The fastest way to get rid of lizards is to eliminate what’s attracting them: insects, water, and easy entry points. Lizards follow their food supply, so a home with flies, mosquitoes, or cockroaches is essentially an open buffet. Remove the bugs, seal the gaps, and make the environment uncomfortable for lizards, and they’ll move on. Here’s how to do each of those things effectively.
Cut Off Their Food Supply
Lizards are in your home because there’s something to eat. Common house lizards (geckos, anoles, and skinks depending on your region) feed primarily on insects: mosquitoes, flies, ants, moths, and cockroaches. If you’ve noticed more lizards lately, you likely have a bug problem too, even if it’s not obvious.
Start by addressing standing water, which breeds mosquitoes. Empty plant saucers, fix dripping faucets, and don’t leave pet water bowls out overnight. Keep kitchen surfaces clean and food stored in sealed containers so you’re not attracting ants or roaches. Switch outdoor lights to yellow or sodium vapor bulbs, which attract fewer insects at night. If you have bright white porch lights, you’ve probably noticed lizards hunting right next to them.
This step alone can solve a lizard problem entirely. Professional pest control companies like Orkin take this exact approach: rather than targeting lizards directly, they eliminate the insect population. Once the food source disappears, the lizards leave on their own.
Seal Entry Points
Lizards can squeeze through surprisingly small gaps. Check around doors, windows, pipes, and vents for openings. Even a crack under a door or a gap where a cable enters the wall is enough. Use weatherstripping on doors and windows, caulk around pipe openings, and install mesh screens over vents and drains. Pay special attention to the garage, where gaps along the floor seal are common.
Walk the perimeter of your home in the evening with a flashlight and look for places where light leaks through from the other side. Those are your entry points. Window screens with tears or holes should be repaired or replaced, since they let in both the insects and the lizards chasing them.
Natural Repellents That Work
Several household ingredients create smells that lizards find unpleasant enough to avoid. None of these will kill lizards, but they can discourage them from settling in specific areas.
- Pepper spray: Mix a few tablespoons of cayenne pepper or hot sauce with warm water in a spray bottle. Spray along windowsills, doorframes, and corners where you’ve seen lizards. Reapply after rain or cleaning.
- Essential oils: Citronella, lemongrass, peppermint, and eucalyptus oils all deter lizards. Add 10 to 15 drops to a spray bottle of water and mist entry points and hiding spots. Citronella and lemongrass pull double duty by also repelling mosquitoes, which cuts into the lizards’ food supply.
- Garlic and onion: Lizards can’t tolerate the strong smell. Place raw garlic cloves or onion slices near areas where lizards congregate, or blend them with water in a spray bottle for wider coverage. Replace them every few days as the scent fades.
One popular tip you can skip: eggshells. The idea that eggshells scare lizards away is a myth with no scientific backing. Lizards may actually eat them, and leaving eggshells around your home can attract cockroaches and other pests, making the problem worse.
Make Your Home Less Comfortable
Lizards prefer cluttered, warm, humid spaces where they can hide. Reducing these conditions makes your home less appealing. Keep furniture pulled slightly away from walls so there are fewer dark crevices. Clear out stacks of newspapers, boxes, and other clutter, especially in garages and storage rooms. Trim bushes and vegetation that touch the exterior walls of your house, since these act as highways for lizards to reach windows and roof gaps.
If your home runs humid, a dehumidifier in problem areas can help. Lizards thrive in moist environments, and drier air is less attractive to both them and the insects they eat. Fix leaky pipes promptly, and make sure bathrooms vent properly to the outside rather than into attic spaces.
Trapping and Removing Lizards Safely
For the lizards already inside, the simplest removal method is a glass and a piece of cardboard. Place the glass over the lizard, slide the cardboard underneath, and release it outside away from your home. Lizards are fast, so approach slowly and corner them against a flat surface.
Sticky traps (the same kind used for insects) can catch lizards in high-traffic areas like behind refrigerators or near doorways. Check these traps daily. If you find a live lizard on a sticky trap, pouring vegetable oil over the adhesive will free it so you can release it outdoors. Glue traps should be placed along walls and in corners where lizards tend to travel, not in open spaces.
Avoid using poison. Most rodent or insect poisons aren’t designed for lizards and can harm pets, children, or other wildlife. Lizards that eat poisoned insects may also die inside your walls, creating odor and secondary pest problems.
Cleaning Up After Lizards
Lizard droppings are small, dark pellets with a white tip (the white part is uric acid, their version of urine). Beyond being unsightly, these droppings can carry Salmonella bacteria. Reptiles frequently carry Salmonella on their bodies and in their waste even when they appear perfectly healthy.
When cleaning droppings, wear disposable gloves and avoid touching your face. Wipe the area with soap and water first, then sanitize. A tablespoon of bleach mixed into a quart of water makes an effective disinfectant. Wet the surface thoroughly with the solution, let it sit for five minutes, then rinse with clean water. Don’t clean droppings near food preparation areas without sanitizing afterward, and wash your hands well when you’re done.
When the Problem Persists
If you’ve sealed entry points, reduced insects, and applied repellents but lizards keep showing up, the issue is likely a larger insect infestation you haven’t fully addressed. A pest control specialist can identify the insect species drawing lizards in and treat the root cause. This is especially worth considering if you live in a warm, humid climate where lizard populations are naturally high and DIY measures only go so far.
In tropical and subtropical regions, some level of lizard presence outdoors is normal and even beneficial, since a single gecko can eat dozens of mosquitoes and cockroaches per night. The goal for most people isn’t eliminating every lizard from the property but keeping them out of living spaces where droppings and surprise encounters become a nuisance.