Last evening my wife said “Eek” as in a cartoon and pointed to a skink running across the carpet. Dog, mini Aussie, was interested, but not attempting to catch.
Those guys are fast, close to the floor, and I’m old and overweight.
After chasing him/her around the room and under the furniture I finally tried using a pickup tool to catch him. But first I grabbed the tail which promptly detached.
Eventual success of capture and release outside.
Maybe I need a cat?
Eh, aren’t those pretty harmless? I’d probably just tolerate it.
Pin the severed tail to your door pour encourager les autres.
Then select a pet from this list:
My choice would be a larger lizard.
I don’t know about skinks per se, but having lived for decades in places like Micronesia, Indonesia, and Hawai’i, I’m quite used to sharing living space with geckos. If your place is overrun with them, they can be an annoyance, as you’ll find droppings and eggs, neither of which are particularly pleasant to clean up.
The occasional critter is nothing to worry about however. And if you have cats, that’s the most you’ll ever see. I’ve got 3 and haven’t seen a lizard in the house in ages, despite living in the land of geckos, anoles, and of late even Jackson chameleons.
Yeah, they’ll do that. For future reference (and for the benefit of other readers) the “cup and index card” (or similar thin, stiff object ***) is the easiest way to catch/release small wildlife like lizards, tarantulas, geckos etc.
*** HA! There’s a “that’s what she said” joke in there somewhere, but I’m far too classy of a lady to say it.
My house was overrun with the damn things. Caught the ones in the bedroom with the cup and release method. The one in the dining room was taken care of by my cat. I took a pressure washer to the one hiding in the drain in the bathroom. But at the end of the day, there was one I just couldn’t get rid of and I had to accept that it was impossible.
I’d gotten everything but the kitchen skink.
(pressure washer turned on YOU)
Cats won’t help. We’d occasionally get a blue-tailed skink in our old house and no cat ever managed to catch one.
Just accept the fact you’ll find a desiccated skink corpse someday. I occasionally get anoles in the house. I try to catch them to release them outside, but what can you do when they get under the furniture?
ShopVac ?
My method as well for all small wildlife. Except for mosquitoes. But wait, do skinks eat mosquitoes?
I know they are not dangerous, but it’s quite startling to have one dart out from under the furniture when you’re not expecting it. Been here, mid Missouri, for 18 years and this is the first one in the house, that we’ve seen anyway.
I’ll have to find an appropriate container to use the next time if it occurs.
They’re harmless, of course. The thing about cats and lizards is, they catch and eat them. And shortly afterwards they puke up the half-digested remains (possibly lizards are somewhat toxic to cats). This is messy for the house and probably bad for the cats.
Best to try to seal up possible entry points?
I caught one by throwing a small blanket over it - that stopped it from running. I scooped the entire thing up into a ball and shook it out on the deck and it took off running.
Not anymore.
That… is brilliant. Must have!!
I doubt it would work on a skink, though. Too much heft. I had the experience of escorting a skink out of my house recently and a food container with lid to gently move him where I wanted him into the container worked great.
Yeah, it is. Life would be a lot tougher without one.
It’s probably good enough to catch anything small enough to be caught by a cup, but probably not for critters requiring food containers to trap.