Tenant’s apology note to neighbour after ‘scary’ spider encounter sparks debate: ‘I’m shaking’

An apartment resident has amused thousands after revealing the handwritten apology note she left for her neighbours following a late-night incident inside her flat. 

The woman explained she panicked after encountering a spider and, in the chaos, ended up hurling shoes at a shared wall without thinking.

She said that her wife would normally be the one to deal with it, so she acted on instinct instead.

‘I feel so bad. I was not thinking,’ she wrote on Reddit.

‘I live in an apartment and there was a spider on the wall, so I threw a shoe at it to kill it because my wife wasn’t home to take care of it, and I’m so scared of spiders.’

In the moment it did not occur to her that she was throwing the shoe directly at the wall connected to her neighbour’s apartment.

The realisation immediately filled her with guilt.

‘I genuinely wasn’t thinking,’ she wrote.

‘Do you think this note will suffice? I’m literally shaking. I feel so badly about banging on their wall for no reason.’

The handwritten apology read:

‘Hi! I am your next door neighbour. I’m so sorry for banging on the wall. There was a spider and so I threw a shoe at the wall without thinking. So sorry.’

The post quickly resonated with other apartment dwellers, many of whom said the explanation was unexpectedly wholesome.

‘Honestly, things happen,’ one person commented. ‘If I got this note I’d find it really cute and would ask if you won the war against the spider.’

‘This is probably one of the most wholesome explanations a neighbour could ever receive for sudden banging against the wall,’ another wrote.

Several people reassured her that the apology was not even necessary, pointing out that random noises are simply part of apartment living.

‘People make loud noises sometimes,’ one commenter wrote.

Others, however, said they completely understood the panic behind the reaction.

Arachnophobia remains one of the world’s most common fears, and in countries like Australia and New Zealand – where spiders are often an unavoidable part of everyday life – many households develop unofficial roles around who is responsible for dealing with them.

One commenter shared their own experience.

‘I have mild arachnophobia and realised there was something in my peripheral vision,’ the mum wrote.

‘The spider was probably about a foot or two from my face. I screamed full force. My daughter described it as a blood-curdling scream.

‘Then she caught the spider and carried it outside, saving me from the scary thing.’

The story also tapped into a broader anxiety many renters quietly experience while living in apartments: the fear of disturbing neighbours.

As more Australians spend longer hours at home, particularly in smaller apartments with thinner walls, many people have become hyper-aware of the sounds they make – from vacuuming and dropping objects to playing music or moving furniture.

The result is that even a brief moment of panic can suddenly feel mortifying afterwards.

For many readers, though, the apology note felt oddly charming – a reminder that behind the muffled sounds coming through apartment walls are other people having messy, awkward, and very human moments of their own.