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In ancient Japan, it was customary to wash kimonos of the deceased and hang them out to dry at night to ward off evil spirits. The kimonos were brought back in the morning and carefully put away. Drying laundry at night was considered unlucky because it was reminiscent of the kimonos of the dead.
In addition, night is the time when monsters and ghosts come, along with an abundance of negative energy. If they see laundry drying, they will relate this to death. Your clothes will absorb that negative energy, you will become sick and die.
It's estimated there are over 25,000 coin-operated laundromats in Japan open 24 hours a day, so it's pretty clear that this suspicion is either not widely known by Japanese people or just ignored.
Certainly there's a slight risk bad luck if you leave laundry out at night, although infestation is likely to be bugs rather than negative energy - whatever that means. (Actually negative ions might have positive effects, due to the chemical reactions that ions have with your bodily tissues and DNA. But that spoils the superstition, so we won't mention that.)
Unlucky also if it rains while you're asleep, or if the morning dew makes your laundry damper than the night before.
A more serious bit of bad luck is if a thief notices your laundry - and we're not talking about kinky pantie thieves. Drying laundry overnight is a sign to thieves that you're not at home during the day, meaning they can break in and steal.
So take your laundry to the coin-op and read a good book for 50 minutes until the washing and drying cycle is complete. Monsters and ghosts don't wear clothes, so they never go to laundromats.