The 2 Kitchen Ingredients That Keep Lizards Far Away From Your Home

Depending where you live, lizards can be very commonplace inside the house. Homes are warm and dry, and offer easily-accessible water sources and loads of bugs around to keep them well fed. While lizards aren't particularly hassling, it's not healthy to have them in your kitchen. That's because lizards can carry salmonella, which is a dangerous bacteria for humans. It's found in their droppings, which, if deposited near or on food or water sources, can be transferred to humans. This can cause serious illness, as evidenced by six of the worst salmonella outbreaks in U.S. history. 

Of course, the same applies to having them in your bedroom or bathroom, where droppings and skin that may have shed could fall onto bedding, towels, facecloths, and so forth. Catching lizards to rehome them outdoors isn't the easiest task. So, repellents are your way to go — particularly those made with safe, natural options (and you'd rather go natural because any chemicals in the kitchen could make their way into your food). Two of the best pest-repelling pantry staples also happen to be common ingredients: garlic and onions. 

These two super-powered root veggies carry signature aromas that even we find strong and often unpleasantly pungent. For lizards, they're repulsive and will send them scurrying for the hills in no time. A natural chemical called allicin is found in both onions and garlic, which, in the wild, emits a very strong sulfur odor that repels pests and keeps the plants safe. This odor works the same for lizards. Plus, allicin has antimicrobial and antifungal properties, so it helps to disinfect at the same time. As another bonus, you can grow your own garlic at home using this simple technique.

There are various ways that you can use garlic and onions to effectively see lizards high-tail it out of your house. You can take whole onions and garlic cloves and place them around your home, in areas where you've seen lizards scurrying about. This may not be as effective, though, because it's when the flesh of the bulbs is crushed or chopped that the allicin is really activated. In fact, this is why you should wait before cooking with chopped garlic. So, that's another option. 

Cut a few slices of onion and/or garlic and chop them up or crush them slightly with the blade of a knife or a mortar and pestle to trigger the release of your secret weapon, allicin. Then, place them in little waterproof containers — or in/on anything that will stop the oils and liquid from absorbing into the carpets, wood, or whatever surface you're placing them on — in corners where you've seen lizards. A third option is to peel and chop up a few slices of onion and/or garlic and put them in a spray bottle with water. 

Shake the bottle to mix everything up a bit, then spray the powered-up water around window sills, door frames, and air vents — anywhere that lizards may enter your home — as well as in corners. Lizards will then stay away from those areas. Though there may be a bit of an aroma in certain areas of your home, garlic and onions also repel other pests, including mosquitoes, mites, ticks, beetles, ants, roaches, and fleas (which is especially valuable if you have pets in your home).