A US Senate candidate was just convicted of tossing a live tarantula into a home she rented out on Airbnb — admitting she got the bizarre idea from the flick “Home Alone’’ to try to get her tenant to flee.
Independent Minnesota hopeful Marisa Simonetti, 32, said she was inspired by the 1990 McCaulay Culkin classic when she tossed the creepy arachnid down the stairs of the basement unit she was renting to Jacklyn Vasquez in 2024, NBC News reported.
“I watched the movie ‘Home Alone’ growing up, and I was like, you know what, this is such a strange situation,” Simonetti told the outlet, referencing the famous scene in the Christmas classic in which then-child star Culkin takes revenge on two would-be burglars with a series of pranks, including releasing a large tarantula that crawls over actor Daniel Stern’s face.
“If I’m scared or hurt, I try and make jokes,” she claimed, adding that she was “was so scared” about escalating tensions with her renter that, “I was just like, I didn’t know what to do.
“And so, yeah, I got the spider.”
Her over-the-top antics were caught on videotape, and Simonetti was convicted of gross misdemeanor harassment, misdemeanor domestic assault and disorderly conduct Friday after a three-day trial in Hennepin County District Court, Eden Prairie Local News reported.
The women’s dispute began soon after Vasquez moved into Simonetti’s basement in 2024, when the tenant asked about hiring a pest control company to address the “large spiders” in the Edina, Minn., Airbnb property, according to a criminal complaint obtained by the Minnesota Star Tribune.
Vasquez called 911 several times June 21, 2024 — first when Simonetti began banging pots and pans together while her tenant was studying for the bar exam and then again when she shut off the home’s Internet service, the complaint stated.
A “scared” Vasquez called 911 a third time to say Simonetti and a man had entered the basement unit by taking the door apart, at which point, the student went to hide in her room, leaving her laptop at the bottom of the stairs to record what was happening.
The sound of banging pots and pans and a woman yelling, “Hallelujah!” can be heard coming from upstairs in the video, shown on KARE 11.
Multiple small items can then be seen flying down the stairs before Simonetti is heard yelling, “Spider infestation!” — at which point a tarantula in a plastic container is dumped on the staircase, according to the video.
Responding officers found “pins, tacks, nails, a live tarantula, which was moving around, what appeared to be the contents of a terrarium dumped down the stairs, and several small toys,” the complaint said.
Simonetti — who was a Republican candidate for Hennepin County commissioner at the time — claimed she was upset after Vasquez refused to leave the unit, NBC News reported at the time.
Simonetti accused Vasquez of irritating her soon after she moved in by speaking loudly on the phone at night.
She admitted to buying the tarantula from a pet store after Vasquez “barricaded herself in my basement like she had no intention of leaving,” NBC News reported in 2024.
Vasquez said she “desperately wanted to [leave]” but felt she couldn’t safely because Simonetti had created “a hostile environment.”
Simonetti represented herself in her trial after parting ways with her lawyer.
She claimed that she lost because she didn’t fully understand court procedures.
“I was just outplayed. That’s all,” she told the Minnesota Star Tribune after her guilty verdict.
Simonetti is scheduled to be sentenced May 1.
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