I was used to small lizards from living in Los Angeles, but I was surprised and a little bit scared when I first saw this gecko inside a hotel.
Now, however, I am always excited to see a gecko. Even though they still surprise me when I don't expect to see them, I am not scared of them anymore.
As its name "the common house gecko" suggests, the most frequent place you'll find this gecko is inside your house. They are small and easily scared so they are most often found hiding behind toilets or cabinets, but sometimes you can find a whole bunch of them running up and down the walls. But they are very resilient and can live almost anywhere from inside homes, to tropical jungles, to the busy streets of Ho Chi Minh City.
The common house gecko is not only found all over Vietnam, but it also lives in many other countries in Southeast Asia including Thailand, Indonesia, and Malaysia.
Geckos are primarily insectivorous so they mostly eat insects and other small invertebrates. Because of this, they have developed what could be called a symbiotic relationship with humans, where they live together, and this proximity benefits them both. Simply, people in Vietnam often let geckos live inside or near their homes because they know the gecko will eat the insects and other pests that they do not want inside. (Though not everyone here wants a bunch of loose geckos running around their house or apartment). Geckos have adapted to live with people and in a city as big and as densely populated as Ho Chi Minh City, this is a huge advantage in their survival.
