Think you know your American rights movements? Make sure your list includes the right to use a clothesline. It has an advocacy group, Project Laundry List, and a campaign, Right2Dry, to convince the Obamas to line dry their laundry on the White House lawn. Clothesline drying is of course an environmentally-friendly alternative to a gas or electric dryer. Who could possibly object to it, and for heaven’s sake, why?
Opponents, however, see clotheslines as flags of poverty that create eyesores and devalue property.
“They’re unsightly by most people’s standards,” said Jeanne Bridgforth, a Realtor with Long & Foster in Richmond. “It gives an atmosphere of decline. You don’t sense you’re in a well-heeled neighborhood when you see people hanging their laundry out to dry.”
Planned communities and condos frequently have covenants that ban or restrict the use of clotheslines. In the Richmond area, restrictions vary — from all-out prohibition, as in Charles Glen in Henrico County, to restricted use, as in Chesterfield County’s venerable Woodlake and Brandermill subdivisions.
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