How to get rid of lizard from house
How to Get Rid of Lizards in the House & Yard: A Complete Guide [2022]
By controlling insects and keeping insect populations at bay, lizards play an important role in our ecosystem. In fact, they may even cut down on diseases like Lyme disease.
Still, you probably don’t want lizards entering your home or scurrying around your property. If you have a lizard problem, you need a solution – fast.
Luckily, our team is here to help. Here at Smith’s Pest Management, our reptile control specialists get rid of lizards in Northern California homes each day.
In this post, we’ll share our top tips on the best ways to humanely remove lizards from your home, garden, or landscaping.
How to Identify Lizards
You probably already know what a lizard looks like, but did you know that there are more than 4,000 lizard species out there?
In the U.S., there are two specific house-invading species we see most often. They are the common house gecko and the Carolina anole (also known as the green anole).
Here’s an overview of each:
Common House Gecko
These lizards are common throughout the U.S. but tend to congregate in warmer climates. They have a long, slender body that grows to 3-6”, and a flat, arrowhead-shaped skull.
They are typically brown, green, or grey, with a delicate spotted pattern. Male anoles have pink throat fans. They’re most likely to make their way indoors during winter.
The Carolina Anole
Carolina anole are small lizards that grow to about 5-8.” They are green or brown, depending on the conditions in their environment.
If the lizard is brown, it may have a series of faint markings along its back. Like the common house gecko, males have a pink throat fan that helps them attract a mate.
These lizards typically make their home in trees but can be found anywhere. They are particularly fond of perching on fences and rooftops and will make their way indoors during cold weather.
In Northern California, specifically, we deal with…
Alligator lizards
Alligator lizards get their name from their distinct, scaled bodies. They’re skilled climbers and are typically found in high places, like on walls or behind tall pieces of furniture. They measure from 3-7” in length, and tend to be brown, green, gray, or yellow.
These lizards commonly make their homes near humans and will come out to forage in the mornings and evenings.
Western fence lizards
Western fence lizards are common throughout California, Arizona, Idaho, Nevada, Oregon, and Utah.
Because the abdomens of the adults tend to be blue in color, this lizard is sometimes also called “the blue-belly lizard.” These are small lizards that tend to be about 3-6” in length. They are brown or black in color with black stripes on their backs.
These lizards are active during the day and may come out to sun themselves on rocks, fence posts, or decks.
What Attracts Lizards in the House and Yard?
Lizards are small reptiles, and most of us don’t think of them as pests. Still, they can occasionally take over your home, yard, or garden. And, when they do, you can have a serious problem on your hands.
The first step to dealing with a lizard problem is uncovering its root cause.
What attracts lizards to your house and yard? Here are a few of the top culprits:
1. Food Sources
Like all pests, lizards love food, and they’ll happily set up shop anywhere they can find it. While lizards mainly eat worms, ants, spiders, beetles, and flies (meaning you’ll commonly have a lizard problem if you have any of these other pest problems), they also love fruits and veggies and crumbs left behind by people.
As such, they’re common in kitchens, bathrooms, and outdoor spaces – like gardens and compost piles.
2. Shelter
Lizards love dark, cool places, and homes offer plenty of those. They’ll hide behind cupboards and furniture and are often found behind sheds, raised garden beds, and benches outdoors.
3. Water
Sources of water – either indoors or out – will draw lizards to your property. Pet bowls, birdbaths, or even leaking pipes and fixtures will provide enough water for lizards to survive and thrive for months.
How to Inspect for Lizards
Once you’ve identified that you have a lizard problem, you’ll need to inspect your property for signs of lizard activity.
Here are a few steps we recommend:
- Check common hiding places. Again, lizards like cool, sheltered areas. Check behind clutter in your home, garage, kitchen, or outdoor sheds for lizards or their droppings, which look like small black pellets with a white tip. If you’re looking for lizards outside, search common hiding areas like warm, humid parts of the garden.
- Note entry points. Lizards are small enough to squeeze through gaps in doors or windows, or small openings in your wall. As you inspect your property, pay close attention to these potential lizard highways.
- Check your screens. Lizards can easily enter homes through open windows, or windows with torn screens. As you inspect your property, double-check all your window screens to ensure they’re intact and in good repair.
Since lizards eat mainly insects, they’re less likely than other pests to leave behind a trail of destruction in your garden or landscaping.
Still, it’s smart to inspect your fruit and vegetable plants, since lizards consider these valuable food sources.
How to Get Rid of Lizards in Your Home
To get rid of lizards in your home, you’ll need to focus less on the actual lizards and more on their potential food sources and hiding spaces.
To put this another way: you treat for lizards by treating other pests, like bugs and insects.
Here are a few steps we recommend:
1. Identify and Seal Entry Points
Make it more difficult for lizards to get into your home by finding out how they’re accessing it. Remember that lizards have tiny, flexible bodies, and can fit through very small cracks.
We recommend focusing on filling holes and cracks with caulk, installing weather-stripping to the sides of windows and doors, and using a wire mesh to patch bigger access points, like vents.
2. Deploy Natural Repellants
If you’re looking for a home remedy to get rid of lizards, you’re in luck. Many natural repellents can help keep lizards off your property.
What smell do lizards hate? Things like hot sauce, pepper, and cayenne emit a strong smell that deters lizards. For best results, mix a few tablespoons of your pepper of choice with a pint of warm water.
Shake the mixture well and spray it in the corners of your home, and outside, along access points like doors and windows.
We never recommend setting a lizard trap, since this will typically kill or injure lizards.
3. Eliminate Food Sources
Wondering how to get a lizard out of your house? The best way is to eliminate their food sources. Employ common pest control practices, like keeping trash and compost secured, cleaning up food scraps rapidly, and keeping your home, garbage disposal, and kitchen sink clean.
If you have a serious insect problem around your home, it can also be helpful to invest in a professional pest control treatment from Smith’s. This treatment will eliminate insects around your home and send the lizards packing.
What to Avoid: Lizard Control Myths
While there are some effective home remedies out there for lizards, there are also some myths you’ll want to avoid.
Will baking soda kill lizards? What about eggshells?
Unfortunately, most of these ideas are myths. There’s no evidence that lizards are deterred (or killed) by the scent of eggshells, for example. Lizards may actually view eggshells as a snack. Additionally, baking soda is not a reliable repellent for lizards.
How to Get Rid of Lizards in Your Yard
If you have lizards outside, you’re probably anxious to get rid of them.
Here at Smith’s Pest Management, we always recommend taking the humane approach to lizard removal. There’s seldom a reason to hurt or kill lizards, and there are many effective ways to remove them without doing either.
With that in mind, here are our top recommendations:
1.
Use Homemade DeterrentsIf you have lizards on the porch or lizards under your siding, there may be a simple solution: homemade pepper spray.
Just mix some cayenne or Tabasco sauce with water, and spray the mixture any place you’ve noticed lizard activity. This is a simple, yet effective solution that can provide quick relief for your lizard problem.
2. Plant Outdoor Plants that Repel Lizards
You already know you can use pepper to repel lizards, but what about lizard repellent plants? As it turns out, one effective way to get rid of lizards is to incorporate plants they don’t like.
Here are a few recommendations:
- Peppermint
- Eucalyptus
- Pencil trees
Lizards dislike the smell of these plants, and adding them to your garden and landscaping is a great way to send lizards packing.
3. Keep Your Landscaping Tidy
Why are there so many lizards in your yard?
One simple answer may be that you’re providing them with lots of shelter. To eliminate hiding spaces for lizards outside, keep your landscaping tidy and neat.
Sweep porches and decks, trim trees and hedges, and eliminate sources of standing water (which will discourage pests).
4. Contact a Pest Control Expert
If none of your DIY approaches are working, you may choose to hire a professional pest management company like Smith’s that can evaluate your property, assess your lizard problem, and develop a comprehensive, effective, humane approach to getting rid of lizards, once and for all.
How do Pest Control Specialists Get Rid of Lizards?
When you need comprehensive lizard control, Smith’s Pest Management is here to help. Here’s the approach our reptile control team will take to eliminate your lizard problem:
1. Assessment
Before we can resolve your lizard problem, we need to know what we’re dealing with. Our team will start by providing a comprehensive assessment of your home and property to identify lizard access points, high-traffic areas, and hiding places. We’ll also identify the species of lizard on your property, and develop an ongoing plan for treatment and control.
2. Treatment
Next, we’ll treat your lizard problem with a mixture of pest-control methods (to reduce food sources for lizards) and exclusion methods. This combined approach is both humane (We never kill lizards – only remove them from your property) and effective. The result is a clean, comfortable, lizard-free environment.
3. Follow-Up
Keeping your property lizard-free often requires maintenance and follow-up treatments. We provide annual pest management plans to help your property remain pest-free, without requiring you to schedule each treatment manually. Contact us today to learn more.
How to Prevent Lizard Re-infestation
Instead of dealing with recurring lizard infestations, employ these tips to prevent lizard problems from coming back:
- Address insect populations in your home, lawn, or garden
- Use barrier treatments to keep lizards out of your home
- Keep food scraps and water sources secure
Are Lizards Taking Over Your San Francisco Bay Area Property? We’re Here to Help!
Here at Smith’s Pest Management, we provide comprehensive and humane reptile control services to residential and commercial properties in Northern California – from Marin to Monterey.
Contact us today to learn more or to book your lizard removal service today.
How to Get Rid of Lizards Quickly and Humanely
Photo: depositphotos.com
Lizards might not come to mind when homeowners are thinking of common household pests, but they’re certainly creatures that most people don’t want lurking in their home or in the backyard. There are a lot of questions homeowners may have about lizards: How long do lizards live? Do lizards bite? What does lizard poop look like? And while all those questions can provide more context to how the cold-blooded creatures operate, the most important information when it comes to figuring out how to get rid of lizards is what attracts them and what makes them go away.
The good news is that lizards can be banished from your property once you identify and remove what’s attracting them to the yard.
Time required: 1 to 2 hours
Difficulty: Beginner
Estimated cost: $20 to $100
- Insect repellent
- Gloves
- Safety goggles
- Safety mask
- Caulk
- Copper mesh
- See full list «
- Lizard repellent
- Cinnamon, peppermint, and/or clove essential oils
- Cayenne pepper or hot sauce
Photo: depositphotos. com
You may be tempted to learn how to catch a lizard or use a lizard trap in order to keep these creatures from occupying your home, but these critters are elusive and quick. It will be much more effective to remove what’s attracting lizards to your yard and let them wander off instead of trying to catch them. But before you load up on repellent or set a ton of traps, it’s helpful to know where to look for lizards and how to humanely keep them off your property for good.
Tips for How to Get Rid of Lizards- Identify and seal any potential entry points.
- Eliminate small bugs, which are a food source for lizards.
- Contact a pest control professional to control bugs, or contact a wildlife removal service to get rid of lizards.
Safety Considerations
- Wear protective gear, such as gloves, goggles and a safety mask, when handling chemical repellents.
- Contact a pest control professional or wildlife removal expert to eliminate a lizard problem safely.
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+ STEP 1: Inspect where lizards are visiting in your yard or getting into your home.As small, limber creatures, lizards have a way of sneaking into spaces quickly and quietly, with little evidence of their presence left behind. However, there are a few ways you can identify that they are frequenting the inside or outside of your home. Lizard droppings, which look like long black pellets with white balls at the end, are a tell-tale sign. Their feces are typically about ⅛-inch in size with tapered or rounded ends.
Another way to tell where lizards are visiting is if you find a left-behind tail. Because lizards can regenerate their tails, they’ll often drop them when grabbed by humans or predators to allow them to escape.
You can also infer where lizards may be lurking, even when they haven’t left a mark. Lizards feast on flies, mosquitoes, and other insects, so they’re likely to show up in spaces that attract small bugs. Inside the home, dirty dishes, trash, or rotting food will draw insects. Outside, standing water and vegetable gardens provide attractive spots for insects to congregate.
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Photo: depositphotos.com
STEP 2: Eliminate lizards’ preferred food sources, like insects.The best way to permanently get rid of lizards is to wipe out their food source. This includes a variety of small insects, from spiders and crickets to mealworms and mosquitoes. To eliminate insects, you’ll likely need to spray repellent in the areas the bugs are drawn to. It’s a good idea to put on proper protective gear such as gloves, safety goggles, or a safety mask before spraying. Or it may be beneficial to hire a pest control service. If you want to know how to keep lizards away, pest control pros can use their experience and knowledge to effectively treat your home for insects and solve your house lizard problem.
STEP 3: Seal any entry points to the home.Pipes, vents, windows, and cracks in the foundation all provide entry points to the home for lizards. Lizards are likely to seek shelter during the winter months or inclement weather to keep warm and find food. To keep a lizard from entering the home, it’s best to seal any open areas, no matter how small the entry point may seem. You can use a variety of materials for this, but caulk or copper mesh may be the most effective and easy to use.
STEP 4: Eliminate pools of standing water and repair any leaking pipes and faucets.Moisture inside or outside of the home often attracts insects, which is why it’s important to look for areas around your home that could cause a bug—and subsequently lizard—infestation. You can start by identifying pools of standing water near windows, air-conditioning units, or low points in the yard. These pools should be completely dried up in order to ensure bugs and lizards are kept at bay. If pools of water are forming in the yard due to poor drainage, consider reaching out to a landscaping expert to correct this issue.
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It’s also helpful to check for any leaking pipes and faucets in the kitchen or bathrooms. Even small leaks can bring in flies, beetles, mosquitoes, or other bugs that lizards feed on.
Photo: depositphotos.com
STEP 5: Opt for a DIY or commercial lizard repellent.To find the best lizard repellent, you may have to try a few solutions or create your own at home. A wide variety of repellents are available at local home improvement stores. Chemical solutions often include components like sulfur or naphthalene, which create strong odors around the home. If you’re sensitive to certain scents or prefer a more natural route, you may want to try a DIY repellent using essential oils such as cinnamon, peppermint, and clove. Other natural repellent mixtures include cayenne pepper and water. You can use a hot sauce that contains cayenne and mix it with some water, or you can add cayenne pepper powder to water.
Once you’ve selected a repellent, you’ll need to determine where you’re going to apply it and how much of it you’ll need. A 32-ounce spray bottle can usually cover about 200 square feet, while a thin line of granules can go a long way around your home’s exterior. When using commercial repellents, always follow the manufacturer’s directions and take note of any warnings, such as if pets should be kept away from the area where you’ve applied repellent.
Skip the DIY when it comes down to pests
A pro can get rid of lizards effectively and efficiently. Get free, no-commitment project estimates from pest control services near you.
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+The easiest and most effective way to get rid of lizards is to hire one of the best wildlife removal services. These professionals can help keep lizards away from your home and repair any damage they may have caused. Wildlife removal professionals often have a satisfaction guarantee, so if you’re experiencing a problem that needs to be handled as soon as possible, calling this type of expert can provide an immediate solution.
Removing the soure of a lizard infestation is also key to banishing lizards from your property. Since they feast on bugs, consider one of the best pest control services to control the lizards’ food source around your home or yard.
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+How to get rid of lizards at home? — Company Blog NEWJALUZI
The first warm weather arrives and the lizards announce themselves, entering the house without knocking. How to prevent their appearance in the room, get rid of them in a natural and environmentally friendly way. Gardening tips.
Lizards in the house or on the balcony as soon as summer comes? Have you been invaded by these cute little animals that don't bite or sting, but aren't as pleasant to look at, fearing they might ruin your windows and leave traces of their presence in the house?
No problem, every disease can be eliminated and even lizards will disappear from your home, for personal satisfaction from the success of the enterprise. Here's how to do it, remembering only natural, eco-friendly and inexpensive means.
How to recognize lizards
First, let's figure out what exactly lizards are made of, so as not to make a mistake when interfering.
Lizards that appear in the homes of Italians are called muraiola, due to their ability to stay upside down on the walls of houses while sunbathing.
They are very easy to recognize as they have a darker back color and black side stripes. The belly is lighter, with black spots. The size is never huge, reaching a maximum of about 20 cm.
Lizards appear in the spring and summer, appear in early March and remain visible until October. They love to climb into crevices, especially in rural areas, in houses facing the sun or living in the forest, so much so that their existence is felt as soon as a person passes by.
Did the lizard enter the house? What to do now
The first thing to do when you realize that a lizard has entered your home through a window or door left open, even for a change of air, is to remain calm and not panic. This is not about a ferocious and voracious beast, but about a simple and harmless reptile that will sooner or later try to find a way out, realizing that it entered at the wrong time.
First of all, closing the doors to other rooms will prevent him from wandering around the house without your knowledge.
Then arm yourself with a broom and try to guide it towards the exit in a friendly way, watching its movements sometimes so quickly that you don't even have to strain. Otherwise, if you want to play a little, take the jar and try to cage it until you place it on the ground near the house.
Lizard Care Tips
List of behaviors to follow in order to have a lizard-free home.
Closing holes
The first step is to seal off any possible access to these reptiles. Search around the terrace, entrance and windows in the apartment. If you notice a hole or hole, seal it with mastic, silicone or cement: they will not be able to penetrate there.
Cleaning
Clutter and dirt are a breeding ground for these reptiles, no matter how harmless they may be. Remove and put in a corner to the side, the rest of the soil and various foliage that they like a lot. Keep an eye on constant cleaning by taking organic waste to a landfill.
In addition, heaps of various materials such as cement, various buckets, bricks, stones and other old things will be attractive: getting rid of them from the garden will be mandatory in order to prevent them from creating interesting shelters for your residence.
Lizard Repellent
Modern technology also comes to the rescue in case of lizards in the house. There are ultrasonic repellers available on the market that use ultrasonic waves to irritate the animal, convincing it to leave the house.
To protect yourself in the apartment, it is advisable to purchase electric scarers, as it is enough to attach them to an electrical outlet. Otherwise, you can fix the situation with the help of battery cabinets, which can be placed in the most interesting places where you have already noticed their presence.
However, they should not be taken as a panacea for all ills, since their effectiveness has not been 100% proven. However, the advantage of ultrasonic repellers is that they can repel reptiles and even insects or rodents.
Keeps lizards away from the garden
And if we are lucky enough to have our own vegetable garden where we can grow our favorite fruits and vegetables, how can we keep them away so they don't cause any harm?
If you use pesticides, you won't have any problems: they are repellents for these reptiles and therefore stay away from your garden, much to their displeasure.
If, on the other hand, you prefer to have 100% natural crops, at the cost of suffering some intrusion that is not harmful to humans, the advice is to use a natural pesticide, pyrethrum, an insecticide that is not so toxic as to be allowed in organic farming. You can find it on the market without difficulty, even on e-commerce portals, sold in spray containers.
The easiest remedy? Eliminate all possible hiding places and ravines where they could hide, plug holes, ideal places for lizards.
Otherwise, your beloved pets will have a lot of fun; the cat has a lot of fun chasing them, the game allows him to spend his happy moments chasing them, provided you trust him by leaving him outside for a few hours.
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Lizards in the house: how to get rid of, is it possible to keep at home
Life hacks
Lizards appear in the house before the onset of cold weather.
- Photo
- Getty
People's signs, if lizards started up in the house
People call a lizard a weather forecaster. If she made her way into the house, it means that very soon you can expect cold weather, even if it is not yet the season. In addition, more unusual signs go around the lizard.
- If a lizard got into the house where the newlyweds spend their first night, it means that their life together will be short. However, this prediction does not work if the couple does not plan to live in this house in the future.
- The lizard runs out to a prominent place in the house, and as soon as it is noticed, it tries to hide quickly, which means that it warns the owners of the dwelling about future troubles.
- The worst sign is that the lizard got into the dwelling and died. This suggests that one of the inhabitants of this house will die within a year. To "cancel" the prediction, the family definitely needs to move.
Do not take these signs to heart, because they have no scientific basis.
How to get rid of lizards in the house
Never try to kill a lizard, it is completely harmless. Just drive her away.
This should be done with at least two people, as lizards are quite nimble. First, move all the furniture away from the walls, close up the cracks, remove all the hiding places where this animal can hide. One person should drive the lizard to the entrance, and the second should block its escape route if it moves in the wrong direction. You can drive the lizard with a rolled-up newspaper or a spray bottle with ice water. Go out on such a “hunt” late in the evening or at night, it is at this time of day that the lizards are active.
It is said that lizards don't like peacock feathers very much, so you can use this feather to urge it to the exit. It is enough to cover it with any glass container, and then carefully slip a cardboard box under the container. With this design, you can take the animal away from home.If you have caught a lizard and you like it, the question arises whether it is possible to keep lizards at home. Actually it's real. However, you will have to tinker by arranging a comfortable aquarium for your pet with the right level of moisture and heat.