Police called to reports of domestic violence in Sydney turned up to find a man chasing a big spider.

Neighbours heard a woman screaming "hysterically" and a man yelling: "I'm going to kill you, you're dead! Die, die!"

There were also sounds of furniture being tossed.

But when officers got there and questioned the man, he admitted the real reason behind the shouting: "It was a spider, a really big one."

Harbourside local police force retold the encounter on its Facebook page.

It said several police cars arrived at the home in the Wollstonecraft area at 2am on Saturday.

A man answered the door "out of breath and rather flushed".

When asked where his wife or girlfriend was, he responded that he lived alone.

Officers then pushed him, saying: "Come on mate, people clearly heard you yelling. You were going to kill her and furniture [was] getting thrown around the unit."

At that point the man became "very sheepish" before admitting it was a "really big" spider.

But police questioned: "What about the women screaming?"

"Yeah, sorry, that was me. I really, really hate spiders."

After some laughing, police then checked out the man's home to make sure there really was no-one injured inside.

It turned out the man was chasing a spider with a can of insect spray.

Harbourside local police force has confirmed to Newsbeat that the story is all true and that the spider didn't survive.

Inspector Dean Lindley said: "We tried mouth-to-mouth, a few chest compressions, even pumped his legs up and down to get the blood flowing.

"OK, I made the leg thing up, but despite our best efforts sadly he did not survive."

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