Never Dry Your Laundry Indoor: A Man Got Quite a Shock When He Went to the Doctor!

A 43-year-old man stopped drying clothes indoors for the last 12 months. Experts warn that drying indoors can lead to serious health problems.

Craig Mather (43) from Bolton said that due to drying clothes at home he got himself a lung infection. He suffered serious lung problems due to mold spores that occurred from drying clothes on the radiator in his living room.

‘’ I started to recover only when I was diagnosed with chronic pulmonary aspergillosis and was prescribed the specific drugs to fight the fungal infection’’, said Mather the father of three children.

The doctor told him that his problems could become even more serious, therefore he stopped drying clothes at home for the last 12 months. Since then he noticed a big improvement in his health.

Mather is far from the only one who’s made this mistake. Drying laundry indoors can pose a serious health risk to people with weakened immune systems or severe asthma, doctors have warned.

Namely, when you dry your clothes on a drying rack or you just put them over your radiator, you will increase the humidity in your home by 30 %. This extra moisture creates ideal breeding conditions for mold spores and dust mites.

So, when you dry a pile of clothes, they contain almost 2 liters of water. Most people are either immune to the fungus which grows in these humid conditions, or they have a healthy system to combat this infection. However, people who suffer from asthma can experience some serious side effects such as coughing and difficulty breathing and in people with weak immune systems, such as cancer patients undergoing chemotherapy; the fungus can cause pulmonary aspergillosis. This is a condition that cannot be cured which can sometimes cause fatal damage to the lungs.

Professor David Denning says that you should always dry your wet clothes outside, in a tumble dryer or in a well-ventilated indoor space away from bedrooms and living areas.