Last updated 16/03/2015
If you’re new to the top end of Australia you may be hearing strange chirping or squeaking noises at night and wondering what the hell they are. I thought we had bats or mice or some weird rodent in the walls of the house. The pattern I heard was a couple of chirps, maybe half a second apart, followed by a series of similar chirps in quick succession, sounding something like “chip….. chip….. chip chip chip chip chip.”
I thought about getting the mouse traps out. It sounded like mouse chatter to me. Rodents squeaking in my domain are not acceptable. I needed to exterminate.
Luckily before any hasty trapping arrangements were made, I found out that the source of the squeak was the Asian house gecko. Imported into Australia from Asia, it’s now very common in tropical and sub-tropical Australia. They’re also known as common house gecko. These cute little guys come out at night to feed on insects. That means they’re good because they reduce the inundation of little midges that are small enough to fit through your flyscreen when you’re trying to air out your hot house at night.
Asian house geckos leave their crap all over the joint. We parked up our hilux in Brisbane for a few months to travel Asia and when we returned it was covered in crap!
Checkout outbackjoe on facebook
See also:
XXXX Gold – The Great Mystery of the Top End
outbackjoe 
Hi , I think you have pictures of both types of geckos here , I think the smooth white/grey one is the Aussie one and the reddish one is the import ,, not sure but would be good to know :))
Hey Emma I’m no expert so not sure could be either but there was a lot of “chip chip” noises going on.
They are both foreign imports… You will notice Australian geckos occasionally but they are vastly outnumbered by the introduced species in the city. The natural geckos are found in the rainforests but sometimes you will see a black and white gecko or a spikey tailed gecko that isn’t an import.
I am pretty sure the lighter colored gecko is the Asian house gecko because i have them in my house at port macqurie.
The first 2 are Gehyra sp. and the last one is Hemidactylus frenatus
Thanks Yingyod so the first two are the aussie ones.