These days, Annette Gray has been sharing her home in Australia with a rather imposing uninvited houseguest.
Her name is Charlotte. She’s a giant spider who wandered in one day and decided to stay.
According to Gray’s son, Jake, Charlotte is a huntsman spider — a species that can grow quite large but are actually pretty friendly. When left alone, huntsman spiders pose no threat to people. And that's the approach Jake’s mom’s taken toward Charlotte, letting her be.
“We've watched [Charlotte] grow over the last year or so,” Jake told The Dodo. “[She] never bothered us. She moves about the house, pops up room to room, eats all the bugs.”
Evidently, Charlotte has been pretty busy with that activity.
“[She] is about 15 centimeters wide,” Jake said. (That’s almost 6 inches.)
“I think [Charlotte] is getting bigger,” Annette added later in a comment online.
The spider has caused quite a stir among the Grays’ family and friends, some of whom have jokingly suggested the house be burned down to rid it of Charlotte. But fortunately, Annette knows what it means to be a good host, even to spiders who moved in.
“I don’t kill them,” she wrote. "[Charlotte’s] harmless.”