Laree Clarke returned home one day to discover an unwanted houseguest in her living room. And the sight of the unexpected guest sent her into an immediate panic.
The guest wasn’t a person, but rather, a massive huntsman spider that was crawling all over Clarke’s living room ceiling. Although the spider scared her, Clarke stopped for a second to snap a few photos of it.
She posted the pictures on Facebook, and begged people for help. Even though she was scared of the spider, she wanted to remove it safely from her home. However, she wasn’t able to do so herself.
When one person commented on her post and told her to put a container over the spider to trap it, Clarke said she didn’t have a container that was big enough. She also added a horrifying detail, writing, “when I went near it with the phone light it come(sic) at me raising it(sic) fangs and legs…”
She was definitely in need of a large container, because the spider that was lurking on her ceiling was described as being the size of a saucepan.
You want to see just how big it was? Here you go…
While most people told Clarke to just burn down her house or kill the spider “with fire,” she didn’t follow that advice. She eventually updated the post, saying the spider was captured and released back into the wild.
Massive huntsman spiders like this one are actually fairly common where Clarke lives in Australia. Earlier this year, a news story about a large huntsman spider found eating a pygmy possum went viral.
This incident actually occurred in Tasmania, an island off the coast of mainland Australia. A horrified couple found the spider in their hotel room, and filmed it in the act of eating the possum. You can watch that gruesome footage below, if you dare.
How would you react if you found such a big spider in your home?