‘It’s like a horror movie’: Tennessee neighborhood invaded by spiders

Spiders have overrun a suburban neighborhood in North Memphis, Tennessee. Millions of arachnids suddenly showed up, building nests in trees and bushes along the road and in fields. Residents said the little critters have also invaded their houses.

The invasion happened over the weekend and efforts to remove the spiders are slow moving, according to residents.

“They’re just in the air, they’re flying everywhere, they’re in the house, on the side of the windows,” local resident Debra Lewis told WMC Action News. “It’s like a horror movie.”

Her neighbor, Frances Ward, said, “I’ve never seen anything like this. Never seen nothing like this before.”

News footage from WMC showed a half-mile long silvery web along the roadside. On closer inspection, it was teeming with hundreds of thousands of spiders. Some neighbors suggested the city should do something about the infestation.

"Clean this area up and spray for these spiders and make it safe," Debra Lewis told WMC. "There are kids running around. A spider could bite the kids or anything."

Memphis Zoo curator Steve Reichling told United Press International there is nothing to worry about, as very few spider species in the United States are poisonous, and those that are don’t propagate in large numbers.

Reichling said the spiders could have been there all along are now on the move. Another explanation could be that there are a large number of newborn spiders migrating for new territory.

"In fields and meadows, there are often literally millions of spiders doing their thing, unseen and unappreciated by us," Reichling told UPI. "I would not want to live in a world where such things were no longer possible. The presence of these spiders tells us that all is well with nature at that location."

Experts say the presence of the spiders is not a bad thing, but residents are not happy.

"You can't even sit down in her house [Frances’s] cause they all on the wall and on the door," local resident Debra Lewis told WMC. "We've been killing spiders for like an hour now."

UPI reported that a similar spider emergency event covered a Texas neighborhood with several hundred square feet of webbing in the summer. Earlier this fall, cold weather in Montana sent scores of hobo spiders indoors, invading homes in Missoula.