Farewell little friend

As well as our resident two dogs and a cat, we have many non-human visitors to our home and some are from my point of view, more welcome than others. My wife's caring and compassionate attitude to all creatures great and small, is to be commended and as an example, when we discovered a massive hornets nest in the loft last year, she was insistent it was removed without harming the hornets, which we managed to do. I did, however, have to wait until the winter months when the insects were no longer active!

Other creatures that have literally become part of our home are the geckos. These reptiles are part of the lizard family and the ones that co-inhabit our residence are mediterranean house geckos. They are frequent visitors and the picture is of one in our living room that is eyeing up a tasty morsel! Unfortunately some are not so lucky, which leads me into my main story.

In the region where we live in Turkey, the summers are long and hot. For several months the temperatures are in the mid 30s and can exceed 40 degrees C. So air conditioning is highly desirable. The winter temperatures, whilst somewhat higher than central and northern Europe, can nevertheless be in single figures particularly at night. So the air conditioners are often used 'in reverse' to provide room heating. A couple of weeks ago when I found it necessary to warm the bedroom, I was disappointed to discover the air conditioner didn't work. I contacted the local service centre who promptly sent a technician to our home. He diagnosed the problem to be a faulty fan motor and later returned with a new unit. He connected it up, only to find it wasn't the solution to the problem. He then decided it must be the control card, a sub unit that takes in the mains power, as well as the command signals from the remote controller, and generates all the necessary outputs to the heating and cooling units. He returned a couple of days later with a new control card, installed it and we now have a working air conditioner. But what was interesting and sad was why the old card had given up the ghost. When the technician removed the old card he noticed that part of it was badly burnt and connecting two contacts that shouldn't be connected, was a stiff and lifeless gecko!

My wife's reaction to the incident was predictable. She felt very sorry for the gecko. I have to admit that my own immediate reaction was less compassionate as I was presented with the financial consequences of the gecko's action - a bill for 140 Turkish Lira. Upon reflection, however, I do believe the tragedy might have been avoided as I will now explain. There are two parts to an air conditioner, one inside the house and the other mounted externally. Between the two units there is a hole in the wall for the interconnecting cables and pipes. The technician pointed out to me that the geckos were using the hole as the entry point to our home, via the internal unit. I have since siliconed the holes for the unit that was repaired and the other units in our property so hopefully the geckos' hazardous entry points have been blocked, although I am sure they will find other ways in, which hopefully will be less risky.

So farewell little friend, you will not be remembered as a martyr but your tragic end has perhaps removed one man-made risk to your species' future survival in our home.