Is a Texas man fighting for his life after he was bitten by black widow spiders that came out of a package he stole from a lady's porch? No, that's not true: This story is fiction, but may have been inspired by something that really did happen. The story about the Texas porch pirate originated in October 2024 from a TikTok account with the disclaimer heading, ""60 Second Sitcoms" Fictional Stories and Satire" A similar story from Spartanburg, South Carolina was reported in the news in July 2019. A woman reported to police that a package containing nine tarantulas valued at about $1,000 was stolen from her porch.
One example of the story circulating in 2025 is a video (archived here) published on TikTok by @schnitz.maslow on Sept. 11, 2025. It was captioned with the hashtags:
#tk #news #fyppppppppppppppppppppppp
This is what the post looked like on TikTok at the time of writing:
(Image Source: Lead Stories screenshot from tiktok.com/@schnitz.maslow/video/7548741637887905054.)
The opening clip is designed to resemble a breaking news story, but the narration style is informal. The voiceover says:
A Texas man is fighting for his life in the hospital after he stole a package off of a woman's front porch only to go back to his car, open it up, and see that it was full of black widow spiders.
This woman was tired of this man coming by and stealing all of her packages before she could get home from work so she made a little package that was just for him. When he popped that package open in his car and a bunch of spiders came flying out and they bit him all over his face, and then he started swelling up and getting nauseous so he had to go to the ER.
And then he called the police and would like to file charges against her for setting up that booby trap.
So the police contact the woman and they are like, "Did you put a decoy package full of black widow spiders out on your front porch?" And she's like, "Oh no, those black widows are my pets! Were you able to find them? I saw that they were missing and I just have them in a box because they like to play in there while I'm at work."
And the police were like, "Oh, this guy he stole the box and then they bit his face and he wacked a couple of them, so they're no longer with us." And the woman's like, "He killed my pets! That's completely unwarranted. I'd like to file charges against him for that."
This narrative above was copied word for word from a Oct. 15, 2024 video (archived here) posted on TikTok by @thesephew. The channel is also called TheRobbyShow and has the subheading:
"60 Second Sitcoms"
Fictional Stories and Satire
[email protected]
The video (pictured below) shows the original narrator telling the made-up story:
(Image Source: Lead Stories screenshot from tiktok.com/@thesephew/video/7426079842652753182.)
Other videos posted by @thesephew at that time are variations on the porch pirate theme. On Oct. 16, 2024, he posted a video following up on the original porch pirate story, saying that now the woman, he called "The Spider Queen" has gone into business supplying her neighbors with cardboard terrariums so their spiders can also "play on their front porches". Then in an Oct. 17, 2024 video we hear about a Texas man who is in the hospital because the package he stole, thinking it contained a cell phone, actually contained a hornet's nest. In an Oct. 20, 2024 video @thesephew tells of a porch pirate attempting to sue the homeowner. He broke his foot when he dropped a heavy package containing a TV that he was trying to steal.
