Gecko

After hearing rats scampering in the ceiling above his office, the author set out a glue trap baited with dried shrimp — reportedly a rat favorite in southern Thailand — and reports that after more than a week, no rats (or geckos) have been caught, suggesting the pests may have been deterred by the combination of a kitten, geckos, and the trap.

A tokay gecko was spotted hunting from the kitchen ceiling, joining the household kitten in an impromptu pest control team — tokay geckos are known to eat both insects and small vertebrates, making them a potential threat to the rats troubling the kitchen.

A homeowner in southern Thailand traces a chain of unintended consequences—from welcoming mosquito-eating geckos, to tolerating a rat infestation, to adopting a kitten that turns out to hunt geckos instead of rats—that ultimately lands him in a Bangkok grocery store deliberating over which brand of rat glue trap to buy.

Despite keeping geckos at his Thailand home to control insects, the author returned from a trip to Tokyo to discover a large trail of termites crossing his kitchen wall, prompting him to hire a pest control company to treat the infestation.