Delaney Neal has lived by herself for two years
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Kailey Bradley was sitting at Christmas breakfast with her family in Scott County, Tenn., when her sister Delaney Neal mentioned that she had to dry her clothes for three cycles before they were completely done.
Upon hearing this, Kailey’s husband, Rane, turned to Delaney and asked, “Have you cleaned out your lint trap in a while?”
In response, Delaney, 22, said, “What are you talking about?”
Immediately, Rane told Delaney that after breakfast, he and the family would go over to take a look at what was wrong — which is exactly what they did. But once they arrived at Delaney’s house and Rane took the back off the dryer to explain how to clean out the lint, 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, tells 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.”
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Kailey decided to pull out her phone film the whole mishap. She knew it would be funny and appalling, but never imagined anyone else would find it as crazy as her family.
But then, she posted the video on TikTok, and the views just kept coming. Since then, the video has amassed more than 7.8 million views and 5,500 comments.
“Here’s me thinking it will start on fire if I miss emptying it one single time 😂,” one user commented.
“As a large loss claims adjuster who handles fire claims, I’m surprised we haven’t met,” another person wrote.
Someone else said, “Are people not taught how to do laundry 😭.”
“I called my sister at first and said, ‘Guess what? 800 people have seen your video!'” Kailey tells PEOPLE, upon seeing the video go viral. “She was amazed. Now, almost 8 million people have seen it, and we’re in complete shock. At first, the rude comments bothered me, but then we decided, ‘We don’t even know these people — who cares?’”
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After the incident, Delaney threw away all the lint. Kailey says she hopes this serves as a reminder to her sister — and to everyone else — to clean their lint traps.
“You too can prevent dryer fires by checking your lint trap regularly,” she says.
