A mum claims she's been left with a 50p-sized raw bite on her thigh after a false widow spider crawled under her duvet.
Tracey Carse said she woke one morning to find the painful sore on her thigh, and suspects the venomous creepy crawly had snuck into her bed to sink its fangs into her skin.
After showing a dermatologist, the 50-year-old was urged to go to A&E in case the gaping wound became infected.
But after being sent home with a course of antibiotics, the mum-of-one was horrified when the bite turned black and necrotic a week later, leaving a patch of blackened dead flesh.
The extent of Tracey's wound meant she needed regular dressing from a nurse.
Four months on from the initial bite, Tracey, from Stockport, Greater Manchester, is now warning anyone who notices one of the bites to seek urgent medical help.
"I've never experienced anything like this before," she said.
"I'm a little bit more wary in my bedroom, I'm trying to visualise how it got under the covers and got me.
"I'm over it but it made me think about spiders in a different way. If I see one in the house it probably won't be in there for very long."
Never a fan of spiders before, Tracey says she is even more cautious now and says anyone who notices a strange bite mark to get it checked out before it's too late.
A&E doctors at Stepping Hill Hospital told her they suspected the bite had come from a False Widow, Britain's only venomous spider which have been known to nip unsuspecting Brits.
"I ended up on antibiotics for a month and by the time I saw the nurse had quite a sizeable dead piece of scabby horribleness on my thigh and I had to have it dressed.
"There was talk of maybe having to cut it out. It eventually did move in the right direction but it was pretty disgusting for a number of weeks."
Tracey added: "[To anyone bitten] I would say you just need to be careful of things like that and get it checked out so it doesn't develop into something more serious.
"My main worry was getting an infection. Four months on I'm finally on the mend. It's just a scar now but I think the scar will be there forever.
"Luckily it's at the top of my thigh and not on my face like I've seen some people have online. I can just about live with it."
Although identical looking to the deadly Black Widow, False Widows are known to invade homes around Autumn time as the cold weather draws them indoors.
The spiders' bites are usually relatively harmless, spider experts say, although can be indirectly dangerous if wounds become infected.
