Jerry O’Connell Tries Not to ‘Gross Everybody Out’ with Gnarly Mound of Lint Extracted from His Broken Dryer

Jerry O’Connell learned a “gross” lesson in home maintenance this week.

“Don’t want to gross everybody out but our washer/dryer broke yesterday and this was found inside the components,” he wrote on Instagram alongside a photo of him gripping a massive wad of fuzzy gray lint.

He added a “shout out” to his intrepid repairman, “David at Top Tech Appliance.”

Fans expressed their genuine concern over the find in the comment section, with one writing, “Omg you have to be so careful so you’re safe Jerry !!!!!” Another added, “That was one gross fire waiting to happen.”

Others praised his candor, “You’re the realest,” one follower commented. Someone even proposed a second life for the voluminous bundle, writing, “I would like to make a sweater from this.”

While emptying the lint filter of your dryer after every load is a common task — and a safety necessity as it prevents build up that can cause a fire — it seems that O’Connell’s issue went deeper as his fuzzy build-up was extracted from other “components” of the machine, which it can filter into over time.

The experts at Whirlpool recommend doing a deeper clean, checking your dryer’s vent and ductwork at least once every two years to prevent lint build up that could impact your machine’s performance.

The former The Talk host often shares dispatches from his relatable home life with wife Rebecca Romijn and their children, tktktk, whether its crafting notes for his kids about school absences or letting Romijn DIY his eyebrows.

Lint best practices also made headlines recently when a woman went viral on Tiktok for her shocking discovery in her dryer.

Kailey Bradley shared the hilarious story of her 22-year-old sister Delaney’s laundry enlightenment. When Delaney made a comment about her dryer taking multiple cycles to get things fully dry, Kailey’s husband, Rane, asked if she’d “cleaned out your lint trap in a while?”

In response, Delaney said, “What are you talking about?”

Rane took the back off her dryer to explain how to clean out the lint, but what he saw left them all shocked.

“We couldn’t believe my sister’s house hadn’t caught fire with the amount of lint in her dryer,” Kailey, 31, told PEOPLE exclusively. “The amount shown in the video isn’t even half of what came out of the back of it.”

“We are in a family of four sisters, we are pretty ditzy, and stuff like this happens all the time,” she adds. “Thankfully we have praying parents.”