Student worried they 'could be dying' after showing what was growing out of their wall

A student started worrying that they might be sharing their home with a harmful occupant after they found an entire clump of mushrooms growing out of their walls.

Just for clarification, if you've got things growing out of your walls that's generally a sign that there's something wrong with your walls.

If actual, physical fungus sprouting out and making your home look like something akin to The Last of Us is what it takes for you to start worrying then you might want to adjust your threshold for what's acceptable.

There are plenty of student digs which aren't exactly exemplars of hygiene given the sheer number of occupants they've had over the years and the wear and tear that's resulted, but actual mushrooms growing out of the walls is a step too far.

For one student things got so bad that they eventually posted a picture of the offending fungus to Reddit, writing: "Found this growing in my university shared bathroom! The growth spans around 4-5 inches. Does anyone know what it is and if I will be dying???"

Yuck (Reddit)

Naturally, the fine folks of the internet piled in with various jokes about the terrible living standards of student accommodation and to joke that the fungal infection was evidence of a missing student from years gone by.

Beyond all that, there were people who reassured the stressed student that they weren't about to start coughing up their lungs due to some sort of infection.

That's because a 'mycology nerd' hopped into the comments and explained that these mushrooms were ink caps, which aren't poisonous by their presence alone.

However, the presence of this clump of mushrooms means 'severe and extensive water damage in your wall', which would suggest there's something up with the student bathroom.

So the student should be fine in the presence of their fungal infection.

These are ink caps, absolutely do not mix them with alcohol (Getty Stock Photo)

However, that's not to say that they should tear out the mushrooms and eat them up.

First and foremost, you shouldn't eat mushrooms growing out of your bathroom, but secondly it's because ink caps react particularly badly to one thing no student accommodation should be without.

Alcohol.

In general you are advised not to eat ink caps since some variants of them are poisonous, but the mushroom contains something called coprine which reacts badly to booze.

For this reason, ink caps are known as 'tippler's bane', and they can do you some real damage if there's any alcohol in your system when you eat them.

So don't eat them and get those walls looked at by a professional.