Mom Tries To Kill Venomous Spider at Home—Then Comes the Real Nightmare

A woman tried to kill a spider in her home, only for it to hold a “grudge” and bite her, leading to massive swelling.

Kayla Henderson, 26, is a content creator and mom-of-two living in Georgia, which is also home to venomous animals, including snakes and spiders.

And when she recently found a brown recluse spider in her home, she quickly jumped into action to kill it—but things didn’t exactly go to plan.

“I went to torch it and it fell,” she told Newsweek. “I kind of looked for the body, but at the same time, I got scared.”

She stayed in the room for a while, and not long later felt her lymph nodes—glands found around the body, including the neck and armpits—starting to swell.

“I didn’t know what was going on, it was hurting me,” she said—and she took to AI chatbot ChatGPT, sharing a photo of herself, to see if it could find the source of the symptoms.

Immediately, it pointed out that her ear looked red, which she hadn’t noticed, but had felt it “throbbing”. And when she took out her earring and looked into the mirror, she spotted a spider bite on the back—which was “already turning black.”

“Panicked”, she searched online for natural remedies to brown recluse bites, to try and avoid a trip to the hospital, as she put it: “Brown recluses, black widows, wolf spiders, those things are very common around here. I know for a fact that it was a brown recluse—I saw it, and I know my bugs.”

Brown recluses will construct webs in dark, undisturbed areas, and are known for wandering into shoes, bedding and clothing, according to Active Pest Control. Their bites can cause necrotic skin damage, and while it’s uncommon for the spiders to bite unless they feel directly threatened, anyone with a bite should seek medical attention, as it can cause serious wounds and infections.

Henderson went to the doctor and took antibiotics but also used black charcoal, along with seven bark, also known as smooth hydrangea, which she mixed into a paste. She put it on top of, and underneath, the part of the ear that had been bitten, and it began to scab and heal.

She took to her TikTok account, @mystique.veil.of.kayla on June 24, where she shared what happened, including showing off “the hole of horror” left on her ear by the spider, the major swelling, and how it had healed as days went on.

And explaining why she had tried to kill the spider, she said she has two children who she “does not want anything happening to”—and she later found the culprit, who had rebuilt its web in their home in “exactly the same spot” as it had been before.

The video, viewed more than 320,000 times, was flooded with comments, one sharing their own story: “I got bit by a brown recluse baby spider on my arm and it left a hole the size of a quarter.”

“My uncle’s black holes never went away,” another said, as one recalled “my mom got bit by a brown recluse and needed strong steroids to heal it.”

And as one joked: “That spider definitely is taunting you with the web placement. Hopefully you start to feel better soon.”

Now, she says, her ear “looks amazing”—after she also pressed a cut potato on the injury to help with the swelling.

“There’s a little scar on the back, it’s still kind of healing, but it’s going to be a small scar rather than the whole ear falling off. So I’m pretty happy about that—because I think I’d look weird without ears.”

And, handing out advice to anyone else thinking of trying to kill a spider in their home, she warned: “Please be careful, and watch out for spiders—because they do hold grudges.”