Having a few lizards visit your porch once in a while is harmless. They don’t bite. If these crawling animals make the area a favorite chill spot, they will become a nuisance. In such a case, you need to find a way of expelling them. The question is, how do you do it?
There are many things you can do to keep lizards off your porch:
- Cover all water sources
- Use a flypaper
- Use a bowl & cardboard
- Use a cold water spray
- Put eggshells around the porch
- Use peacock feathers
- Replace or fix window screens
- Control your bug population
- Keep your house clean
- Use a screen door
- Cool the temperature
- Destroy the lizard havens
- Use tiles instead of carpet
- Rear a cat
- Get a gecko
There are plenty of means of repelling lizards off your porch area. Some of the techniques include making the environment unattractive. Others involve applying smells that will put off the reptiles.
We’ll look at all these methods in detail and help you weigh which one you should implement in your home. I will also let you know the one thing I did that stopped lizards from visiting my porch.
How Do I Get Rid of Lizards on My Porch?
Lizards are one of the most accessible animals to shoo away. First, you must eliminate everything that makes your porch an ideal lizard living area.
Your most question would most likely be, what makes an area an ideal lizard habitat? Let us have an in-depth look at what attracts lizards to your porch so we can find ways to keep them off.
What Attracts Lizards to the Porch?
About weeks after I finished constructing my porch, I noticed the increasing number of lizards flocking it every night.
I discovered that lizards are attracted to an area with plenty of light, especially if the surrounding is dark. Hence, leaving lights on at the porch area at night is a sure way to attract the reptiles.
So, I turned the lights off when I was not using them every evening. It was an effective way of letting the lizards know I did not invite them. But then, I understand that each porch is not equal. So, what worked for me may not work for you.
Funnily, lizards are also attracted to darkness. But why is this so? Lizards prey on insects—most of the insects like hiding in dark and wet environments. Hence, lizards will camp in such areas waiting for prey to show up.
So, should the porch lights be on or off?
The solution: Keep the dark areas clean and dry. It will discourage the breeding and hiding of insects. Consequently, you will strip lizards of their favorite meals.
They will leave to other places where there are plenty of insects. It’s, therefore, as simple as maintaining high levels of hygiene around the porch area.
Again, keep the porch lights off in the evening when not in use. Then, make sure that the dark areas are not attractive to insects that lizards love to prey on.
What Will Keep Lizards Away?
If turning off the lights didn’t work, there are a few more ways you can try to keep lizards away. Let us check each one in detail.
1. Cover All Water Sources
You probably leave water outside the porch so that your dog or cat can drink anytime they want. Doing this seems innocuous, but it could be the reason why lizards frequent your porch area. Even though the crawling reptiles are not fond of water, they would not mind having an occasional sip.
The remedy to this possible attractant is to remove all water from the porch. Also, watch out for rainwater that accumulates around the patio. Having an effective drainage system will solve this issue.
You can ensure that water will be the least attractive by cleaning your gutter if it is blocked. Also, give your dogs a drink when you are around. If they don’t drink it all, you’ll be able to discard the remaining.
Using collapsible water bowls like the Pawaboo Collapsible Dog Bowls can do the trick. You can always fold it back when not used and discourage lizards from coming over. Such a water bowl is easy to clean and can also be easily moved from one place to another as it is lightweight.
2. Use a Flypaper
Flypaper is not a super-effective means of keeping lizards away. Nonetheless, it is an exciting technique worth trying out, especially if your cardinal aim is to catch them.
Attach flypaper such as the Catchmaster 931 Giant Fly Glue Trap around the porch. Make sure you place the paper where lizards frequent. It will catch the unsuspecting reptiles as they crawl around by rendering them immobile.
Additionally, the paper will, at the same time, catch insects such as flies and mosquitoes. Hence, it is an effective means of keeping your porch pest-free.
The good thing about this method is that it does not kill the lizards. Instead, it gives you the chance to catch the animals and relocate them to another place that is not a nuisance.
However, note that this is not a super duper means of keeping lizards off your porch. It will only be effective when you are dealing with a small population.
3. Use a Bowl & Cardboard
Using a bowl and cardboard is ideal if you are keen on catching the lizards red-handed. Nonetheless, like the technique mentioned above, it is not necessary to keep these reptiles away.
You can still use it to remove lizards off your porch, especially if you are free. The idea is to trap the lizards and move them elsewhere.
So how do you do it? It’s easy. All you need is a bowl and cardboard or a flat surface that’s large enough to cover the area of the bowl.
Cover it with a bowl to prevent it from escaping when you see a lizard. Next, slide the cardboard underneath the bowl to become the underside cover. Then lift the lizard and put it elsewhere in the yard.
The method is effective as you will not even have to touch the lizard.
4. Use a Cold Water Spray
You’ve probably seen lizards stay lifeless on a surface, especially in the mid-morning hours as they warm their bodies. They are cold-blooded animals. Hence, they will depend on the environment for temperature regulation. A cold water spray takes advantage of this aspect.
When you spray cold water at a lizard, it will be rendered stationary, especially during warm weather. Thus, you can easily catch such a lizard using the aforementioned technique. You will have to be stealthy as a lizard will run away if you approach it.
Nonetheless, if you are dealing with many of the reptiles, catching them may prove an arduous task as you may have to remove them one by one.
It is an intriguing way to spend an afternoon, especially when you do not have anything to do around the house. A spray gun such as Gilmour Heavy Duty Single Ratio Wash Gun will prove handy in this process.
It delivers a strong spray that will ensure that you cannot miss giving the lizard a thorough wash to make it immobile.
5. Put Eggshells Around the Porch
It sounds like a weird idea, but this method works effectively.
Lizards are very afraid of coming close to eggshells. They will confuse them for predators and hence keep off the area thoroughly. Therefore, it’s a technique worth trying, especially if you have loads of lizards visiting the porch.
Crack an egg into two, remove the contents and place it in the path of the reptiles. They will scare off by sight and avoid coming close to the area as long as the shells are there.
Do not crush the shells into fine bits as they will be ineffective. It would be best if you had a shell the size of half the egg. The lizard will run away once it faces the eggshell as they get tricked into thinking it is a giant predator.
You can use any eggshells. However, chicken eggs are the best as they provide large shells.
6. Use Peacock Feathers
Lizards fear peacocks a lot. Hence, you can use peacocks to put them off your porch. But you don’t have to rear the birds necessarily. Instead, you can use peacock feathers, which will also be equally effective.
Lizards are afraid of the bright color of the peacock feathers as they are aware that peacocks are looking for any chance to eat them. Hence, the idea is straightforward.
Arrange peacock feathers somewhere around the porch. You can even hand them as decorations, and as long as lizards see them, they will take flight.
The technique is effective and also a clean way of deterring reptiles. In addition to being low-cost, the feathers also don’t stink. Hence, you don’t have to worry about the repellant introducing foul smells around your porch.
Also, the feathers are beautiful. Thus, they will improve the appeal of your porch, giving it a flowery appeal. Peacock feathers are also readily available.
You can purchase from a farmer who rears the birds. Alternatively, you can get some online at a low price, and you are good to go.
When arranging them, ensure that the feathers’ eyes are visible. It will scare the lizards more as they think a natural predator is staring down at them.
Check out these peacock feathers at Amazon.
7. Replace or Fix Window Screens
An open window is one of the best avenues for lizards to enter your house. It is therefore essential to fix the broken ones to keep them off. Also, close windows, especially when you are not around. They are also one of their pathways.
Ensure that the windows are always covered. If there are any holes around them, ensure that you have repaired them. Even small gaps are a challenge as they will allow insects to enter your house.
Lizards feed on insects, and therefore if there’s plenty of them around your porch, you cannot simply keep them off. It would help if you also sealed all the gaps in the walls that are potential avenues of entry.
Hence, on one of the afternoons when you’re not too busy, consider doing a thorough check around the house to identify all the possible entry points.
8. Control Your Bug Population
If your porch has an abundance of bugs, your attempts to keep lizards at bay will be futile. Lizards feed on insects such as cockroaches, mosquitoes, and houseflies, among many others. Therefore, you must keep your bug population in check if you want to control lizard infestations.
You can use an insecticide such as Ortho Home Defense Insect Killer to kill the insects. Once you have eliminated the bugs, you can ensure that the lizards have nothing to feed on when they visit your porch.
The lizards will relocate to another area where insects are abundant, such as in the woods.
9. Keep Your House Clean
If your house or yard has trash lying all over, you cannot avoid having lizards around. When junk is lying around, it will attract insects, and these will, in turn, draw the lizards which feed on them.
Ensure that there is no place where lizards can hide on your porch by eliminating any unnecessary things that you have stacked there. Also, remove all newspapers, especially those lying around in piles, as they provide an ideal hiding ground.
Also, ensure that your yard is clean. Cut long grass in the yard. Additionally, do not throw trash, and food remains around. Instead, invest in a garbage can like the Glad Stainless Steel Step Trash Can.
It has a lid which is essential in keeping the insects from entering. Also, it is durable and will serve you for an extended period.
You must also ensure that you clean your utensils regularly. Lizards are omnivores and will therefore feed on human food at any chance.
Therefore, in addition to attracting bugs, food waste will also serve as food for the reptiles. Thus, it would help if you discarded it effectively.
10. Use a Screen Door
You must close your door at all times if you have a large population of lizards around as this is where they enter through. You may not be able to lock your door at all times. Nonetheless, this is where the use of a screen door comes in handy.
A screen door or a magnetic screen door mesh will serve you effectively, especially if you often forget to close the door behind you. It will close once you have entered the house, thus preventing lizards and other creepy animals from following you in.
Additionally, as it closes, it will draw a clean breeze that will help improve the aeration in the porch and house.
11. Cool the Temperature
Lizards do not like staying in atmospheres that are too cold as they are cold-blooded. They are most active when in warm environments, and this is something that you can exploit in keeping them off the porch.
You can keep your house cold once in a while, and lizards will find it quite uninviting. When your porch is chillier, you can expect the lizards to draw out where there is more warmth.
12. Destroy the Lizard Havens
There are some areas around the yard or porch where you might have noted a large population of lizards. If you have such a zone, you can be sure that the lizards will, in a way, crawl to your porch.
It would be best if you, therefore, destroyed these havens. It could be that there is wood leaning against the house that is attracting the lizards. Also, you might find that there is a rock pile where many lizards have camped around.
It would help if you destroyed all these havens as they provide the reptiles with an ideal hiding and breeding ground.
13. Use Tiles Instead of Carpet
If you had already invested in an expensive carpet or rug, replacing it with tile may be highly costly. However, it is worth trying, especially if your house’s porch is pretty warm.
If you live in a pretty warm area, replacing carpet with tile is worthwhile. What happens is that carpet is hotter and aids lizards in staying warm, making them active. On the other hand, the tiles are cold. Hence, it discourages the activity of lizards which are cold-blooded.
A tile cover will discourage the reptiles from visiting the porch as it is cold at all times.
14. Rear a Cat
A cat is a natural hunter and will not allow any animal to crawl around without catching it freely. Therefore, rearing a cat is one of the surest ways of ensuring that your porch is free from lizards.
However, you must know that some lizards can attack cats with poison. You cannot probably prevent this, but the remedy is to ensure that you understand the types of lizards that you are dealing with.
15. Get a Gecko
It sounds awkward, but a gecko is one of the most helpful lizard deterrents. It eats most of the common lizards. However, if you are afraid of lizards, rearing a gecko is not an excellent idea. It is ideally another sort of lizard more giant than the common ones.
Hence, use a gecko only if comfortable having the enormous reptile around your yard. Beware that it can replicate to become a menace. You can also have the gecko removed once your lizard problem is solved. Thus, it should be the last resort.
What Scent Keeps Lizards Away?
You can use the lizards’ sense of smell to scare away the reptiles from your yard. There are several homemade smell-based repellents that you can use. Let’s look at each one of them.
1. Onions & Garlic
Onions and garlic have a strong smell which lizards are sensitive to. Cut onions and arrange them around your porch area. Lizards will avoid coming close to that area if the smell persists.
Hence, you will need to replace the onions once their scent fades. It is a cheap deterrence method that you can easily apply.
The underside is that your porch may be left with the smell of onions you may not like. Nonetheless, it will do the job of putting off the reptiles.
2. Pepper
The strong scent of pepper will also keep lizards off your porch. All you need is to make a pepper spray using any pepper. Cayenne pepper or Tabasco sauce will work effectively. In making the concoction, mix the pepper with water.
Next, spray the mixture on the porch and around the house using a spray gun. The technique is effective in keeping lizards off your porch.
It is also not vastly irritating such as the option mentioned above of onions or garlic. After spraying, you will not have to worry about containing its smell as it is nonexistent.
3. Coffee Grounds
Do you know your favorite coffee smell? That scent is annoying to lizards, and they will do anything to get as far as possible from it. Hence, coffee grounds are some of the most effective lizard repellents.
If you are a coffee connoisseur, you have a lizard remedy right in your hands. After making coffee, place the coffee ground near your porch. Any lizard that comes close will run off as it smells disgusting.
4. Tobacco
If you are a smoker, you might as well have sorted your lizard problem effortlessly. Lizards are poisoned by tobacco, and it kills them. You can use the remedy, mainly if you deal with giant reptiles.
Keep in mind that tobacco is poisonous. Therefore, you must be cautious when using it as you might poison your pets. The method is somewhat lethal since it kills the lizards. Take note of the laws in your state regarding the treatment of these animals. Use this as your last option.
5. Mothballs
You can use mothballs to keep lizards off your yard. However, the method is not too effective. Also, mothballs are toxic, primarily when used in large amounts.
You must be very careful when using them. Like the previous method, it is best to use mothballs only when you have run out of options.
Final Thoughts
Crawling reptiles such as lizards can be a nuisance if they flock to your porch area. They do not create a remarkable sight, especially when you have visitors around and they are running all over.
Also, if you are not careful, you’ll find the animals in your food or water. Hence, it is imperative to keep their populations in check. You can also relocate them to other areas where they are harmless such as around the yard.
Follow the above techniques, and they will serve you best. For the best outcome, combine more than one.
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