Demi Sweeney Supplied

As someone with a near-crippling fear of spiders, I’d do almost anything to avoid ever having to go near one of the eight-legged beasties.

So I can totally empathise with this student who was forced to take drastic action when confronted with a huge creepy crawly.

Meet 22-year-old Demi Sweeney, a criminology student at Bournemouth University, who was forced to order KFC when she discovered a spider in her house.

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No, she wasn’t hoping that the offering of delicious deep-fried chicken would placate the wall-crawling menace, she simply needed the delivery driver.

Specifically, she needed the driver to help get rid of the spider because poor Demi suffers from severe arachnophobia and she was convinced that the spider would fall on her if she walked past it.

According to Demi, she’s always been frightened of spiders but her phobia’s got worse over time.

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She told UNILAD:

I would say my phobia is very severe – I had around five hours sleep last night as I couldn’t fall to sleep in worry that there was one and then I can’t stay asleep as I wake up multiple times a night to scan the room for them. I get so paranoid I find myself constantly worrying and looking around the environment I’m in to make sure there aren’t any.

Demi explained to Buzzfeed how she woke up on the morning in question to an empty house and encountered the spider in the hall.

Terrified and unable to leave her room she contacted her housemates for help, who told her that she should order some fast food and get the driver to deal with the gargantuan arachnid.

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Demi Sweeney Deliveroo Demi Sweeney/Twitter

Worried that the Deliveroo driver would be unable to enter the house for health and safety reasons she contacted the fast food company’s customer service.

Luckily they confirmed that their driver could take care of the spider, if they weren’t scared of it themselves, so Demi ordered some food and made clear in the delivery notes that she needed them to deal with the spider.

She wrote:

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I have spoken to Deliveroo customer service, please can you help to remove a spider for me.

Demi Sweeney deliveroo driver spider Demi Sweeney/Twitter

Unfortunately, tragedy struck when the driver refused to deal with the spider because he was frightened of it as well.

After begging the beleaguered driver to get rid of the beast he finally agreed and Demi handed him the traditional tools of a spider hunter, a wad of tissue and a chair.

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The spider didn’t go without a fight though dropping to the floor when the driver confronted it and making a desperate bid for freedom.

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Before the spider could escape though the Deliveroo driver trapped the eight-legged fiend and flushed it down the toilet.

Demi had nothing but praise for her spider vanquishing hero although she did admit to us that she forgot to tip him.

She said:

I have not tipped the driver no, I didn’t give it much thought through the panic :(

She told Buzzfeed:

I thanked him around 50 times, he kept saying this is so funny whilst laughing. I wanted to hug him. A real life hero.

Unfortunately, the incident left Demi too afraid to use the toilet for the rest of the day, as she was terrified her nemesis may creep back up the pipe and take his vengeance.

But what did Demi’s friend’s make of the whole debacle?

Well as you’d expect they found the whole thing very funny and they’re a bit concerned about how financially viable calling Deliveroo is as a strategy for dealing with spiders.

She told UNILAD:

My friends could not believe it, they were laughing and joking about it (they still are today) but also relieved that I could stop panicking and go downstairs, later asking ‘are you going to order food each time you see one?’ It might get a little expensive!

Arachnophobia is one of the more common phobias in the UK with over 18 per cent of Brits admitting to being frightened of spiders.

Of course, it’s worth remembering that the UK doesn’t have many dangerous spiders and that the little creature in the corner of the room is probably doing more good than evil by catching and eating other more nefarious creepy crawlies.