OTTAWA - A 16-year-old admitted Monday to a wild burglary spree that included spattering homes with paint, leaving piles of feces and microwaving a gecko.

Four burglaries happened on the same Ottawa street on the same April day.

"Okay, that's low, that's really, really low," Judge Dianne Nicholas said after confirming geckos are "those cute things on the commercials" for cell phones and insurance.

The teen, who can't be named under the Youth Criminal Justice Act, hung his head in the prisoner's box.

His sentencing hearing is set for Aug. 31 on five counts of break, enter and theft, failing to comply with the three probation orders he was under and killing an animal.

A second teen who pleaded guilty to similar charges -- although not to killing the lizard -- will be sentenced in two weeks.

The duo burgled four homes on Jessica Private, always entering through windows, within hours on April 13.

One house was ransacked and electronics including a flat-screen TV, DVD player, stereo and Xbox with 100 games, gone along with the family pet, a gecko.

"The lizard was missing and soon found in a microwave," prosecutor Matthew Geigen-Miller said. "It was apparent that the lizard was placed in the microwave and the oven was then activated."

The teen's prints were pulled off a patio door at the home.

In another house, a full can of brown paint was thrown over the living room, hall and kitchen. Two piles of feces were left on the main floor.

The bedrooms were rummaged and one sprayed with what appeared to be lotion. The basement was trashed and a can of yellow paint and a five-gallon pail of primer dumped.

A flat-screen TV was stolen from a third home while the resident slept.

A fourth house was trashed, with blue paint thrown everywhere -- including all over the family dog -- a TV set broken and a mirror smashed.

A jewelry box full of rings and necklaces was taken.

The crime wave began April. 7 when a Chris Lund Private resident returned from being away for two days to find his house had been the scene of a party.

It was littered with empty beer bottles -- off which police lifted both teens' prints along with those of two others -- cigarette butts and smoked joints.

Plates of food had been strewn around and the intruders had cooked themselves hotdogs, macaroni and corn and smeared the walls with mustard.

megan.gillis@sunmedia.ca