And who did I meet at my mother's garbage box? None else but two well-fed Mediterranean House Geckos (Hemidactylus turcicus) who have made it their home and who grew fat on the flies attracted to the garbage bags put inside. These tiny lizards are very welcome guests at home - they devour flies, moths and mosquitoes and, apart from the occasional dropping, are very clean. My mother has around ten or eleven of those around her house, not least of whom in the garbage box. Other local reptiles in her house are a family of Star Agamas (Stellagama stellio), who are quite camera shy, and even a young Coin Snake (Coluber nummifer) who is also camera shy and also a VERY welcome guest, as this species of snake is non-venomous and completely harmless to human beings but preys on mice, rats and other snakes (vipers included!).
Also below the geckos there is another welcome guest at my mother' house - the Marbled Cellar Spider (Holocnemus pluchei); they each set up shop in a ceiling corner, spin a web and catch all manner of insects (especially flies). The geckos do not find them tasty and leave them alone, and they themselves are apparently harmless to geckos.
(this is in Kiryat Tivon, Israel).
