Brit discovers huge spider in their home but refuses to let it be killed

'That's huge. He should be paying rent'

Danny Higgins posted a picture of the creepy-crawly on the British Spider Identification Facebook and asked for help identifying it.

Danny said he found it at a mate's house.

"Trying to ID this for a friend, was thinking maybe Male Eratigena SP, any suggestions welcome, thank you in advance," he wrote in the post.

A lot of commenters were taken aback by the size of the spider and even suggested Danny's friend forfeit the house to the intruder.

"They are proper (sic) getting huge now!" one person commented.

Another commenter said they are not normally scared of spiders "but that looks like the mf (sic) from Harry Potter get out of the house to safety."

A third added that they'd move out as it was "his house now."

Others helpfully tried to help Danny identify the species of spider he had found.

One person suggested it looked more like a huntsman than a giant house spider GHS), adding: "Either way that's huge. He should be paying rent."

"It looks too much like a tank to be a GHS. It looks like a huntsman," someone else agreed.

A third person commented: "Sparrassidae, huntsman, native to Australia, bananas of cargo maybe."

Danny later updated his post to explain that he had his friend were both wheelchair users, so had called Environmental Health to catch the spider for him.

He wrote: "[They] have arranged to pick this big boy up, thank you to everyone for your suggestions and advice! Keeping a safe distance and a watchful eye on him until then, may the odds forever be in my favour."

However, Danny soon changed his mind when told by several commenters that health officials would likely dispose of the spider and that he would be better off "re-homed".

One person wrote: "I'm sure someone on here would have re-homed it and ID'd it for you. Such a shame the environmental health/pest control will end up destroying it," one person commented.

"We had someone who could have re-homed it for you as well. Environmental health will most likely kill it," added a second.

Danny later reassured the spider fans that the arachnid would, in fact, find a new home after all, as a friend had offered to re-house it.

"After finding out Environmental Health would kill it, I've cancelled their visit and have spoken to a good friend who specialises in homing spiders, didn't sit right with me that I'd be responsible for its death… so he will be picked up very shortly," he wrote.

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