Air drying clothes indoor is pretty bad. It is slow, takes space, and leaves textile in a bad state (at least for cotton and wool). Drying outside is good but not possible everywhere and not always. Also things like sheets and towels really should not be left to dry indoor.

I live in a place where it rains all the time and the driest month in terms of humidity is 80%, sometimes if I can’t hang things outside clothes take so long to dry inside that I end up having to wash them again because they start to smell

It greatly depends on where you live, and season. In my apartment in Bucharest, especially during the summer, clothes dry indoors in ~4h, and a bed sheet takes maybe 6h. In the winter, the time is usually double.

Still, drying clothes indoors has no ill effects, I have no idea where you got this. It's definitely better than exposing them to high temperatures like in most apartment tumble driers.

> during the summer, clothes dry indoors in ~4h, > drying clothes indoors has no ill effects

Maybe the first is why you think the second is always true? Where I live if I just leave laundry on a drying rack it won't dry for days, and once it is dryish it already smells stale and mouldy.

I'm glad that it works for you, but maybe the advice differs based on location, climate, maybe even architectural choices.

That's literally what they said in their first sentence.

Yes, and no.

They started out right and acknowledged that things can be different in different climates. But then in their second paragraph they made a categorical statement: “Still, drying clothes indoors has no ill effects, I have no idea where you got this.”

That is a general statement. They don’t think drying clothes indoors can have any ill effects. Ever. At any humidity level.

So they realise that the drying time can change quantitatively. What they miss is that there are qualitative effects which can happen too. And in their hurry they dismiss other people’s lived experience.

You're right, I do understand that if it takes days to dry, the dampness has a good chance of allowing mold to form, and that can be extremely harmful.

> Air drying clothes indoor is pretty bad [because it] leaves textile in a bad state (at least for cotton and wool).

> Also things like sheets and towels really should not be left to dry indoor.

Can you elaborate on both statements? I currently leave everything, including sheets and towels, to air dry indoors.

Not the OP, but indoor drying in winter at least where I live has the issue that (a) it tends to be so slow that the wash sometimes starts smelling stale, (b) it's just extracting heat from the house by evaporation, so it's going to raise your heating bills anyhow, perhaps? (c) you might end up having issues with indoor humidity, such as moldy walls.

Heat pump or condensing dryers may well be a better option.

Almost certainly the perfect solution will be situational. I mean, if your house is too dry in the winter, a bit of extra humidity might even be a feature, after all...

> you might end up having issues with indoor humidity

Winter air tends to be much drier than summer air, so much so that my bath towels dry on the rack in the winter overnight, but may stay damp for a whole day in the summer.

That said, water will condense at heat bridges (?)(poorly/not insulated parts of the wall) in the winter, causing mold, if the place is poorly insulated.

> Winter air tends to be much drier than summer air

Where I lived before, that's still 80% (usually 90-95% in summer)

That's relative humidity, not absolute. Absolute humidity has an additional Arrhenius (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arrhenius_equation) factor. For instance, 100% relative humidity at 40 C is 51.1 g/cm^3, while at 20 C it's only 17.3 g/cm^3.

You can also shower in the rain. I have seen people doing it in the 90s in Hannover on the occupied "Sprengelgelände".

Clothes and bedclothes dried outside are much nicer than the same dried in a tumble dryer.

I don't have space (I live in an apartment), but I regularly did this in England. It takes slightly more time to hang them out vs. stuff them in the dryer, and (in England) you need to keep an eye on the weather, but they end up smelling fresher.

A good dose of UV light probably helps.

UV is also great at making some food stains disappear.