“I like your New York City-style clothesline,” said an aged relation of my husband. She was traveling with my in-laws, and staying with us for an extended visit a few summers ago.

Unfortunately, this particular relation was known for hiding what she really meant behind words that meant something else entirely. Like the time we visited her in Michigan and she kept telling us we didn’t need to dress for dinner. It was years later that we found out what she really meant: “Change out of those dirty shorts and T-shirts before coming to the table.”

So my father-in-law and I pondered what she might really mean about my laundry, drying outside on a sunny day.

“Do you think she likes the homey look?” he wondered.

“Do you think she means it looks like I live in a tenement?” I asked.

Apparently, that’s what she meant.

It always surprises me that people don’t like clotheslines. What’s not to like? Drying clothes in the sunshine is free, sunlight is a disinfectant, the clothes smell great and, if you hang them right, the sun takes care of the ironing too.

When my friend Kristen was showing us around her new house, we noticed right away how convenient it would be to string a clothesline right off her back porch. But Kristen lives in one of those neighborhoods with a homeowners’ association and a deed restriction that bans clotheslines.

It seemed crazy to us, but it wasn’t a deal breaker for Kristen, and anyway, she has a big, dry basement she can hang laundry in if she wants, without offending neighbors.

My in-laws’ neighborhood in Florida bans all kinds of things, from asphalt roofing shingles to parking pickup trucks on the street.

But they can’t ban clotheslines.

Florida, the Sunshine State, was the first in the nation to ban restrictions on clotheslines and, for a long time, was the only state with such a law. “A deed restriction, covenant, declaration or similar binding agreement may not prohibit or have the effect of prohibiting solar collectors, clotheslines, or other energy devices based on renewable resources from being installed on buildings erected on the lots or parcels covered by the deed restriction, covenant, declaration, or binding agreement,” the state law reads.

Translation: Even neighborhoods that can dictate house color, plantings and roofing tile can’t make you take down your clothesline.

Project Laundry List, a nonprofit organization pushing to get clothesline bans lifted nationwide, says that dryers account for 10 percent to 15 percent of domestic energy used in the United States. Other estimates put the figure at closer to 6 percent, but either way, line drying is an easy way to save energy, and money on your electric bill.

And air drying your clothes makes them last longer and smell better, Project Laundry List says. They also don’t shrink, or get snagged by zippers. Some people complain that line-dried towels are stiff, but throwing them in the dryer for a few minutes takes care of that problem.

Last month, Vermont passed a state law banning restrictions that ban clotheslines. The “Right to Dry” bill had been proposed 10 years earlier.

Colorado and Utah also protect clotheslines, while New Hampshire and Connecticut both failed to pass similar laws last year. Maine is considering a bill now — it passed in the House earlier this month.

Last year, Hawaii Gov. Linda Lingle vetoed a Right to Dry bill, saying homeowners associations should be allowed to set their own rules. But the bill is back on her desk, and she has until July 15 to act on it, according to the Honolulu Star-Bulletin.

In New Hampshire, The Concord Monitor weighed in on the Right to Dry in an editorial, published before that state’s bill died in committee: “Down with prudery. Up with the campaign to conserve energy and slow global warming. Sing the praises of the humble clothesline and roll back the rules and laws that ban hanging bloomers in the breeze.”

Which reminds me of a person who lived in Kristen’s town, but not her neighborhood. The homeowner’s association sent her a letter, asking her to remove her clothesline. It seems people found it unsightly.

Since the clothesline owner didn’t even live in the realm of the homeowners’ association, she staged a silent protest, hanging out the largest undergarments she could find, and leaving them there, sun and rain, for a few weeks. There were no further letters, and eventually she resumed using her line to dry her regular laundry.

My own clothesline is not a protest or a statement. It’s just a free, easy, energy-efficient way to dry my clothes, and I’m glad there’s no law telling me I can’t use it.

Margaret Hartley is the Gazette’s Sunday and features editor. Greenpoint appears in the Gazette’s print edition Sundays on the Environment page.

Have a question or a topic you’d like addressed on Greenpoint? Add a comment below, or email greenpoint@dailygazette.net.