We are all looking for ways to save on our energy bills. Sometimes all we need to do is to look to our past. How many of us remember fresh sheets or towels straight off the clothesline? Who would have thought these simple devices would wind up defining the battlefield over being green, energy savings, and property rights? The following articles from the NY times provides a little enlightenment:
Debate Follows Bills to Remove Clotheslines Bans
A Line in the Yard: The Battle Over the Right to Dry Outside
Recently, local energy companies have challenged us to reduce our energy use by 3%. Given both these aticles suggest that dryers consume 6% of household energy use, line drying would make this an easy to accomplish goal.
For years homeowners associations have been trying to enforce uniformity, establishing prohibitions on clotheslines, placing requirements on lawn cutting, etc. They see it as "protecting property rights." But whose rights are they protecting? In establishing these "protections" they are trampling all over the rights of individual property owners.
Clotheslines are just one restriction. Many also restrict solar panels and other energy savings devices that may change the look of the outside of the home. It is clearly time for homeowners associations to realize that the "rights" they are protecting are actually infringements on the rights of many.
