The forests are colorful and even the most remote city park suddenly looks like it stepped out of a Claude Monet canvas. It’s true, but autumn also has its disadvantages. Probably the worst: short days, long nights and days spent on the waterStorms that can last for weeks in regions with an Atlantic climate make it almost reckless to leave the house without an umbrella on your arm.

In such a situation, drying the laundry can be a difficult process.

It’s a frustrating, unhealthy and even expensive ordeal.

Or at least that’s the case in homes around most of the world; We often use dryers that take up space and increase electricity bills, radiators and stoves that do not offer an efficient solution, or indoor clotheslines. what clothes they stay hanging for days before the laundry basket overflows and dries completely.

Except Tokyo.

learning from japan

There they found a way to dry the laundry in autumn and winter efficient, fast and without bad odors. In the capital of Japan, a city with a humid subtropical climate, abundant rainfall, and also with a large number of small apartments (so many and so small that sometimes one has to talk about “microhousing”), they developed a technique. Keep clothing clean and well-ventilated all year round. And without the help of dryers.

The system is called the “hanging rainbow,” and while it sounds a bit poetic, it’s actually a graphical description of how clothes should be arranged.

The first step is to find a well-ventilated room in the house where air circulates and, if possible, is heated by the sun for part of the day. There we will place our clothesline, rod or rope and on top of them – and this is an important part of the technique – we will place the clothes. rainbow shaped.

Like? An attempt is made to draw an inverted “U” on the clothes, so that the longest clothes will be at the ends, and the shortest ones will be gradually distributed towards the inside. Japanese real estate portal Apts, which is specifically aimed at renting in Tokyo, even includes a chart on how clothes should be arranged to ensure efficient and fast drying.

“When hanging clothes, leave enough room for air to circulate. Japan’s humidity can make the air seem heavier, meaning clothes will take longer to dry,” the platform explains. rainbow shapedHook the longest ones to the ends and the shortest ones as you move inward. “Hang one side of the towels longer than the other for better air circulation.”

According to their calculations, this technique saves significant time. If arranging the laundry in a “V” shape takes four and a half hours to dry a load, arranging them in an upside-down “U” shape will allow you to cut that time down to just one hour. four hours.

That’s not the only thing you need to consider. If you want good drying and to prevent your clothes from getting a musty smell, Apts also recommends not leaving your clothes in the washing machine for longer than absolutely necessary. This means that after the washing process is completed, the clothes can be removed “immediately” without waiting.

“Even leaving clothes in the machine for 10 minutes can cause odor,” he warns. Other tips include placing clothes perpendicular to air circulation and away from the room’s entrance, or using hangers to prevent fabrics from being close together after being distributed on the clothesline. Ideally, they should be as far away from each other as possible. For smaller socks or underwear, you can use octopus directly.

Purpose: To make drying clothes less troublesome in autumn and winter months…

…without having to spare space and money for a dryer.

Pictures | Leroy Tan (Unsplash) and Atul Vinayak (Unsplash)

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*An earlier version of this article was published in November 2023.