Is it normal/ok or rare/not ok, to dry your laundry outside of your window in your country?

13 comments

1. It is the absolute norm here in spain.

   Having a drier is a luxury and a rarity

2. “Obviously, if you had a Landry drier you’d use that, I suppose?”

   No.

   In Belgium obviously we need a drier because, well, winter is a thing.

   But whenever possible people will hang it outside. It’s rather the norm to have a place to hang up clothes in the backyard.

3. Totally normal. Driers are expensive and pretty Big.

4. It’s starting to be a trend for posh urbanites to think that is ugly. Several municipalities are banning it. Many rarely enforced; that coming more through peer pressure. I recently had a *fight* over a building project of renovation, where they went with a huge budget to hide the hangers (poor neighborhood, no one has dryers, tiny homes with no space). Some puritans complain they don’t want to see the panties of some young lady. Don’t f-ing look at them!

   In this case the Americas are more civilized. Some state laws are taking action and passing laws that **forbid to forbid** hanging clothes.

5. That doesn’t happen in Sweden, and it’s something I associate a lot with Italy. Swedish apartment houses don’t have clotheslines outside and it would be weird. We use tumble driers instead – you have your own if you live in a house, or the communal one in the basement of your apartment building. The climate of course plays a huge role, the air is fairly humid and not very warm for most of the year, so it’s not like drying outside would be very effective.

   On sunny summer days, I do sometimes bring a rack into my garden to dry things on it, but our summer lasts about two weeks.

6. It’s ok, but not quite common. People usually have [this thing](https://im9.cz/iR/importprodukt-orig/84a/84ad4586de9bfab14538e86f01eef8cf–mmf400x400.jpg) inside their flats.

7. Out of the window isn’t too common. However, on a normal clothesline is still fairly common, since wind and sun are obviously free, and us Dutch people love free things.

   My parents have I think some 20 meter of clothesline outside and use that when possible, but due to our climate it can rain every day so sometimes we had to run and get the laundry before it got too wet. We do have a dryer, but that’s mainly used in the winter. And I don’t think there are many households without a drying rack.

8. On old flats there are still laundry-racks, build in below windows facing the backyards, to be seen. Only in old living complexes in cities, though. You don’t see that in suburbs in Germany, nor in the countryside.

9. It never happens here. It’s one of those tropes we associate with the southern europe which seems to be true.

   Some people might dry their laundry on their yard if they have a house but I feel like that’s not that common either. Houses have enough room to have a dryer.

10. Hanging the laundry out of the window like in Italy is uncommon, I have never seen one of these racks below a window here. If you have a balcony or a terrasse though, it is very common to put a drying rack outside, if the weather is nice enough. It has the advantage that you can carry the whole thing inside with the laundry, if it starts to rain. In winter or without a balcony most people leave the rack and the laundry inside, which isn’t as bad as it sounds. It moistens the air a bit, which gets really dry from heating.

11. Yes in Croatia although in the winter it can get wet or super windy because of the massive mountains overlooking the coast. I think it looks nice and definitely saves money

12. In apartment blocks, it’s very often not allowed. A lot of management companies have rules against it or putting clothes out on a balcony. I just use a clothes horse inside to dry clothes.

    If you have a house & private garden, having a clothes line is standard & people use them when the weather permits.

13. Absolutely normal in Sicily.

    We have a washing line at the back of the apartment,we nearly always hang things out there to dry.