Oh Lizard Poop!

This is my new epithet given that’s what I want to utter or worse when I find gecko droppings around my cottage! For those of you who don’t use Facebook, you’ve missed my posts about living with geckos and all that I’m discovering about them. It’s actually become quite entertaining to see where they’ll turn up next, or to observe some of their behaviors.

This poor fellow was actually in the process
 of dying when I took this picture. I wondered
 why he didn't skitter away when I approached
 him and he stayed in the same spot all day until
 he dropped dead onto the floor!

I knew I would be moving in with geckos ahead of time. Every time I had checked on the progress of the renovation of the cottage I would find several, and because the house was vacant for a while until the renovations were complete, I think the geckos might have thought that the cottage was their permanent home. And it’s at least one family if not more of them. I have observed large “parent” geckos, “teen” geckos, and teeny tiny little baby geckos – so somebody is laying eggs around here somewhere! I think they were a bit annoyed when I moved into the cottage – they would explore my stuff – I would often find them on some item like my suitcase, and one time I opened a drawer where I hide my laptop and one had been perched on the computer! I wondered if he was trying to send an email to his gecko buddies complaining about the mean human who took over his home!

I definitely startle them at times. When they’re perched on a window shutter, chillin’ out and I decide to open (or close) the shutter they get really confused and don’t seem to know what to do. I have to be careful when I am moving the shutter that they don’t go in a direction that will end up squishing them in the window frame when the shutter closes. I don’t think I could handle gecko blood on my hands.

I haven’t named them because I don’t know whether I’m seeing the same ones or not – they don’t have any distinctive markings that set them apart. “Gordon Gecko” keeps coming to mind after Michael Douglas’ character Gordon Gekko from the movie “Wall Street”. The urge to give them alliterative names is too great though – if I were to name them they would have to be names like Gary, Grover, Ginny, Gretchen, etc.

They’re definitely entertaining – especially the little ones. I have found that I tend to talk to them, much like you might talk to a pet like a cat or dog, or even a child. A couple of times when I’ve opened up the shutter (the shutters are pushed out and up, not like shutters we’re used to in the states) and caught a gecko on it, I find myself saying something like “Whoops – you’re going for a ride!” as I push the shutter up. And watching the baby or teen geckos try to catch bugs to eat has really been entertaining. One evening I watched a teen gecko stalk a bug that was on the floor. He wasn’t very successful though, just as he would get close to the bug it would fly away. But it was fun watching a little baby gecko go after a tiny moth on my screen door. It took him a few tries but he was finally successful in snagging the too slow moth and having a tasty morsel. I found myself in the process encouraging him and then cheering for him when he was successful.

There’s an aspect of gecko behavior, however, that I’m not very happy about and which will be they’re undoing. That is their tendency to be like mice. I don’t have mice in the cottage, but in the evenings I’ll hear rustling noises in my kitchen and have determined that it’s the geckos moving around in there. Now what is likely happening is that because it’s an unfortunate fact about Uganda that you can’t keep bugs out of your kitchen, the geckos are in the kitchen having their dinner. However, it’s the after effects that are so annoying as I have mentioned on Facebook, and that’s the whole issue of gecko “droppings.” They’re everywhere! They poop in the shower, randomly on the floor, on my kitchen counter, and even on my dishes. Then I have to rewash and try to sterilize the dishes!

But I finally had to draw a line in the sand with the geckos when I awoke one morning to find a “deposit” on my bed right next to my pillow! And it hadn’t been there when I went to bed (obviously I would have done something about it if it was!) So  while I was sleeping a gecko was pooping by my head! Big eww! Not tolerating lizard poop on my bed! And another day I found a lizard – I don’t think it was a gecko and was much bigger – walking across my bed! That’s not happening anymore.

I got a cat.

Meet Toulouse LeChat. He's still pretty little,

some of the geckos are bigger than him!

But one day soon they'll be a runnin'!