I have to out myself here as a believer in the power of the sun and wind to do the job we blithely give to electricity hungry drying machines.
Confessions over, you could have a lot of fun with this and go totally Bush Lawyer on them. If what you say is true (and I don’t doubt it is) then someone would have to be inside the building to be able to see on to your balcony. If that’s the case, you haven’t breached the by-law which was clearly written to apply to laundry that could be seen from the street – another issue entirely.
Send it back with a note saying you have not breached the by-law because it’s impossible to see on to your balcony from outside the building and you look forward to the mediation session at Fair Trading where they show evidence that the washing was visible from anywhere but inside the building.
I shouldn’t encourage you, really, but I’m seeing a whole re-enactment of the “magic bullet” scene from JFK, with charts and powerpoints. However, I’m betting myself a dark chocolate Tim Tam that the response will be a stunned silence.