Some people are so afraid of spiders they’ll go to extreme measures to get rid of them, or better yet, avoid them entirely.
We’ve all been there: jumping from couch to couch as though the floor is lava (because it may as well be with that massive spider on the floor), locking yourself in an upstairs room for an unspecified amount of time, calling your dad to come and remove one from the shower, the list goes on…
Hell, some people might even demolish their entire house just to get rid of the sneaky pests. Okay maybe not, but one couple had their neighbours believe they’d done exactly that recently when they spray painted ‘got the spider!’ on the roof of their demolished home.
Jeff Hopkins and girlfriend Dawn Cronk, from Renner Corner, South Dakota, came up with the idea recently when tearing down their second home, the Argus Leader newspaper reports.
The couple wanted to do something to make their neighbours laugh and so bought a cheap bottle of spray paint from their nearest Walmart to create their masterpiece.
Hopkins, 51, told the newspaper:
I didn’t think anybody would really notice, we did it just to make us laugh.
But people did notice, with one particular stranger driving by the house on Tuesday night (July 16) snapping a picture which has since gone viral on Facebook.
Attracting thousands of likes and an impressive 58K shares since getting posted last week, it seems the joke did more than just make the couple laugh.
Cronk, 49, said:
It made somebody smile for a day. It made somebody stop and giggle for a few minutes and remember that life doesn’t always have to be a hustle and bustle. To me it’s a blessing, because we made somebody smile and laugh about it.
Since painting the message on the demolished house last Monday (July 15), dozens of people have stopped by the home. RV campers have even stopped in the middle of the road to take a picture, Cronk said.
If you want to take a snap of the house though, you’d better get a move on because it will soon be gone completely; the couple are bringing it down to make more room for their grandchildren to play outside.
Incredible. And hey, hopefully no actual spiders were harmed in the making of this joke.
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A Broadcast Journalism Masters graduate who went on to achieve an NCTJ level 3 Diploma in Journalism, Lucy has done stints at ITV, BBC Inside Out and Key 103. While working as a journalist for UNILAD, Lucy has reported on breaking news stories while also writing features about mental health, cervical screening awareness, and Little Mix (who she is unapologetically obsessed with).