We have had a spider friend who made a web in the livingroom where the wall of windows meets the roof (about 26 feet above the floor).  He moved in just after the interior of the house was painted (June) and has been there ever since.  He is quite a large spider and he made his home square in the center of the room.  Because he is square in the center of the room and he is quite large, he is difficult to ignore.  Every time Peter sits on the livingroom couch at the proper acoustical location, he moans about the big black smug on the wall/ceiling that is the spider.   But we have left him there because, frankly, we cannot reach 26 feet up in the air to get him.  As a solution to our spider issue, we went out and bought a 20 foot stepladder so we could climb up to the spider's high perch and get him down.

Today, Peter finally hauled in the enormous stepladder, carefully manuvering it around all the furniture and stereo equipment in the livingroom, and went up to remove the spider.  First, he tried to use a duster to remove the spider and his web.

Just for perspective on exactly how high this roof is, here is a full height image with Peter on the ladder against the windows.  Peter, for scale, is 6"4".

When Peter finished with the dusting, he had successfully pulled down all the webbing as can be seen in the duster.  However, the spider held on with tenacity and was not about to be relocated with a simple duster!

Peter was not to be deterred, however, so he moved on to using power tools.  In this case, a hand held Dyson.  He climbed back up the ladder and lifted the Dyson into position.  In the photograph, if you look closely, you can actually see the spider just above the end of the Dyson (again it gives you an idea of scale - yes, that not -so-little black spot is the spider).

Up went the Dyson, and when it came down, the spider was gone.

I did not take a photograph of the spider in the vacuum because, well, let's just say, he did not survive the journey.