Tegenaria domestica
Анатолий Озерной /Anatoly Ozernoy · CC-BY-SAHarmless. This is the fast brown spider that runs across the floor at night and gets called a recluse more often than almost anything else.
A barn funnel weaver is most often confused with a species that is medically significant. If you are trying to rule those out, check these:
Across most of the United States and southern Canada. Introduced from Europe, and now one of the most widespread indoor spiders on the continent.
Garages, sheds, basements, behind boxes and along skirting boards.
It builds a flat sheet of silk with a funnel-shaped retreat at one edge and waits inside, rushing out when something lands on the sheet. The sheet is not sticky; it works by tripping insects up. Males wander in late summer looking for females, which is when most people see one sprinting across a floor at night.
Nothing needed. If you want it out, glass and card works, though it is fast and you may need a second attempt. Clearing clutter along walls and in corners removes the anchor points it needs for a sheet web.
No, and this is one of the most frequent false alarms. A funnel weaver has eight eyes in two rows, hairy and faintly banded legs, and chevron markings. A recluse has six eyes in three pairs and bare, uniformly coloured legs.
Only if you are in the Pacific Northwest, and even then the two cannot be reliably separated from a photograph. Outside that range this is almost certainly a barn funnel weaver or a giant house spider.
It is a sheet-web ambush hunter, built for a short sprint from the funnel to whatever has landed on the silk. That speed is what makes it alarming indoors, and it is running away from you, not at you.
Identify another animal from a photo or return to the Spiders guide.
Last reviewed 2026-07-29. We identify, we don’t diagnose — what we can and can’t tell you.