Lizards on the kitchen wall, droppings on the counter, one on the ceiling above the bed? Here is why they come in, what actually works, and the repairs that keep them out.
Cicak (house lizards) come indoors for insects, warmth and hiding places, so the lasting fix is to cut the insects, move or switch off lights near openings, and seal the gaps they use to get in. Home remedies such as eggshells and garlic are unreliable, and mothballs and glue traps are not advisable. Treating an insect problem behind the lizards is a job for a pest control company; the door seals, pipe-hole sealing, insect screens and ceiling repairs are building work.
The cicak on your kitchen wall is the common house gecko. It is native to South and Southeast Asia, so in Malaysia it is not a visitor from somewhere else — it has lived around houses here for as long as there have been houses. It is not in your home because the home is dirty. It is there because your walls, lights and gaps give it three things it needs: food, warmth and somewhere to hide.
Most people want the lizards gone, but the honest aim is fewer of them indoors. A cicak outside on the porch wall is doing a useful job eating insects. The problem is the one that runs across the ceiling above the dining table, leaves droppings on the kitchen counter, or falls onto the bed. This guide explains why that happens and which fixes to the house actually reduce it.
A cicak eats small invertebrates — mosquitoes, moths, flies, small cockroaches and ants — and it hunts them around buildings. So the number of cicak you see is a direct reading of how many insects your home feeds. Take away the insects and the lizards move on to somewhere with a better supply. That is why chasing the lizards themselves rarely works for long.
Cicak hunt mostly after dark, and they gather where insects gather: around lights. The classic picture is a porch lamp with a ring of moths and two or three lizards waiting beside it. Inside the house, the same thing happens around a lamp next to an open window, a bright kitchen light facing the back door, or a balcony light left on all night.
A cicak can squeeze through surprisingly small openings. It does not need a hole in the wall; the gap under a door, a loose louvre window or the hole around an aircon pipe is enough. Walk around the house at night with a torch and you will usually find the routes:
Cicak like to stay near a light but close to a crack or a place to escape. Inside a home that usually means behind wall-hung cabinets and picture frames, behind the fridge and the TV console, inside the gap above kitchen cabinets, in the curtain box, and in the space behind loose skirting or a cornice that has pulled away from the wall. Clearing clutter and closing those gaps gives them fewer places to rest during the day, so fewer stay inside.
There is a long list of home remedies for cicak. Most are harmless, few are reliable. Here is an honest summary:
| Method | Does it help? | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Cutting insects (food) indoors | Yes, the most | Fewer insects means fewer lizards staying around |
| Turning off or moving lights | Yes | Removes the insect cloud they hunt at night |
| Sealing gaps, door seals, insect screens | Yes, lasting | Closes the routes in; works day and night |
| Clearing clutter behind furniture | Yes, partly | Fewer hiding places during the day |
| Eggshells, garlic, onion, pepper spray | Unreliable | No consistent effect; the smell fades quickly |
| Mothballs (naphthalene) in living areas | Not advisable | The fumes are not something to breathe indoors, especially around children |
| Glue traps | Not advisable | Catch the lizard alive and leave you with the problem of a stuck animal |
| Ultrasonic repellers | Unreliable | No consistent evidence that they keep lizards away |
The most real reason to want cicak out of the kitchen is their droppings: small dark pellets with a white tip, left on counters, window sills and the top of cabinets. Reptiles often carry Salmonella bacteria in their gut, so treat droppings as you would any animal droppings:
If droppings keep appearing in the same spot every morning, the lizard is resting right above it. Look up: there is usually a gap at the top of a cabinet, a curtain box or a light fitting.
The fixes that last are small building jobs. None of them involve killing anything; they simply close the routes in and the places to hide:
| Problem | Where you find it | The fix |
|---|---|---|
| Gap under the door | Main, back and kitchen doors | Door bottom seal or brush strip |
| Open pipe and cable holes | Aircon pipes, gas pipes, cables through the wall | Seal around the pipe with sealant or filler |
| Unscreened openings | Windows, wall vents, exhaust fans | Insect screens or mesh behind the vent |
| Loose louvre windows | Kitchens, bathrooms, older terraces | Adjust or replace the blades, or replace the window |
| Gaps at ceiling edge and cornice | Where the ceiling meets the wall | Fill and re-seal the joint; repair the ceiling board |
| Hiding gaps above cabinets | Kitchen and wardrobe tops | Close with a filler panel or seal the gap |
Insect screens also keep out the mosquitoes the cicak feed on, so they work twice. See the mosquito net and insect screen guide for the options.
Cicak on their own are rarely a reason to call pest control. Many pest control companies will tell you the same thing: deal with the insects and the entry points. Where a company does help is with the food supply — a cockroach or ant problem that you cannot get on top of yourself. Treating that is a job for a pest control company, not a contractor. The pest control services guide explains what a proper treatment includes.
Tenants often raise cicak as a complaint, especially in older units with worn door seals and louvre windows. Between tenancies is the right time to fix the building side: replace worn door seals, seal pipe holes, check window screens and deep clean behind the kitchen cabinets and appliances. A unit that is sealed and clean at handover gives the next tenant far fewer lizards, and far fewer messages to you.
Pest treatment itself is carried out by a pest control company, and the lizards do not need catching. ClickBina's part is the building work that keeps them out: door seals, sealing pipe and cable holes, insect screens, louvre window repair, ceiling and cornice repairs, and cleaning. We are an experienced KL & Selangor contractor and we coordinate the trades, so the small jobs get done in one visit. The price is flat, with no hidden charges. A site visit is RM150, waived if you go ahead. WhatsApp us your job details and we reply within the hour.
Facts on the common house gecko (diet, hunting around lights, hiding near cracks, native range) are from the Wikipedia article on the common house gecko. The note on Salmonella and hand washing is from the US CDC guidance on reptiles and amphibians. The advice on building repairs reflects common practice for sealing homes against small animals and insects. This guide publishes no pest treatment prices, because treatment is priced by the pest control company that carries it out.
Pest treatment itself is a job for a pest control company. ClickBina handles the building side: sealing gaps and entry points, ceiling and roof repairs, and cleaning. WhatsApp us your job details for a quote. We reply within the hour.
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