Your dock is a basking bench, a highway, and a bathroom to an iguana. Here's the damage that adds up — and why the pilings matter most.
Ask a waterfront owner where they see iguanas and the dock is usually the first answer. It makes sense — a dock is warm, exposed, sits right over the escape route, and gives them a clear view of anything coming. To an iguana it's close to perfect real estate, and that constant use turns into a slow, spread-out repair bill.
On the canals and Intracoastal lots I service around Boca and Delray, the dock damage rarely shows up as one dramatic failure. It's an accumulation — corrosion here, fouling there, a chewed thing over there — that owners tend to write off individually until it adds up.
The damage that accumulates on the deck
Most of what a dock takes is from droppings and traffic, and it's more than cosmetic.
- Droppings pile up on decking, pilings, and lift motors — acidic, staining, and a salmonella concern near where people fish and swim.
- Corrosion of boat-lift motors, cables, and hardware from droppings collecting in and on the mechanism.
- Chewed rubber, wiring, seat cushions, and canvas on boats and lift equipment.
- Constant cleaning cost and pressure-washing just to keep the dock usable.
Why the pilings are the real problem
The deck damage is visible and annoying, but the pilings are where the structural risk lives. Pilings are the iguana's climb route — from the water up to the dock, and often from the dock onward to the seawall cap, the roof, or a screen cage. Every animal that colonizes your seawall bank likely came up a piling first.
That means the dock isn't just taking damage; it's feeding it everywhere else. Cut off the pilings and you cut off the highway that supplies the rest of the property, which is why piling guards do more than protect the dock itself.
Boat lifts take the quiet hits
Boat lifts are the sneaky expense. Droppings and nesting debris collect in motors and around cables and hardware, and salt air plus organic acid is a bad combination for anything metal. A lift that's basked on and fouled all season corrodes faster than one that's kept clear, and lift repairs aren't cheap. Owners often blame the salt alone and miss that the resident iguanas are accelerating it.
What actually cuts it off
You don't fix dock damage by cleaning it forever — you take away why the iguanas are there. That means removing the resident animals, guarding the pilings so they can't climb up in the first place, and keeping the seawall bank behind the dock cleared so there's no colony feeding the pilings. It's the same waterline logic as the rest of the property: clear it, close the routes, keep it monitored. Our single visits start from $125 and monitored programs from $99/mo, and I'll tell you on the free walk which one your dock situation calls for.
Questions we hear
Can iguanas really damage a boat lift?
Yes — droppings and nesting debris collect in the motor and around cables and hardware, and combined with salt air that accelerates corrosion. It's a quiet cost that owners often blame on salt alone, missing that the resident iguanas are speeding it up.
Why do you focus on the pilings?
Pilings are the climb route from the water up to the dock and onward to the seawall, roof, or pool cage. Guarding them cuts off the highway that supplies the whole property with new animals, so it protects far more than the dock itself.
Is cleaning the dock enough?
No — cleaning treats the symptom while the resident colony keeps refouling it. The lasting fix is removing the animals, guarding the pilings, and keeping the seawall bank behind the dock cleared, so there's nothing left to keep coming back up.
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