When residents on Sydney's lower north shore heard a man yelling "I'm going to kill you, you're dead!" followed by a woman's hysterical screams, they feared the worst.
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Numerous police cars rushed to the Wollstonecraft apartment from which the cries were emanating.
But not all was as it seemed.
According to an amusing post on the Harbourside Local Area Command Facebook page, police received multiple calls about the "violent domestic" last Saturday.
A man was heard yelling "I'm going to kill you, you're dead, die die" and there were sounds of furniture being tossed around the apartment.
Officers arrived at the home about 2am and began banging on the door. A man who was "out of breath and rather flushed" answered.
Police asked where his wife or girlfriend was, only for the man to deny having either. Then he was told about the reports of a woman screaming.
According to the social media post, the encounter went something like this:
Male: "I don't know what you're talking about I live alone".
Police: "Come on mate, people clearly heard you yelling you were going to kill her and furniture getting thrown around the unit."
Police: "Come on mate, what have you done to her?"
Male: "It was a spider."
Police "Sorry??"
Male: "It was a spider, a really big one!!
Police : "What about the women screaming?"
Male: "Yeah sorry that was me, I really, really hate spiders."
The amused officers soon discovered the man was solely responsible for making the racket as he chased a large spider around the unit while armed with a can of Mortein insect spray.
"After a very long pause, some laughter and a quick look in the unit to make sure there was no injured party (apart from the spider) we left," Harbourside LAC wrote.
The Facebook page, and the author behind it, has gained a popular following for its witty reporting of and commentary around police incidents in Sydney.
Last month, on the back of a decline of funnel-web spiders being caught to produce antivenom, specialists appealed to Australians to help out.
The Australian Reptile Park collects hundreds of funnel-web spiders a year to allow a biopharmaceuticals company to create antivenom for critical hospital vaccines.
The program is assisted by the spiders people catch and deliver to drop-off zones around the state. But those numbers have been on the decline.
Specialists appealed to Australians to consider capturing the arachnids rather than killing them to help support the antivenom program.
