Part of the Ecosystem

One thing is for sure; our apartment has character (or should I say 'characters'). In many ways it's just like any other home: walls and a roof to separate the 'outside' from the 'inside'. But the difference with our apartment is that our apartment is lazy. It has all the fundamental tools, but lacks the motivation to apply them. Or maybe it's too friendly and doesn't want to be exclude the outside from the inside. Whatever the reason, our apartment plays by different rules. Rain is allowed in the apartment, but only if it drips over the toilet; the odd insect invades from time to time, but must remain undetected by the humans unless prepared to suffer the ultimate consequence; and extreme temperature fluctuations are expected. We've learned to accept and appreciate our apartment's unique sense of purpose and play by its rules.

We are very tolerant, but at some point enough is enough. The tipping point was finding a lizard in our kitchen. It was just a small lizard, no more than 10 centimeters in length. To be perfectly honest I thought it was awesome, but completely understood Steph's demand to have it removed immediately. As a consolation, we've discovered the exact same species hanging upside down from our hallway ceiling. Although, I'm a little worried that that might not be the safest place to 'hangout'. Sometimes birds fly into the building through open windows or doors and can't find their way out again. In a fury of confusion they squawk and fly repeatedly up and down the hallway. I'm not sure if our hallway can harmoniously accommodate so many creatures. We'll just have to let nature take it's course.

After some careful Wikipedia research, it appears that the lizard is more specifically a 'House Gecko'. It preys on insects and, as it's name suggests, has a tendency to make its home within human habitations. It looks like the lizards are here to stay, so we better start embracing their presence. As long as our squatter controls the insect population, we'll let it hang from our ceilings.

However, upon returning home one evening the hallway lizard was nowhere to be found. I didn't find any errant feathers either, so I presumed our slippery friend had found a new playground and was happy. I couldn't have been more right. The next morning, after finishing my breakfast and stretching out on the couch, something caught my eye. On the edge of the living room rug was the hallway lizard. I looked at it sternly, as if to say, "Don't abuse you're privileges! Make yourself scarce as the other human may not be as forgiving to your obvious presence." Remarkably, he got the message and quickly scampered beneath a crack in the baseboard. I later described to Steph how the gecko cunningly evaded my attempts to capture it. For only then could I blog about a second lizard in our apartment. She saw right through my bluff. The only saving grace for the gecko is that it is the lesser of two evils. A gecko invasion most certainly is a result of a large insect population. On those terms, and to my delight, Steph has allowed the geckos to stay. Her only concern: What controls the gecko population?... (The clip to the right is comedian Danny Bhoy describing his experiences at a motel in a mining town of Northwestern Australia, and his encounter with a house gecko. His recount of the encounter begins around 2:25.)