Shit.

I am a fan of line-drying though. Clothes line is in my basement (not far from the boiler which adds warmth to the process in colder weather, plus I have one of those collapsible wooden drying thingies.

up
Voting closed 0

Pollen (achoo!).

However, I do do a lot of my drying like you do, with an indoor clothes line.

up
Voting closed 0

Am I the only person here who doesn't prefer line-dried clothes? I grew up without a dryer, and didn't experience the fluffy joy of machine-dried laundry until I went off to college. I would never want to go back to wrinkled garments that are so stiff when you take them off the clothesline that you can hardly fold them.

up
Voting closed 0

If your clothes are stiff and wrinkled coming off the line, you're probably doing something wrong...maybe several somethings. Possibly your clothes are not rinsing clean and have residual detergent or crap in them, which would account for the stiffness, and as for wrinkled, if you pin them properly that's absolutely not an issue. Some towels do tend to be a little stiff after line-drying, so just toss them in the dryer for a few minutes -- problem solved. As for hardly being able to fold them, if true, I'd suggest that problem may have more to do with arm strength than with the clothes ;-)

up
Voting closed 0

I think most clothes today wrinkle less than they did years ago, when they were stiff after drying on the line.

Not many things are made of 100% heavy cotton, which was the worst.

I agree about the rinsing and hanging properly though.

Yes, I love my line & would never live where I couldn't have one.

up
Voting closed 0

Spend a little more money to get a washer with a higher extraction speed, and you can skip buying a dryer entirely. My front-loading LG washer, Horatio, spins so fast that clothes come out damp dry instead of soaking wet. Even more than that, it's not just water that gets extracted so well, it's the last of the dirty soapy water that gets extracted from your laundry. So, everything comes out much cleaner and fluffier.

It saves a lot of time to remove shirts from Horatio and put them directly on hangers. If you wanted to iron them, they'd be at the perfect dampness. Otherwise, they'll dry quickly hanging outside (or inside), and then go right into the closet.

In the wintertime or rainy days, the laundry doesn't necessarily have to hang outside at all. The dryness of the inside air will dry most things overnight, just hanging on the inside rails. Putting everything on hangers makes it easy — it allows for plenty or air circulation, but takes up much less space than stringing it all out on a linear line. If I'm really in a hurry, putting a small oscillating fan underneath the hanging laundry makes it dry very fast!

          IMAGE(https://elmercatdotorg.files.wordpress.com/2016/01/img_8919.jpg)
     IMAGE(https://elmercatdotorg.files.wordpress.com/2016/01/img_8917.jpg)

Pants, towels, pillowcases, etc. go on clip hangers, and underwear and socks go on soctopi (or similar multiclip hangers). I have a couple of auxiliary rods mounted on the ceiling near Horatio, making it easy to stage the laundry there, and then move it outside in a batch.

up
Voting closed 0

I'm not criticizing, mind you. I probably should give my washer a valiant-sounding name, too. I've also got a front-loader, and while I wouldn't say that it eliminates the need for a dryer, there is a huge difference in what comes out of my washer and what comes out of a top-loader.

up
Voting closed 0

   ... Nora the coffee grinder, Dagmar the stove, Grilka the refrigerator, etc., ...

up
Voting closed 0

Where can you buy one?

up
Voting closed 0

       ( The one hanging below my Octavio in the picture above. )
  It was just a dollar or two — in the Chinese "dollar store" tent.

up
Voting closed 0

my dryer crossed the rainbow bridge back in december, too busy a time of year to do unexciting research so i rigged up a clothesline in the spare room and two months later, i'm still using it and kind of weirdly enjoying it. even splurged on a new pack of clothespins! i also live in a condo building with a "no clothesline clause" which is kinda dumb, i think, but until i no longer enjoy my macgyver drying line, i'm going to stick with it. and also i must now get a socktopus. because that is awesome.

up
Voting closed 0

Line drying is also awesome because it seems that much of my clothing shrinks in dryers. I've lost count of how many pairs of pants with spandex content in them I've had to donate because they've accidentally been shrunk. Clotheslines forever!

up
Voting closed 0

I have cotton workout clothes (gis) that will shrink forever if exposed to a hot dryer. They have to be line dried -- and when the weather is warm and the sun is hot, they dry FAST!

up
Voting closed 0