When you’re visiting Hawaii, there is a real good chance you’ll see a gecko, possibly in your hotel room. Don’t worry when you see them. They are harmless to us. They won’t bite us, but they do eat mosquitos, ants, and a certain bug that starts with the letter R and ends in “oach”. Hawaii legends have it that geckos are good luck, so consider them to be your new Hawaiian friends. Here’s a short video of a gecko that we filmed on Lanai.
Sheila Beal
18 comments
One of the first things people told us when we moved to Maui was that to have Geckos in your house was good luck. We always had a few and I grew to love the little guys, even if they did have a habit of “dropping in” while you were showering.
Once they got too big though, we’d catch them and put them outside. Now that was always a hilarious bit of fun. And one little gecko was even the inspiration for an essay I wrote called The Way Out. In fact… I think I’ll go do a blog post about it. Thanks Sheila. :o)
Hi Susan – Is your essay available online? I do think the little guys are cute, though that could be odd sharing a shower with one of them. 😉
Hello Sheila,
Actually, the essay is posted on my website. I wasn’t sure if you’d think it rude of me to post a link to my own site, so I didn’t. But since you asked… http://www.susanflemming.com/thewayout.htm
if you love salmonella, then gecko’s are right up your alley. for those who don’t live here and so don’t really know the issues, their poop is full of it, quite literally. further, it stains everything you own. so methods of gecko removal, which i won’t mention herein, would be most appropriate. hmmm, advise from strangers.
Yes, jt it is true that all reptiles can carry salmonella and I wouldn’t have wanted to have a house that was swarming with them. That’s why we caught them and put them outside. That’s probably why I never had a problem with stains.
Thanks for the link, Susan. I will check it out.
We try to catch them and put them outside, too, but mainly because there’s a lot more for them to eat in the garden than inside the house. We just hate finding underfed, dead, dried up geckos under the beds! I do love to hear them chirping outside our window.
We live in the middle of a Hawaiian rainforest and have many geckos outside. If we find one in the house, we catch it and put it outside on a tree without our cat watching. We have found him torturing geckos before.
I’d imagine a cat would have hours of fun batting around a gecko. How do you catch them? Just with your hands? They seem very quick. Or do you trap them?
If they’re big like adult size, they’re quite hard to catch. I know because as a little kid me and my cousins would try and catch em. But when they’re little, you gotta be quicker than them. What I do is if I don’t have anything around I can quickly use to trap them, I use my phone and it it on it’s back. I then go and grab a napkin and gently but carefully grab it by its head and front legs because they can bite. I then brig it outside and set t free since there are more bugs outside than inside. Since they are small they need food so there’s more for them to eat outside.
hi my name is Baylee and i visited Hawaii like 31 times and she’s right you don’t need to hurt them you need to be kind to them even though they might scare you don’t need to hurt them thanks
Baylee ^_^
Hi Baylee and thanks for stopping by to comment. Geckos are are almost too cute to hurt, don’t you think?
I have a question…do geckos make any type of clicking or chirping type noise? I believe we have one in the condo, I did see him once. Usually early morning, every so often, I hear something from what I would swear is inside. Just curious…
Kellie – yes they do make a chirping noise. Sounds like you’ve got yourself a gecko.
….and when you can’t catch them…..any ideas about how to remove their urine stains from clothing?
I know its really old but that is an Anole lizard, not a gecko
Do you see Geckos in every house in hawaii ? Is it very common like Costa Rica ? My wife has Geckos phobia and she would go crazy as soon as she sees them. We are planning a trip to hawaii and wants to find out before we make any plans.
Geckos are pretty common in Hawaii.
It would be very unlikely to see one in a hotel room. In the evenings, you might see geckos in outdoor areas.