Man Finds His Entire Lawn Covered in Webs — Now, Fellow Gardeners Are Urging Him to Move Out
A homeowner just experienced every arachnophobe’s worst nightmare. Waking up to a lush green lawn is a healing sight, but watching it covered in a labyrinth of spider webs evokes quite the opposite feelings. A Reddit user (u/MacFit) almost had a heart attack when he noticed something strange outside his home. His entire lawn was covered in a silvery-white, silky substance that he realized were spider webs upon closer inspection. Even though the homeowner joked about the sight as a free “Halloween makeover”, he was terrified of it and shared his dilemma with the internet in a viral post with 19,000 votes.
Homeowner battles a lawn of webs
Spotting a few webs in a flower garden is common, but Maciej Wąsiatycz from Poland wished it had been that way when he found every inch of his garden covered in them, almost as if it had snowed spider webs overnight. The 28-year-old man was shocked by the unsettling sight and decided to showcase it on Reddit. “Spiders gave my garden a Halloween makeover,” he wrote, including two photos of his web-engulfed lawn. From afar, it seemed like a thin, silky sheet had been laid down on the grass. The second picture allowed a more detailed glimpse of the scenario, showing the pointy grass sticking out of the cloudy layers.
For everyone, it was almost unimaginable how the spiders on his lawn may have accomplished that. In an interview with Newsweek, Wąsiatycz revealed, "We initially thought the webs on the flowers were from spider mites, so when I saw the entire lawn covered in webs after a few days, I almost had a heart attack!" However, he recalled having seen a similar sight in the forests, something they call “babie lato (gossamer)”, but hadn’t anticipated it on such a scale. “Most people advised me to burn the house down and surrender the garden to the spiders,” the homeowner disclosed. The spine-chilling scenery sparked a debate among people, with most analyzing the cause while others bantered about the countries where the situation may take place.
Yet, Wąsiatycz barely acted on his reflexes. “I haven't removed them yet—I figured the spiders would keep pests away from the plants, so now I have free Halloween decorations,” he joked. The man hoped to get rid of the webs eventually; until then, he intended to flaunt his naturally eerie decoration. @thefunkyfarmer on YouTube shared a similar sight on his grass lawn.
What caused the web?
Though he was clueless about what might have caused the webs at such an intensity, the homeowner figured one of the turf rolls in his lawn may have carried a “large number of spiders or their eggs.” The viral post caught people’s attention and elicited a range of comments from unnerved viewers. u/Beautys_Facade advised, “Please move out, you’re trespassing on the spider’s territory.” While u/Slap_My_Lasagna quipped, “Ancient spider burial ground.” “That's so sick, it looks like fog. Do you have any images of the spiders?” asked u/NeekoxLillia. Responding to that, the poster stated that they had already moved onto a plant from the grass.
“Australia made it off my list when I heard about their spider issues years back. Now Poland is off too,” said an alarmed viewer, u/mossyzombie2021. “I’ve seen spider mites do this but only in the right conditions,” added u/cantwait1minute. According to Iowa State University, grass spiders, which comprise a range of spider species, create webs that generally accumulate between rain showers and mowing. The National History Museum stated that thin, horizontal sheets that look like silken hammocks in grass are called sheet webs woven by spiders that prey on bugs that may land above.
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