Ever wonder what happened to Bend’s Clothesline Lady? She hasn’t gone away or given up – she’s still out there fighting.
The back story: More than two years ago, Susan Taylor decided to start hanging clothes to dry on a line outside her Awbrey Butte home. She thought it would be good for the environment (using nature’s own sun instead of an electricity-gobbling clothes dryer) and she liked the smell of clothes dried in the fresh air.
Alas, the Awbrey Butte homeowners’ association had a 25-year-old rule against outdoor clotheslines. One of Taylor’s neighbors complained, and Brooks Resources (which had built the neighborhood and was in charge of enforcing the rules) told her to cease and desist forthwith.
Taylor tried to get the rule rescinded, without success. She tried to get the state legislature to pass a bill overriding the clothesline ban; it got nowhere. She even tried putting her clothesline inside her garage; Brooks Resources told her that wasn’t allowed either, unless the garage doors were closed.
Meanwhile, Taylor’s battle was becoming a minor international cause célèbre. The Wall Street Journal did a front-page story. NPR and the BBC picked it up. Even a German TV news channel covered it.
Flash forward to September 2009, when Taylor was informed that “continuous acts of non-compliance will result in per-day fines of $20.” She moved the clothesline to the far end of her deck, where Ponderosa pines and other vegetation made it almost impossible to see. She heard no further complaints from the neighbors, so she figured they were cool with it.
They were not. On March 8, when Taylor got her annual statement from the homeowners’ association, “I found out the bite-me-in-the-butt reality.” The statement said she owed the association $994.50, representing $20-a-day fines accumulated since September plus interest. Taylor has appealed the amount and is waiting to hear from the association board.
“What an interesting journey this has been,” Taylor says. “I continue to be as baffled today as I was initially by the negative response by a limited few, for something so benign and rational. Could this be a reflection of a system and country that has gone a bit haywire?”
Taylor told me that media interest has revived now that the controversy has heated up and that a big news outfit in New York (she declined to name it) is working on a story. So it looks like the clothesline saga could put Bend in the national, or international, spotlight again.
Bend, Oregon, World Capital of Weirdness – where men have babies, people fly in lawn chairs and you can get nicked a thousand bucks just for hanging clothes on a line. Ya gotta love it.
This article appears in Mar 18-24, 2010.
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Pity she can’t just tell her neighbors to pull that stick out of their buttes.
That is just wrong! (the clothesline ban/fines part anyway)
HBM, what you wrote is making me cry with laughter. you are so right. who woulda thunk it that hanging clothes out to dry would be an international scoop.
now here is an actual loss of freedom being suffered at the hands of a governing body of questionable legitimacy, where is glenn beck when you need him? “where for art tho porcine alabaster knight? tilting at the windmills of socialism along the potomac?” all awhile real americans slowly lose the freedom to fly their tighty whities in the rarified breezes of a brooks resources(reg. trademark) subdivision.
i guess if it’s a corporation negating your liberties, that’s ok. but if the government,the actual body charged with regulating our behavior, when needed,impinges on your freedom to… fill in the right/freedom you think obama has restricted… holy shamoley! call out the cavalry of porky, emoting hand wringers.
Thrill to their performance as they pretend as if now, now, finally rome is burning and we must man the barricades against this insidious plague of people who look and think differentley than we do. disregard the fact, weak minds, that these odd folk were elected and have yet to have any of their intiatives declared unconstitional by the scotus… unlike a certian past president who shall remain nameless, for the mere mention of his name reinvigorates the bloglodytes to insist we should not be looking backward at the follies and illegalities of the past, but should instead focus on the percieved, but not yet realized socialist takeover of our country from within by radical islamofacists.
it is my understading that when the islamofacists finally realize their complete takeover of our government, the first decree they issue will place a worldwide ban on people like the audacious ms.taylor who feels impelled to dry her bloomers in the air we must all breath. off with her head!
i can only hope that some alert fox news viewer has notified the home office of this injustce now unfolding on the slopes of awebrey butte. an i ain’t trying to start a rumor or anything, but i heard barry obama is actually a silent partner in brooks resources(reg.trademak)
I agree that the rule seems silly, but it was never a secret to Ms. Taylor or anyone else who purchased property. This and other rules, silly as they may seem, are part of what she and others bought into. Personally, I wouldn’t want to buy into this crap (and, really, the same neighborhood’s no-fences rule would be far more objectionable to many Bend humans), but if I had I wouldn’t whine about what I had signed on for.
If Ms. Taylor were truly serious about the environment, she’d either (1) purchase a property that doesn’t promote upscale sprawl and/or (2) go to the trouble of putting up a screen that measures up to the rules of the neighborhood. She would also quit inflicting her faux-martyrdom story on whoever will take her calls.
This clothesline war begs the question:
Is the USA in need of HOA reform, as much as health care or HMO reform?
I have been following these types of clothesline complaints for over a year now and they all have the same theme. The environmentally conscious individuals are up against the HOAs whose constitutions and covenants are ruled by their respective board members. Unfortunately there will always be those neighbors who don’t like each other and have nothing better to do than seek to exert power. Don't kid yourself because, solar panels and rain barrels are the next items up for dispute on the HOA war room wallboard. The only resolution to these disputes is a state level environmental (green) legislation that over-rules all covenants and bi-laws disallowing a clothesline or other residential energy conservation devices.
State level legislation does a number of things. It makes the big boys and gals look good to the masses, because we all want to live healthier and cleaner lives, and a bold move at the state level will not become a political sacrifice. The legislation will blanket every town and rural community and municipality.
Don't rely on the municipalities or HOA board members because these sub levels of governing (shark tanks) are fed by political hunger for power and money.
It worked in the province of Ontario, Canada. The Environmental Act and the Green Energy Green Economy Act have blanketed all freely held property owners with the right dry and to live responcibly. The only remaining covenants against clotheslines in Ontario are in co-ops and condos where the homes are not freely held. When the exteriors are maintained by the management company, i.e. external structures and landscaping, then you have liability and insurance risks dictating the rules.
So my suggestion is that homeowners who want to hang out their laundry have two choices:
Take this issue to the state level
or
Avoid living in communities with HOAs.
Are they not unconstitutional anyway? I mean really people! Why do we seek to live in a unionized community where most of the board members are political wanabees and NIMBY's?
Does the general public really not see that the HOA is just another layer of capitalism, costing homeowners billions of dollars a year to do what? Protect them from disrepair? Have some complete stranger dictate the color of your neighborhood or the way you live?
Have any of the HOA's protected homeowners from bank foreclosure? I doubt it!
What she needs to do is tell them that they have to prove she had clothes on the line every day that they charged her the $20. See where that gets them!