Edmonton reporter becomes the story after finding black widow spider in house plant

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Anna Junker reports on crime for the Edmonton Journal, so she's seen a few scary things in her time. But nothing prepared her for the black widow spider that hitched a ride on a new house plant. 

Her only chance was to outsmart it — and then, ideally, squish it with something.

Junker chronicled her encounter for her paper in an article called "My not-so-amazing black widow spider adventure." 

As It Happens guest host Helen Mann spoke to Junker about her ordeal. Here is part of their conversation. 

Anna, set the scene for us. It's Wednesday night. You're settling in for a cozy night at home. What happens next?

I walk into my place and I'm putting some things away. And I notice this shadow in front of one of my plants. I look closer and I realize that it's a big black spider.

So, already I start freaking out, because I live alone and I'm in a new place and I have to deal with a spider. 

I decided to move in a little closer and take a picture with my phone of the spider.

I realized after I took the photo that it was a black spider with some red on it. And then my mind went to, "Oh no, this could be something very poisonous!"

I was like freaking out on Twitter — because like how do I deal with this spider? I don't know what to do.

What kind of responses did you get?

I got quite a good response, actually. Some of my colleagues were responding to me and helping me get up the courage to deal with the spider and providing tips with dealing with it.

But you decided the spider had to die.

Yes. I decided the spider had to die. I did not want to take any chances.

I was walking around my apartment trying to find something heavy because I realized that it had to be squashed, basically. 

I remembered that I had a bunch of old yearbooks packed away, so I brought them out and I put them in a pile and I approached the spider.

I hesitated trying to figure out how to drop the books onto the spider and squish it. And just without missing, basically, because if I missed it I was in a whole lot more trouble.

Why not just squash it with, like, your shoe? 

I couldn't do that. Like, what if I missed, you know? I wasn't very confident in my shoe-squashing ability. So I was like this needs a big surface area to make sure this spider will die.

I just let the books loose and they all fell — and squash. And then, just for good measure, I threw a shoe on top.

Then did you lift up the yearbooks and look at the crime scene?

Oh, no. No. I couldn't. I couldn't bring myself to do that until the next day because I just, I was just too freaked out.

I wanted to believe that I got it. And if I hadn't got it, I just didn't wanted to deal with that whole situation again. 

So I just let myself believe for the night that that the spider was squashed. And then the next morning, I lifted up the books and there it was.

So how do you think this thing got in your house? It was sitting on this plant?

Yes. I just recently purchased a plant. 

So it had its web built right near it. So I assumed it was probably from that plant because that was the most recent thing in my house.

I didn't notice it when I bought the plant. But I guess it was probably hiding amongst leaves and came out.

Did you tell the store what happened?

Yeah, I emailed the store and I was like, "Hi, just by the way, I have this situation." 

And I emailed the photo of the spider to them and I was like, "I have my suspicions that it might be a black widow, but I'm not sure and I just wanted to let you guys know."

And so they got back to me the next morning and they said that they emailed it off to an expert at the Royal Alberta Museum who eventually was able to identify it. 

He believes it was a juvenile widow and then they let their supplier know as well about my situation.

So, hopefully it's just a little freak incident, and no other creepy crawlers will come out of that plant.

Is it true you named this thing?

Yes, it was named Harry.

Harry, OK.

Yeah, Harry the Spider.

And Harry was a boy? 

Actually, Harry is a girl. I figured that out afterwards because the female spiders actually have the black and the red.

The male spiders are more like a dull brownish colour.

If it were in my house I'd be starting to worry that it had laid eggs.

Yes. Yeah. I am concerned about that too so I got a clear plastic bag to put around the plant.

It's in quarantine right now. 

Written by Alison Broverman and John McGill. Produced by Alison Broverman. Q&A has been edited by length and clarity.