A student turned to the internet for advice, but it wasn’t education-related—instead, their computer had been hijacked by creepy crawlies.
The image posted by u/Duck_Shover is an arachnophobe’s worst nightmare, showing tiny spiders emerging from the cracks of their computer screen. The horrifying image, captioned, “It appears there was a spider egg in my computer, any advice?” quickly went viral, amassing 79,000 upvotes since it was shared on September 24.
The user told Newsweek: “When I originally posted, I assumed there would be loads more inside. I always thought that spider eggs were full of hundreds or even thousands of baby spiders.”
The tiny spiders running down the side of the computer.
Reddit/Duck_Shover
According to EcoGuard Pest Management, the number of eggs laid by spiders varies greatly by species. Common house spiders lay around 100 eggs per sac.
The United Kingdom-based original poster (OP) estimates there were around 50 eggs, suggesting it could have been a daddy long legs, one of the most common house spiders in the U.K., which typically lays around 50 eggs. Despite these high numbers, the survival rate of spider eggs is usually quite low.
Another photo of the spiders crawling over the device.
Reddit/Duck_Shover
“When disassembling the PC, I only ended up finding two more inside,” the OP told Newsweek. “They were mostly on the outside. I was easily able to remove the panels and just vacuum them off, then give everything a good wipe down.
“I had to vacuum everything in my room around the computer, as well as wash all my bedding and some clothes I had left on my bed that morning to put away when I got home.”
Despite getting rid of them, the experience left the OP psychologically shaken. They told one user: “I keep feeling like there are spiders crawling on me.”
According to a 2022 YouGov poll of 1,000 adults, the most common fears include snakes, heights, and spiders, with women being far more likely than men to fear them and other insects.
Reddit Reacts
So far, the post has garnered 19,000 comments, and in true Reddit fashion, users have managed to find the humor in the situation.
“Looks like your PC came with a dedicated staff of web designers,” joked one user.
Another said: “Forget paid internet. Those little guys will hook you up to the world wide web for free!” A third commenter suggested: “Time to debug your computer.”
However, some were left feeling disturbed. “Aaaghhhhh! I’m gonna get nightmares now!” one user said, while others advised extreme measures to get rid of the spiders: “Ick. Everything you own belongs to the spiders now. Just leave. Burn it all down and start over.”
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