How to Dry Your Clothes without a Dryer

This past week has been an apartment disaster. We've been without a stove, dryer, found a SCORPION, the air conditioner didn't keep our apartment cool for like a day, and the pumpkin Tyler picked out decided to rot prematurely.   Like, bad.  It was gross.  Really, really gross. So to start it off, last Wednesday we had some sort of power surge that I was pretty sure had fried the stove and dryer.  We had checked the breakers, and since the stove was still lighting up the clock (sometimes) but wasn't acting normal, it just seemed like it was totally fried.   It ended up actually being the breaker looking like it was flipped in the right direction, but it just wasn't ALL THE WAY on, which made me feel like a doofus when I told maintenance I checked it and then that was actually the problem. So with that in consideration, we had no way to cook.  And if we were to do laundry, it meant we had to air dry it.  And since the apartment has a dryer, of course they don't supply you with a clothes line. So it was like reliving my days in China, where I also had to dry my clothes without a dryer and without a true clothesline.  Well, there was kind of one inside. Because having a dryer is so convenient and most of us forget about drying our clothes using more traditional methods (aka AIR), I thought I would show off some of my "drying clothes without a clothes line or a dryer" methods. This method is "the pull-up bar."
This method works best with quick-drying materials that can be hung on a hanger.
The cousin to "the pull-up bar" is "the shower curtain rod" method for drying.

I call this drying method "the doorknob." It works well for thin materials or those that come equipped with straps.

Just know that if you choose to use doorknobs to dry your socks, just make sure you aren't using the front door, as the neighbors might get the wrong impression.

 This method is the "outdoor hanger on a nail."  It is best used with thick materials that will dry slowly, and also best used if the outdoors are dry and warm.  If the outdoors are not dry and warm, you may expect an abnormal smell to come from the clothes after a few days of "drying" without really drying.

 The "outdoor doorknob" is a variant of "the doorknob" ideally the method that is used with a thicker material that must be outdoors to dry quickly.

This method is the "I've run out of places to hang very slowly drying heavy clothes" place.  

Rotation is a key factor to air drying clothes with this method.

To those of you who currently live or have lived using the "air dry" method for an extended period of time, how would you describe laundry days without a dryer?   I know for me, air drying clothes was something that meant you couldn't do all your laundry in one day (due to the space of a Chinese apartment, there are limited places to hang wet clothes - and putting them outside means they'll smell like smog).  Laundry was something that was a process all the time - there weren't times when it was all "done," and there was usually something either dirty or wet. And to those who do live with a dryer, what would you do for your laundry if you couldn't use it for a week?  Let the laundry pile up, let it air dry, or go to a friend's place?