Singapore Expats

Are they very common ? Even in high rises ? Are they harmful ? Is there a way to control them (trap etc). I have a 4 year old and worry he will run after them or they will be in his stuff. I am super icky about these creatures !!!!

Yes, in tropical south east Asia.
Not so much in high floors.
Not really (common sense applies). They will eat bugs so that's a plus.
Yes; there are lizard traps like flypaper.

Killing or trapping them sure to bring you bad luck. 4.5 million Singaporeans and countless other millions all over South East Asia have grown from birth to death of old age with them cohabitating with them. They are harmless and furthermore, they are the best mozzie traps you can buy. Welcome to the tropics.

If you try real hard you can actually get the to take a grain of rice off a fingertip but it take lots of patience. The only downside to them is the poop that tends to gather behind your picture frames where they like to hide. Also tends to occasionally streak down the wall. I have a pet one (well, not really a pet) that spends most evenings lying on the top of my lcd monitor screen while I'm working. He doesn't bother me & I don't bother him. Oh, I raised two kids here from birth to currently 20 & 26 years old and it never did them any harm.

It's kinda funny when you open up the fridge and find one so cold he can't move but it you are real careful with them you can pick them up and lay them in the palm of your hand until they warm up and then go scampering off again but you gotta be careful or they will shed a tail and leave a little wriggling tail in your hand and that's all.

Learn to enjoy them. They are part and parcel to the expat experience.

sundaymorningstaple wrote:Learn to enjoy them.

Sounds like you certainly did. I never bothered to train one.

If only they really would eat the mosquitoes or cockroaches... They poop on my wall, and the mozzies still bite me. The cockroaches are most of the time bigger than the lizards
There are traps for geckos (sticky kind of paper/tape) and they do work, but honestly, there is no other way just to accept the little fellas

Pesonally, I worry more about high rises than I do the lizards. My kids love them. My eight year old does try to catch them but no luck, they are too quick, and are more afraid of us. Also, we only get the rare one due to our two predatory cats, who kill them and occasionally eat them. What bothers me are the ANTS and mega-cockroaches, which of course don't phase the cats

They are on every floor. Sounds like a problem i had with my cat.

The lizards are not harmful, they are actually more afraid of humans!

They are just annoying because their droppings dirty the walls and it's sometimes really difficult to remove them (especially when it's stuck on the corner of the wall near the ceiling)!

Like gravida mentioned, you can trap the lizards by using a sticky sheet (that contains some food smell or pheromones or something like that) - the sheet can be bought from hardware stores and it's quite cheap, about $1- $2 per pack for a sheet of 2 stickers. You place the sticky sheets in areas where the lizards frequent and basically the lizard walks onto the sheet and gets stuck on it.

We trapped 2 lizards in our house with that. Hope it helps!

@SMS I'll have to tell my daughter about your house gecko... she's been annoying me about naming them and getting to pet them ( actually managed to scare one to the point he got rid of his tail to escape her... )

I love geckos ! I can't imagine having to kill them or chase them away

The pest control guy did tell me they were territorial - so make sure you clean all the poo away if you want them to move on. When I have a big one annoying a child's sleeping area then I do use Lizard Trap sold in NTUC but generally leave alone and they either move on themselves or don't bother us much.

Wivelsfield wrote:The pest control guy did tell me they were territorial - so make sure you clean all the poo away if you want them to move on. When I have a big one annoying a child's sleeping area then I do use Lizard Trap sold in NTUC but generally leave alone and they either move on themselves or don't bother us much.

There was once when I closed my room door and something from above fell on the floor. It was brown in colour with a rather shiny outlook and best of all it was still moving. I couldn't figure out what was it, until moments later when i spotted a large lizard crawling on my yellow wall. Being a yellow wall, the large lizard really stood out. What really caught my attention was that it was TAILESS. To my horror, that brown thing moving on the floor was actually its tail.

Lucky lizard, it almost lost is life. But a couple of days later when i saw the lizard again, i realised its tail was actually growing back. How interesting.

Anyway I feel that the lizard will not really affect your life at home. Unless you have a terrible phobia of lizards. Children are usually very curious with things. Maybe initially your child will get a little excited. So you will have to watch him or maybe bring him to have a closer look on the lizard. After awhile he will probably get bored of it and life will resume.

Gecko's & Skinks have the ability to shed their tails without too much trauma specifically because of huge overbearing monsters who would do them harm, (2 or 4 legged monsters). Like crabs, they will automatically regrow their tails. You can always spots a regrown tail and it will be stubbier and not as long and tapered, even after it is fully grown out, like a lizard that's never hand to use the ultimate escape tool!

I like the lizards, it's like having pets that you don't have to feed

The only thing that can be a bit annoying with them is that they poo everywhere but so long as you always wipe the kitchen surfaces in the morning before you use them and check cups and plates for poo (they get in all our cupboards), then it's not too bad.

As SMS says, they eat bugs and I'd much rather have geckos than bugs around the place

Your 4 year old may well run around after them but I doubt he'd catch one, they're fast and they run as soon as they see you or if you turn a light on.

we live in an old place and we don't really get that many of them - I think they must be territorial because I've seen a bigger one scaring off a smaller one before now, so the ones you do get in your place could possibly be the same ones that have lived there for ages.