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HOA owns the land, so in a HOA you only have a fractional ownership of the land through the membership in the HOA. As the result of such an arrangement you have to obey the HOA's rules.
U.S. residents fight for the right to hang laundry (2009)
261–270 of 329 posts
Re: U.S. residents fight for the right to hang laundry (2009)
#262Earlier quoted context omitted.
OK I'm going to buy property next door to you and store hundreds of drums of crude oil on it. That's OK? Hmmm, I think there's a thing called "reason" here, as in being "reasonable". no, we live in communities of people. We are not atomic units but rather a part of a community and the community decides what's OK and what isn't. If you can't abide by it then you need to find another community that agrees with you or m…
I actually agree. When people can't abide anti-freedom attitudes, they should part ways. Luckily, that's exactly what my country has done. Since this is a story about the U.S., I ask that you try to view it through the appropriate cultural lens, rather than imposing your own.
I am an American and I am currently residing in America. And where I live and everywhere near me, there's no way they'd allow you to park on your lawn, etc. We have a democratically elected council which is empowered to create town ordinances and things like this fall under these ordinances.
For instance, we don't allow "trash and debris" and plant life can't be "overgrown" and your property must be kept clean and free of garbage". Things can't be "unsightly" or in disrepair. There's a bunch of ordinances that apply to these things.
If you disagree with it you can:
1) Plea to the council and/or campaign to elect someone who will change the ordinances
2) Move
Re: U.S. residents fight for the right to hang laundry (2009)
#263Earlier quoted context omitted.
You'd think this. I've been Looking for some land to build some interesting projects (larger than usual personal-use solar farm with mechanical outbuildings, small wind turbines, various experimentation with hoop houses, etc.) lends me to believe the NIMBYs have made it to most of the country. You have to truly be in the absolutely middle of nowhere with an amazingly huge amount of land to actually be able to "do wha…
I learned years ago, that if there are no inspectors then there are no regulations. In my county there are inspectors for water and septic. That's all. So that had to be to code. Everything else is up to the landowner.
That's how it is in most of WV south of, say, Hampshire County.
Re: U.S. residents fight for the right to hang laundry (2009)
#264Earlier quoted context omitted.
Saving depends on the cost of gas and electricity, so you might be right for some locales and wrong for others (to the point that a heat pump dryer will cost more than gas dryer), but how do you imagine clothes will last longer? Do you think temperature causes more wear than a spinning drum?
> how do you imagine clothes will last longer? From my own experience + the fact that it dries at a much lower temperature.
I am questioning that fact. In my experience temperature is not destroying fabric, people used to iron their clothes for decades. Spinning in an underpowered dryer for longer will put more wear on the fabrics and stitching.
Re: U.S. residents fight for the right to hang laundry (2009)
#265Years back we rented a flat in a building that housed a lot of retired people. A regulation we weren't aware of was that you weren't allowed to hang anything on the railings of your balcony. On a day off we were cleaning and left a mat we'd washed to dry, hanging over the railing. It wasn't there an hour before we had a delegation at our door of angry elderly residents. They weren't one bit nice about it even after w…
I'm always curious what is it about old people that make some behave in this way? Is it the way people used to be raised, cognitive decline, or simple nothing better to do? I also notice it in the comment's section where older people tend to be far less forgiving of discretions than younger people.
Some people are just rude and you see it in all ages.
Older people probably have an expectation that you have read and understood the rules as well
Re: U.S. residents fight for the right to hang laundry (2009)
#266I hang my laundry sometimes, I've never been bothered about this in a string of rentals, owning houses in HOAs, owning houses outside of HOAs. Mostly you just don't do it in the front yard, which seems like basic common sense? Also, in the US nearly everyone has a washer and dryer, so the only time you need to hang laundry is for delicate clothing that is drip-dry only.
I lived in Europe for a time where it was common to have a washer and no dryer, because the electrical grid couldn't support it (old buildings retrofitted with power with only 60A service were commonplace in two of the European countries I lived in). But even in this case, mostly people had brackets on a window that pushed out to make a clothesline towards a center common courtyard for a blockhouse/flats, not out into the street (or if it was street-facing it was well above street level). This is different than in this article where someone is hanging clothes out at street level in their front yard, rather than the back, which is considered a private space.
If you don't want an HOA, don't buy a house in an HOA area. I certainly got tired of HOA bullshit, which is why I bought a non-HOA house.
Re: U.S. residents fight for the right to hang laundry (2009)
#267Earlier quoted context omitted.
Presumably the majority of the people living there like the rules, otherwise they wouldn't have been voted into the rule book. Democracy in action.
The article says not: >the no-hanging rules are usually included by the communities’ developers It may be hard / too much hassle / etc. to vote them out.
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Re: U.S. residents fight for the right to hang laundry (2009)
#268Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's a human interest piece: I took the point of Carin Froehlich's story to be that it affects more than just the people who are forced to not air-dry their laundry. Given the simplicity of the problem ("I can't hang my laundry [without people, including local officials, complaining]"), the solution is a little obvious ("I want to be allowed to hang my laundry"). I think the journalist who wrote this probably trusted…
Even if it was a human interest piece, the good journalists get external perspectives. They don't just parrot whatever the one person says. "Given the simplicity of the problem ("I can't hang my laundry [without people, including local officials, complaining]"), the solution is a little obvious ("I want to be allowed to hang my laundry")." This makes no sense. The lady was allowed to hang her laundry! The other guy e…
Yeah, a good piece would interview The Neighbors and ask what they think about it. It could be very telling or even damning of them
Re: U.S. residents fight for the right to hang laundry (2009)
#269Earlier quoted context omitted.
Presumably the majority of the people living there like the rules, otherwise they wouldn't have been voted into the rule book. Democracy in action.
The article says not: >the no-hanging rules are usually included by the communities’ developers It may be hard / too much hassle / etc. to vote them out.
You could say the same about any democratic action - if people are too lazy to vote then yeah they won’t get what they want.
Re: U.S. residents fight for the right to hang laundry (2009)
#270Earlier quoted context omitted.
This has nothing to do with the law and every to do with the HOA that the people in this article from 2009 willing joined when they bought their home. I know it's fun to hate on the USA at every given opportunity but this is less some systemic issue with the US and more a squabble between a few individuals who are violating a contract they chose to sign, and their neighbors who also signed said contract because they…
Calling HoA voluntary is like calling ToS voluntary. Technically it is, but practically it's very one sided.
With HOAs you can democratically change the laws as you see fit. This is a substantial difference.