Ytlaya posted:

There was this spider that had a giant web in the skylight of my bathroom (that extended all along the ceiling of the bathroom) and it would catch a bunch of insects up there (basically the perfect position for a web; all the bugs fly up into the skylight and get caught in the web). It finally died a couple days ago and fell down into the bathtub (which is directly below the skylight where its web is).

Yesterday I saw another spider on the ceiling, and I zoomed in with my phone camera and it appeared to be a brown recluse (which are common here and frequently appear around the house), so I shot it down with some Febreze (the only way I could think of to get it down from the ceiling).

Unfortunately, after getting a closer look after it fell, I realized it was not a brown recluse. It was the same species as the other spider, but smaller/younger (I'm pretty sure this is the species in question - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pholcus_phalangioides; with the blurry phone picture its cephalothorax looked like it had the typical violin symbol of brown recluses). I left it near the wall on the off-chance it would have survived the spraying, and later I saw it climbing up the wall towards the web. Great news! But apparently the spray did do some sort of damage, because it kept falling while trying to climb up, and finally died sometime last night.

Feel terrible about it, especially since it was my fault. Hopefully there are more spiders of its kind around to take up residence in that web. I formed an attachment to that spider, and it was very helpful as a form of pest control.