Interestingly enough, even in these days when we are looking for ways to save electricity, there are apparently a number of developments that ban the use of clotheslines. I suspect that these developments don't ban yard sales, which to me are a much more repulsive sight than clean clothes hanging out on a clothesline.
Down in St. Albans, I have seen some of the apartment buildings on the second or third story that have the pulley type clothesline hooked to a tree from a small back porch and have never even thought of that as being offensive. We have several people here in Fairfax that I have spoken with that always hang their clothes outside.
I do remember though that my mother used to hang her clothes out on the porch, no matter how cold it got and do remember walking on the porch and running into my Dad's frozen long johns. Not sure how this all worked out though, because those clothes couldn't possibly dry out there all frozen and I do remember seeing some brought in the house to dry on portable racks that she had.
We have a clothesline out back of the house that I use for drying clothes in the summer if the weather is good - So far none of the neighbors have complained. The one thing I don't hang out is towels as I find they are not as nice and fluffy, however, one Fairfax resident told me that she just put them in the dryer without heat for a few minutes and that does the trick.
An article in this morning's Free Press brought this clothesline topic to my mind and you can read it if you wish along with the comments of some of the Free Press On Line Readers:
http://www.burlingtonfreepress.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=200880702041 (http://www.burlingtonfreepress.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=200880702041)