IT’S one of the most popular places to go with kids during the school holidays.
But there are down sides to taking children to the soft play, as Jessie Cave found out recently.
The former Harry Potter actress, who is a mum of four, took to TikTok to share her disgust after spotting “balls of furry mould” at her local one.
“I just want to talk for a second about soft play,” she said.
“We go because we want our kids to be happy, sure.
“But we also know that we will get sick almost immediately as soon as we leave soft play.”
Jessie – who played Lavender Brown in the Potter movies – said that the idea mums are able to “sit and look at our phones while they go and play and explore” is never accurate.
So she ended up going around with her kids, at which point she spotted dirt.
“Just as I sit down somewhere at the top, like near a trampoline or a rotating thing, I peer into the crevices between slides,” she said.
“And I just see big balls of fur, like furry mould – huge balls of just mould and dirt that have obviously gathered over years.
“And you just think, why? Why?”
“Why do we go soft play?” Jessie, 37, questioned in the caption for the video, which showed her plaiting her long hair.
Other mums in the comments section were quick to weigh in, with many admitting they take measures to stop their kids getting sick when they get back from soft play.
“We always do a Dettol bath after soft play…” one wrote.
“Saved us a few times… also when the bugs are going round the school!”
“Dettol baths are a must after soft play,” another added.
“The kids love the soft play, I absolutely hate the soft play.”
“Soft play is THE absolute worst thing. Ever,” a third commented.
“No one can sway me otherwise!”
“So true,” someone else wrote.
“The teenagers working there are absolutely not cleaning.”
While others revealed they and their children had come down with bugs after recent visits to the soft play.
“Took my one year old to soft play on Sunday,” one wrote.
“Had a sickness bug by Tuesday. Couldn’t even keep water down!”
“Those places are the worst and we always get some mutant virus that lasts 3 weeks after,” another sighed.
“I have made the decision that the happiness the soft play brings does not outweigh the sadness a bug brings so we don’t go,” another added.
“We had 7 sickness bugs in like 4 months and I have actual PTSD.”
