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U.S. residents fight for the right to hang laundry (2009)

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271–280 of 329 posts

Re: U.S. residents fight for the right to hang laundry (2009)

#271

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why would anyone do that, then?

Because, and you may not know this, some people have standards they live by. They like "nice things". And there's large groups of them that feel this way and want to ensure they don't attract an antisocial person that has different values. I feel like people have this really funny idea that everyone should accept them and respect them for exactly who they are and that people should respect whatever it is they want to…

One of the standards that I live by is that I don't want to live around people who think they have a right to tell others what colour they can paint their fence, or if they can hang washing out or not.

I would pay good money to avoid living near people like that, and indeed I do.

Re: U.S. residents fight for the right to hang laundry (2009)

#272

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>>I would not buy a property next to a home that had cars parked on the front lawn. I would not want to live next to someone who thinks that's appropriate and most people would agree with me. I never said it's approporiate. I wouldn't want to live next to such house either. But I find it unacceptable that you would like to regulate that away, just like I don't think it's acceptable to regulate whether someone can han…

The community regulates it. The community is sovereign over the individual. The individual can either accept this or leave the community. If they continue to violate the community then the community will shun them or exile them. This is how social systems work. Some people call it "cancel culture" but that's just the same thing at a larger scale and with new rules.

Yes but that's kinda my point - these sort of oppressive communities which have this level of control over their members only really seem to be common in America, the "land of the free" which I find incredibly ironic. I would have thought that not being told by your neighbour what you can or cannot do in your own front lawn would be a core principle of American life, but clearly I'd be wrong.

Re: U.S. residents fight for the right to hang laundry (2009)

#273
post #4

For the entirety of my life, we've hung or clothes to dry inside. No dryer. No, they don't smell bad. Yes, even with small kids in the household. No, there is no problem with mold. No, it doesn't take forever, I'd estimate twelve hours most of the year, depending on how fast you spun them (typically 1200+ rpm). Yes, the evaporating cools down the room, though I can't say I ever noticed it. In terms of energy efficien…

This story is about hanging laundry outside.

I think this is either irrelevant, or inconsiderate if the point was to suggest "They should just be ok with this other thing I was ok with instead of what they want to do." without the excuse that what they want is somehow bad for everyone else. She's not raising chickens, and even the bit about the horrors of seeing "unmentionables" is ridiculous and deserves no consideration at all.

Re: U.S. residents fight for the right to hang laundry (2009)

#274
post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

London has an interesting climate - despite being fairly far north it doesn't get that cold in winter. It is common there to not have whole house heating. Norway isn't far London, but it is enough worse a climate that pretty much everyone has some form of central heating and keeps their house warm year round. For this discussion is means that in London the indoor climate is livable, but terrible for trying clothes, w…

Central heating is fairly uncommon in Norway.

I haven't been to Norway, but I've been to Sweden which seems like it should be similar. All houses there have central heating.

Maybe you are thinking about district heating? There are a few places in the world where the heat for an entire town comes from the same plant and is piped around. This is also called central heating which makes it confusing, thought district heating is the more correct term from what I can tell. I'm talking about a single heating system that handles the whole house, not a system that handles the whole town.

Re: U.S. residents fight for the right to hang laundry (2009)

#275

Years 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.

My attempt:

Old people are frail. The world appears frail to them. And as you age, the flaws of the world become more apparent, and the world appears even more like it is hanging on an edge.

Of course most people also have rosy glasses about their good old days, where people followed the law and things just worked.

So old people think adhering to rules and avoiding chaos is what kept everything from falling apart.

Also, as you get older, your routine becomes everything, as your neuroplasticity decreases and ability to deal with change. Rules keep things the same.

EDIT:

Also, one of my favorite explanations of popular vs nerd people in high school: popular kids spend all their free time being popular. Nerds work on school and other things.

In that vein, old people don't really have anything to do other than be nosy. They sleep less, are retired, and living off social security means "hanging around where you're at and not doing much".

They are perversely like teenagers.

Re: U.S. residents fight for the right to hang laundry (2009)

#276

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Life was extremely rigid not that long ago. People knew their place and did not break the rules.

I am not sure if this is better or worse than my idiot downstairs neighbors that would party every weekend til 3am with zero regard for any of their neighbors. Then they are banging on the ceiling at 4pm on a Wednesday because we were moving furniture around for 15 minutes.

Re: U.S. residents fight for the right to hang laundry (2009)

#277

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

My attempt: Old people are frail. The world appears frail to them. And as you age, the flaws of the world become more apparent, and the world appears even more like it is hanging on an edge. Of course most people also have rosy glasses about their good old days, where people followed the law and things just worked. So old people think adhering to rules and avoiding chaos is what kept everything from falling apart. Al…

Also the first ten times you ask someone to stop doing something, you may be polite.

It's harder the fifty-five thousandth time, and that seeps into everything you do.

Also the old people who give absolutely zero shits; those you don't hear from.

Re: U.S. residents fight for the right to hang laundry (2009)

#278

Quoted post unavailable.

My experience in the US is that most folks' attitude about their home is that they should be able to do whatever they want, but no one around them should be able to change anything unless they like it. America is full of people who believe in their right to be completely their own person, and that everyone else should be exactly like them as well. By force, if necessary.

This is much more common in HOA-style developments.

You still get it in older non-HOA governed areas, but it's at least then at the level of laws (our town bans roosters and taxes chickens insanely high for example, lol).

Re: U.S. residents fight for the right to hang laundry (2009)

#279

Quoted post unavailable.

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.

Often the HOA is just a covenant bound to the land, so you own the land but have to follow the covenant.

Getting rid of a HOA is a fun exercise, and it's sometimes done, but rarely.

Re: U.S. residents fight for the right to hang laundry (2009)

#280
post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At home we stopped using the dryer and the electricity bill got reduced like a 30%. It's impossible to dry all the cloth in rainy winter weeks (imagine 10°C(50°F) and 90% of humidity), so now we are hanging towels, bed sheets and similar stuff and using dryer for small stuff, probably 50% and 50%.

Get a heat pump dryer and you'll have the convenience and it'll probably cost only 30% of what it used to cost you.

Get a spin-cycle front loader that bolts to the floor or a water extractor and hardly need to even use the heat pump!

https://speedqueencommercial.com/fr/products/hardmount-washe...

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