A Leaf That Turned Out To Be A Lizard
Last night the strangest thing happened.
I was in my bathroom when I noticed a brown leaf on the floor. They’re everywhere.
Maria comes and vacuums. The landscape crew comes and blows them away. But with all the trees on this property, it doesn’t do much good.
I can hear them out there now blowing leaves for the second time in just a few days.
The leaves drift in when the door is opened. They’re tracked in on people’s feet. It seems endless.
Then Ivy came into the bathroom, which is common for her to do when I’m in there. Most of the time she just wants to lay in the bathtub.
But when she came in and poked at the leaf, the leaf moved.
OMG! I thought I was going to have a heart attack.
The Lizard Or Whatever It Was:
It was some sort of lizard about two inches long. Maybe it wasn’t even a lizard but something else. I will have to do some Googling.
I Googled lizards or geckos in Tulsa. It didn’t look like any of the photos the website showed.
As it scurried around I held my breath and picked the thing up and threw it into the toilet.
I hated to do that. But I knew if I tried to get to the door to release it, it probably would have slithered out of my grasp. I’m not exactly moving fast these days.
When I picked it up, guess what? Another baby lizard had been underneath the first one!
Was it her baby? Could she have been covering it to protect it? Or did she give birth to that tiny baby right there in my bathroom???
It had little streaks and spots, unlike the bigger one.
Certainly I would have preferred to scoop them up and release them both outside.
But it was late and I needed to hurry and I could barely think straight. So I tossed it into the toilet. It swam around happily until I flushed the toilet.
Bye-bye, lizards. Or whatever they were.
Releasing Critters That Don’t Belong Indoors:
I don’t like to kill bugs or spiders. So typically I will gently pick them up and release them outside.
The bigger one looked kind of muted or beige or even pinkish in color.
I did feel guilty about flushing them down the toilet. That vision stayed with me for a while.
Then, then, it occurred to me to wonder how on earth they got into my apartment in the first place.
Well, I have no idea.
Of course, now I hold my breath every time I see a “leaf” on the floor. I do not want a repeat of last night.
What would you have done?
I think in a panic, I would have done the same thing. If my husband or son was around, I’d have had them take the “leaf” outside, but I’d be too scared it would get away from me.
Unfortunately I live in an area that has a lot of garden snakes in the spring and they find their way into my basement through a drain. In the past 3 years I’ve had 3 adults and 3 babies, one in my living room, one in my dining room, and one in the basement. The first adult was also in my dining room and the only way I found out was because my two cats were watching it!! That first one freaked me out but now if I see one I just get my extra long tongs and grab them by the head then open a door and fling them out. Honestly I think I’d rather have a lizard!
Well, I’ve never flushed a lizard down the toilet, but I have flushed spiders and roaches for sure. Also vacuuming them up works too. In general, I have a rule regarding bugs… if they want to live, they need to stay outdoors. I’m not afraid of lizards, so I will usually catch them and put them outside. Any other bugs, I will usually call for my husband to get them. He’s not afraid of anything! If he’s not home, then I will do whatever is necessary. I have no problem killing bugs. My daughter and grandkids, on the other hand, hate to kill any bugs, so they will catch and release them outside. Given your mobility limitations, I probably would have done the same thing as you. I’ve never seen a mouse in my house. I honestly don’t know what I’d do. Scream and jump up on a table maybe?!
I have not gone out hunting insects and critters anywhere…but IF found inside the house, they are quickly dispensed…they chose the wrong place to go. The earth will not lack more of them for the few who have gotten inside. We set off an insect killer in our garage once because of brown recluse spiders in that area…and next day found inside a very sick SOMETHING, I never did know what it was, the weirdest thing I ever saw…still not sure if it was some insect or a kind of lizard etc. Good thing Ivy alerted you to this…you might have stepped on it in the night and perhaps gotten bitten, if it was that kind of animal. I just hope you flushed the toilet several times in order to get it farther away and unable to come back…that is what worries me with flushing things. I keep old jars in the kitchen in order to dispense with smelly stuff, like grease, or sardine cans etc…so probably I would have put that lizard or whatever, in that, screwed on the lid tightly and thrown it in the trash.
I flushed it down and then the baby, and flushed some more.
Brenda, I hate to kill critters too but you had no choice. IT was late, you have Ivy in a confined space and two little lizards. How is your shoulder?
Have a wonderful week.
Hurting this morning. I had a heating pad on it much of the night. It’s just going to be sore for a while I guess.
I always cover little intruders with a clear glass bowl or jar, then slip a stiff piece of paper between the glass and the floor to contain the varmint. This ensures there aren’t any escape attempts. Then I release the varmint outside without the need to hurry.
I was more concerned with it getting away and me not finding it than picking it up with my hands, though that was icky!
No question. I would’ve flushed them. I might’ve felt a little guilty but just a little. 😬
I know. Feel the same.
What would I have done, you ask? Well, since I don’t have the mobility problem you do I would probably found something to scoop the little lizard into to contain it and deposited it outside my patio door. But I don’t tend to be startled or afraid of most bugs, spiders or other invertebrates. And I have great respect for all living things, even if they invade my space–stink bugs included! Altho’ I take care not to scare the little armored creatures into releasing their awful odor. That said, I don’t think you should beat yourself up for flushing the whatever-it-was. It was sort of a knee-jerk reaction to being startled by it being in your house. Wonder how it did get in. A mystery. Glad you didn’t try to hurry to the door and fall and hurt yourself. That would have been awful after all this time working on healing. So that’s a long-winded answer to your question about what I would have done!
I was just so startled, my brain kind of froze for a minute. A leaf that “turned” into a lizard was pretty weird. I don’t think Ivy was going to do anything, just poked at it a little. Probably wanted to play with it.
Maybe a salamander or newt? Love animals but the fact it was dark, in bathroom, you can hardly get about, and your kitty not helping a bit…I would’ve done the same. Probably extra jarring that you thought just a leaf! Keep that toilet closed 😀
I didn’t think of salamanders or newts. I’ll google them to see what they look like.
A couple of years ago, I had the same little critter you described in my bathroom……..twice…….in the middle of the night! They moved entirely too fast for me to catch them so I did the next best thing……..I sucked them up with my Dyson vacuum. And I had no regrets!
Well that’s surely one way to get them!
Without hesitation I would have done what you did! Creepy crawly critters and their friends are simply not welcome in my home!!!
You did what you felt you had to do in the moment. Don’t fret, Brenda.
It was just kind of sad watching that tiny baby whatever it was swirling down the toilet bowl.
I am sorry you did what you did.
Many lizards, including geckos, eat insects that invade our homes.
In addition, they pose no threat to us…
I feel so bad their little lives ended for no reason…
Too bad you didn’t have your phone with you, so you could have taken a picture and identified them on the Internet. Sadly, I would have flushed them too. Yikes!!!
What are you gonna do just before bedtime when faced with such a predicament? As I mentioned, if I didn’t have this boot on and have to get around on a knee scooter, I’d have done something more “humane.”
I would have done just what you did Brenda. I don’t like creepy crawling critters on my walls or floors so if I don’t have a quick way to get them out the door, they go into the toilet.
It was the closest thing to me, the toilet.
One night years ago I was home alone in my newly built home. Nothing was supposed to move there except me. A mouse raced across the floor. I was horrified and shocked. It was so fast I could not catch it. Later I called a pest control company. It took a long time to get the mice out because I lived near open fields. The company told me a mouse could get through an opening that was the size of a pencil.
Now I live in a home that was built in those fields. It is growing here so fast that there will soon be no cotton fields to build on. Every time a new housing area is built and it gets cold the mice are disturbed. They come into houses.
Luckily this time they came into my garage. They like to be im water heaters closets. No mice have been in my home here.
I do feel sorry for all the critters who lose their homes to new housing, etc.
I have a humane trap where I catch critters that are in the house, in the winter they go into my husband’s workshop which is heated and summertime they go outside, neither of us mind spiders so we leave them alone.
When we had a cottage, we had mice coming in. I woke up one morning and two of them were on the bed, we had a cat at the time, and he was just sitting looking at them! We got a humane trap, let them out to see where they would run to and then blocked up the holes.
You could not have done anything else Brenda, as you say you could have tripped so it wasn’t an option for you to put them outside.
If I saw a mouse on my bed I would surely faint and fall over in it!
You did the best thing that you were able to do at the time. If it had been simple to drop them out of a window or a door that is one thing; but in taking them outside you may have tripped and/or fallen, and you have to look out for yourself first and do what is best for you. I grew up in South FL where there are many types of lizards/reptiles so I became acquainted with having them around – that being said, outside and not inside the house though! They are generally harmless and if given a choice I would much rather “run into” a lizard than a snake, or a cockroach, or a spider:)
I had just taken my shower and leaned over too far backward and fell into the tub. My left shoulder gave me grief all night long. So I didn’t have much left over when I spied those creepy crawlies.
Please be careful! You sound a lot like me so I can def relate – we both need to be extra careful as we get older! 🙂
I would have done the same as you! If you had put them outside, they may have found their way back in and you’d have to deal with them again.
I have no idea how they got in here in the first place. Now every time I see a leaf I kind of panic.
Oh~ I would have had a hard time flushing them down, too. I probably would have tried to capture them somehow and release them outside…but who knows what they will do when confronted with something unexpectedly like that. Diana
If I could have moved faster (the boot slows me down and I’m not walking much yet) I’d have put them outside.
I don’t like any crawly things or anything that’s not supposed to be in my house! I have no problem getting it out of my house one way or another! I don’t take any chances bc I have been bitten by a spider before as I’m sure many of u have. Shudder!
I have never been bitten by a spider. I imagine I’d look at it differently if I had ever been bitten like you were.
When we lived overseas geckos got inside our home all of the time. The local people considered them good luck. After a while I just got used to them.
My husband doesn’t like to kill anything either. Not even cockroaches. I, on the other hand, have no problem killing them. I have lived in places that had those huge flying ones and I can’t stand them.
In Texas, there were those little green lizards and I thought they were cute. Not indoors though! No lizard is cute indoors.
We have blue tailed skinks here in Southern MD. If we spray for bugs (which I hate to do because we are on a well and I don’t like chemicals) or if the snakes or cats are around there aren’t too many. And yes they do get in the house. My husband and I don’t like to kill anything either. I always think that I’d rather live in a safe home with critters around than to live in an unsafe place with guns. I guess that helps me rationalize it. The old timers here always would tell me that they are more afraid of me than I am of them. You do kinda get used to them but it would have been nice to have had a heads up that the critters are around.
I completely agree with you on what makes me feel safe and what does not.