Home › Topics › Home, yard and graveyard
Clotheslines, spite fences, gravestones and the things on your own property.
Our overview
These laws reach into places people think of as their own. Florida bars local ordinances from banning the clothesline, and bars covered deed restrictions from banning it on buildings on the covered lots, grouping it with solar collectors as an energy device based on renewable resources. Maine calls a needlessly tall fence kept up to annoy the neighbors a private nuisance.
North Carolina's rule reaches the cemetery: no gravestone may carry an inscription charging anyone with a crime, and whoever runs the cemetery has a duty to remove such an inscription.
Written by Silly Rules from the quoted laws below. Not legal advice.
Florida · Fla. Stat. 163.04
“the adoption of an ordinance by a governing body, as those terms are defined in this chapter, which prohibits or has the effect of prohibiting the installation of solar collectors, clotheslines, or other energy devices based on …”
Maine · 17 M.R.S. § 2801
“Any fence or other structure in the nature of a fence, unnecessarily exceeding 6 feet in height, maliciously kept and maintained for the purpose of annoying the owners or occupants of adjoining property, shall be deemed a private nuisance.”
North Carolina · N.C. Gen. Stat. 14-401.3
“It shall be illegal for any person to erect or cause to be erected any gravestone or monument bearing any inscription charging any person with the commission of a crime, and it shall be illegal for any person owning, controlling …”
Every quote on this site was matched against its official page on October 14, 2026. Text match only; current legal status and enforcement not verified.