How To Get Rid of Lizards

Southern California is a desert, despite our blooming flowers and expanses of green grass.  Lizards love heat.  Ergo we have lizards.  

I first met lizards in Kansas City, Mo., far from any desert.  A junior college fad back in the day was wearing one!  The chameleons wore little tiny collars with a short gold chain as their "leash."  The leash was then pinned to the collar of your shirt and out the door we went to show off our "pets."

We were all fascinated by a chameleon's uncanny ability to blend into the color it was placed upon.  Unfortunately, I got a little too interested in this aspect.  To see what would happen, I put my lizard on a piece of plaid and it promptly died.  Oops.

I've seen them around here, as has a friend.  She doesn't like lizards so I promised I'd find out how to keep them away.  The answer was to put mothballs around any points of entry.  This will also repel raccoons, squirrels, and mice.

Mothballs?  I haven't seen a mothball in 40 years or more!    Before I go invest in a container of something I don't need (I like lizards and we don't seem to have them anyhow) what else can mothballs do?

*  When you wash your winter woolens for seasonal storing, throw a couple of mothballs in with the final rinse.

*  This is silly, because plastic trash bags have ties.  Use them.  The instructions are to put mothballs inside the trash container and then put the plastic trash bag in on top of them.

*  Put a couple in with the good silverware.  It's said to prevent tarnish.

I got this information from a very handy book; the "Readers Digest Practical Problem Solver With Substitutions, Shortcuts and Ingenious Solutions For Making Life Easier." 

Anyone want to go halfsies on a container of mothballs?