Lizard Control: How To Get Rid of Lizards

This page is an expert guide on getting rid of lizards in your home and yard. Our experienced pest control specialists suggest using the products and methods suggested in this guide, and we guarantee you will be successful in eliminating lizards from your home.

Lizards are often uninvited guests who make their way into your home or backyard. You could be relaxing on the couch and enjoying yourself when suddenly out-darts a lizard, making its way up your wall. Lizards often invade homes by accident while looking for their next meal.

While household lizards are not venomous, they do leave hazardous germs behind. This is because lizards like to eat flies, mosquitoes, and other blood-sucking and germy vector carriers. When they defecate, you may come in contact with the lizard droppings and potentially contract an illness.

A fun but creepy fact about lizards is that some of them have the ability to regenerate. When a person (or predator) tries to grab a lizard, it purposely drops its tail. When the person is busy trying to solve the mystery of the wiggling tail, they can escape. This is another reason you should not grab lizards while trying to kill them.

If lizards frequently trespass in your home or yard, you can stop it with the help of our effective lizard control products and the expert advice provided below. 

Identification

Before you can carry out control measures, it's important to identify and confirm that you are dealing with a lizard. Lizards are reptiles, and over 5,000 different species are found worldwide except Antarctica.

• Lizards have a dry, scaly skin, a soft body, movable eyelids, a small neck, and a long tail that they can shed from their body to escape from predators.
• The most common Lizard in the US is the Carolina Anole, which can grow up to 8 inches long and have bright green or brown skin. It also has a distinctive pink throat fan.
• Lizards are constantly on the hunt for food and drawn to homes with bug problems so they can feast on insects such as flies, mosquitoes, ants, beetles, grasshoppers, and spiders. They usually hide in dark places like cupboards, wardrobes, furniture, etc.
• Lizards are active all year long, but these cold-blooded animals are more likely to invade structures during winter to seek shelter and heat and to find food sources.
• Lizards can enter your house through pipes, vents, windows, and cracks in the foundation. A lizard infestation usually starts in the kitchen and bathroom, where there is more insect activity.

Use the image and description above to identify lizards correctly. If you are unsure, contact us, and one of our representatives will assist you with identifying the correct one.

If you are dealing with a gecko instead, check out our Gecko Control page. The treatment method and products will be extremely similar, but identification will differ slightly.

Inspection

After you have confirmed that you are dealing with lizards, you can proceed to inspection. During this phase, you will identify where the lizards are frequenting and what may attract them to your home.

Lizards, for the most part, are beneficial creatures to us. They eat plenty of bugs we wouldn’t want in the house. However, lizards scurrying around your home or yard can be startling, and they often get indoors by accident.

Where to Inspect

Lizards that sneak their way into your home can be practically anywhere. They move quickly and like to be hidden. Common areas where you would find them are in the garage, cluttered storage areas, the kitchen, and near entrances into your home since they may quickly scurry in from an open door. Look at interior walls and ceilings since they also like to move over walls and even stay still for some time on a wall.

For lizards in your yard, Lizards are usually found around warm, humid areas where they can crawl around on rotting wood in search of bugs to eat. You can also find them in garden areas or along the exterior walls of a home.

What To Look For

It would be best if you were looking for Lizards themselves and any entry points outside your home that lizards can use to gain access indoors. Lizards don't leave behind any traits to show you that they've been around, aside from possibly their wiggling tail, which can regenerate.

You could try to locate lizard droppings, which look like a small pellet with a white ball at the end. Lizards move quickly and can be heard making little squeaks and movements.

Treatment

Once you pinpoint the lizard activity, you can proceed with treatment. When mixing and spraying insecticides, read the label carefully and wear the proper personal protective equipment (PPE), such as gloves, safety glasses, and a safety mask.

When removing lizards through repellents, you must address the insect population to address their increased presence. A lizard will be hanging around your property because of the heavy amount of insects. By performing general pest control and significantly reducing the insect population, lizards will leave on their own without you having to harm them.

To address the insects (and indirectly address Lizards invading your home or yard by getting rid of their food source), apply a yard treatment of Valar Plus Bifenthrin Granules and a perimeter barrier treatment of Supreme IT Insecticide.

If a lizard is in your home or you live somewhere where lizards are a recurring problem, we suggest laying out glue traps to capture them.

Step 1: Apply Valar Plus Bifenthrin Granules

To eliminate lizards in your yard, apply Valar Plus Bifenthrin Granules. This great granular insecticide will kill a long list of insects for up to 90 days and can significantly reduce the presence of insects, taking away the lizard's food source.

Valar Plus Bifenthrin Granules should be applied as a broadcast and perimeter treatment. You will need a granular spreader to use them.

Measure the square footage of your yard to determine how much granules to apply. To find the square footage, measure the treatment areas' length and width in feet, then multiply them together (length X width = square footage).

The typical application rate is 2.3 lbs. of Valar Plus per 1,000 sq. ft.

Load your spreader with the appropriate amount of Valar Plus Bifenthrin Granules and apply it around the perimeter of your structure. Next, use it all over the yard (broadcast), applying it in mulch areas, landscaping, and at the foot of ornamentals. Finally, the product can be activated by watering the areas treated with Supreme IT Insecticide.

Step 2: Apply Supreme IT Around The Perimeter and Indoors

Supreme IT is an insecticide concentrate with repellent qualities designed to control over 70 different insect pests. The product lasts up to 90 days when applied, so you won't have to treat it often.

Supreme IT will not only aid in activating the Valar Plus Bifenthrin Granules but it can also be used for barrier treatments around your home and for treating your ornamental plants.

Calculate the square footage of your home's perimeter and the interior of the rooms you wish to treat to determine how much Supreme IT insecticide you will need.

Mix Supreme in a handheld pump sprayer at a rate of 1 oz. per gallon of water to cover 1,000 sq. ft. 

Fill your sprayer halfway with water, add the correct measured amount of Supreme IT based on your calculations, and then add the remaining half-gallon of water. Close the sprayer and shake to agitate the solution and ensure it is well-mixed. Pump your sprayer a few times to create a low-pressure spray, and you will be ready to apply.

Make a broadcast treatment of Supreme throughout your lawn to activate the Valar Plus Granules and treat the areas where bugs congregate. Next, spray ornamental plants and landscape beds around your property.

After your yard is treated, spray a barrier treatment around points of entry to your home and around doors and windows. Indoors in spaces like your garage, spray the Supreme into cracks and crevices. Avoid the treated areas until the product dries. 

Prevention

After you have completed treatment, Lizards should no longer be a problem on your property or within your home, but that does not mean they can't make a return. To keep lizards from being an issue in the future, you can take some preventative measures to make your yard less conducive to lizard activity. The following are a few suggestions:

• Seal entry points around the home with caulk or Stuf-fit Copper Mesh.
• Don't allow food to be left out in the open. Lizards mainly eat bugs but will eat fruit and foods when available. Food will also attract insects, which in turn attract lizards.
• Monitor insects and lizards using sticky cardboard traps like the Catchmaster 72 MB glue board. Place them in strategic areas to capture lingering insects and lizards.
• Conduct follow-up treatments of Valar Plus Bifenthrin Granules and Supreme IT insecticide every three months so insects (and subsequently lizards) stay out of your yard.

Key Takeaways

What Are Lizards?

• Lizards are small-sized reptiles with dry, scaly skin, regenerating tails, and the ability to crawl up walls and ceilings.
• Lizards scurry their way into homes, often by accident, while looking for insects to eat. If you are seeing Lizards more often, it may indicate your property has an insect problem.

How To Get Rid of Lizards In The Yard

• Reduce the insect population in your yard with a broadcast application of Valar Plus Bifenthrin Granules, which is labeled to control a wide variety of small insects. This takes away the lizard's food source.
• Apply a broadcast treatment of Valar Plus Bifenthrin Granules over your yard at a rate of 2.3 lbs. per 1,000 sq. ft. Conduct two perpendicular pass-throughs for even, uniform coverage.
• Apply a perimeter treatment of Supreme IT at a rate of 2 oz. per gallon of water per 1,000 sq. ft. Spray the mixture around points of entry to kill insects that try to enter your home.

How To Get Rid of Lizards In The Home, Garage, Yard, etc.

• To capture lizards, we suggest laying out several glue traps around your home; they will be caught soon.
• Supreme IT is an indirect lizard repellent by targeting food sources and attracting lizards to your property.
• Supreme IT Insecticide to indoor cracks and crevices where lizard activity was noted to continue to control problem insects and ward lizards away from your home.

Preventing Lizard Reinfestation

• Discourage future lizard infestations by addressing insect problems and performing a barrier treatment with Supreme IT insecticide concentrate.
• Lay out glue boards around entry points or noted areas of past activity to monitor the presence of lizards and insects.