Is letting the laundry dry at home really dangerous?

Due to bad weather or lack of space, we often tend to leave the laundry to dry at home. Are there any risks involved in doing this?

Both during the winter and in periods when it rains frequently, hanging and letting the laundry dry indoors is one of the most common habits. This method is also used when you have to dry laundry without a balcony . There are those who avoid this habit by using an electric dryer , but not everyone has one and there are cases in which drying laundry inside the house seems inevitable.

However, information often circulates about the danger of this habit and there is also talk of real health risks, but how much is there of truth?

Hanging out the laundry indoors: is it bad or not?

When you leave the laundry to dry at home, the moisture contained in your clothes and laundry evaporates and stays in the environment. The accumulation of humidity in household environments can favor the spread of molds that develop and spread on surfaces favored by humid environments.

This has led to the spread of the theory according to which hanging the laundry at home is really harmful to health, because it would lead to the spread of Aspergillus fumigatus , a theory also debunked by Butac , the Italian portal against disinformation.

Furthermore, the fungus in question, Aspergillus fumigatus , does not cause problems for the immune system except in particular conditions, especially in the cases of immunosuppressed individuals.

In these cases, in fact, the immune system is not able to counteract the spread of the fungus spores. It is these spores that, if inhaled, can cause aspergillosis , which manifests itself with symptoms such as asthma in cases of allergic aspergillosis.

Drying your laundry at home: the tips to follow

Although a real alarmism has been widespread regarding the habit of hanging laundry at home, the risks we are talking about are actually attributable to the conditions of the home itself.

It is therefore important to keep an environment as healthy as possible inside the house. Furthermore, these precautions must be greater if someone with particular health conditions lives in the house that make them sensitive to dust or mold.

For this reason, hanging the laundry frequently inside the house can cause an increase in humidity that makes the environment unhealthy. This occurs above all when it is not possible to properly ventilate the environment, to avoid it, it is therefore sufficient to rely on common sense and preferably spread outside.