I’m worried that we have a reoccurring skunk problem underneath the addition in the back of our house.  We had a problem with it earlier this year during spring time when we found out that a skunk had dug a hole under the addition and hibernated there over the winter.  I don’t think we would have noticed if it hadn’t sprayed EVERYTHING around it when it woke up; it was awful but we were a little hopeful that it would move on after that.  That didn’t happen of course, the next night we woke up to hear thumps and squealing that we assume was the skunk fighting with another animal which led to it spraying AGAIN.

After that we called an animal control company to do an inspection to help us deal with our skunk problem, and when the worker came out he found two separate entrances but just set out one trap and said he’d be back the next day.  Well when he didn’t show up with another trap and wasn’t answering his phone, we were a little flustered and very frustrated.  We called the company directly and requested someone come set up another trap and get rid of them.  They quickly sent someone else over and we were able to trap the skunk that had moved in and get rid of it. After that we had to remove and replace almost all of the insulation from the area and seal off the entrances.  The gist is that the whole process was a mess.

After months without a sign of any new skunks, just two nights ago we started to smell skunk.  Not nearly as bad as when it sprayed underneath us, but it’s strong enough that we noticed it frequently.  I’ve look around where the old entrances were and they look alright but I’m just so worried that they’ve come back looking for a place to hole up for the winter.  We just need an inspection to see if there is any chance they’ve come back; and we need a technician that’s going to come prepared for the job!

I never thought I would hear the words “don’t panic” coupled with “there’s a skunk in the house”. I could make a list of things I never thought my mom would say to me, and this is so far out there that I don’t think I could have even made it up; but guess what? Not ten minutes ago my mom came into my room and said, and I quote, “Kelsey, now don’t panic, but I thought you should know that there’s a skunk in the house.” How does that not immediately ensue panic! Obviously this was something I’d have to see to believe so I snuck my way downstairs to get a glimpse of the already unbelievable situation (and honestly, I still didn’t quite believe what I saw).  The skunk wasn’t just hiding in a corner – no, that would be too easy – he had crawled underneath the ottoman and wasn’t coming out! I watched in shock as my dad slowly slid a broom under the couch, trying to usher the thing out the front door, but the skunk would run towards it and make a hissing noise! I 100% thought it was going to spray my dad right in the mouth, no questions asked but something must have been watching over him because that never happened.

After about an hour of the back and forth with the broom, it was clear that we needed a new plan of attack.  If the skunk wanted to stay in the dark, then we would have to make it dark.  Memories of pillow forts that covered the entire room flooded into my mind, and call me crazy, but I knew exactly what we had to do.  We gathered together some large, old boxes from both our garage and the neighbors’ and laid them together like a tunnel, then we covered the tops with old sheets and table cloths so that there was no light shining in at all and there it was: our home made skunk tunnel. If this bad boy wouldn’t get the skunk out of our house, then that was it, I was moving.

We all stood by, waiting anxiously to see if it would work. After a few seconds of silent anticipation, my dad nodded to my little brother to open the front door before he slowly bent down and prodded at the skunk with the broom.  This time, instead of running at my dad, we saw the skunk crawl out from the couch, run through our makeshift tunnel, and down the front steps.  We all cheered and I have to admit, it was pretty cool.  I don’t know how I managed to stay calm and not panic, especially when there was a skunk in my house, but I guess I’m good at keeping my cool?

I have gotten myself into the worst possible situation.  I have a skunk on my porch.  And he’s not just visiting occasionally, he’s practically living there! I am not even kidding when I say he’s been spraying EVERYONE that comes to my front door.  He’s the doorbell I never asked for; I quite prefer knocking.  He’s like one of those perfume salesmen that spray you as you walk down the street, as though it will convince you to buy the nasty bottle instead of pissing you off.

I guess technically the skunk isn’t living ON my porch exactly. My house was built on piece of slanted ground, meaning that part of the porch is on stilts and part of it is flush with the ground.  The skunk has made himself a small burrow in that corner that lays with the ground.  Whenever, and I mean whenever, someone walks across the deck.  In the last six days, four people have been sprayed.  The worst part is that one of them was my mother-in-law; yeah, I know.  Luckily, it’s never a direct spray; he more just sprays from his corner and it mists whatever visitor I have.  While it still stinks, it doesn’t stink nearly as long or nearly as bad.

No matter what the case is, I NEED someone to come get this skunk off of my porch.  The mailman (another of the skunk spray victims) won’t even deliver my mail until he knows for a fact that it’s gone.  Not to mention the fact that my house smells like Pepé Le Pew 24/7. The sooner he’s gone the happier I will be; I really don’t care what it costs because what I can’t afford is to have ANOTHER family member sprayed by this thing; or anyone else.  Please tell me someone can help with this, because if you don’t, my only other option is to sell my house and move far away.

There has been a skunk in my yard for as long as we’ve lived here.  Granted, that’s only been about 3 years, but still that’s pretty impressive for a skunk.   I don’t want you to think that I’ve just let this skunk live in my backyard, I have tried a lot of different things to get rid of him but none worked.  So we worked out a little agreement, he doesn’t spray or come to close to my house and I let him live wherever he wants.  You may think I’m nuts, but one morning sitting on my front porch, he looked at me and I looked at him, and the agreement was formed, and for a year he stayed true to it – and so did I.

You might be asking yourself, where did it all go wrong? Then again you might be thinking to yourself, why did she think that would work in the first place? I can’t answer that second question but I can answer the first.  I was a woman that trusted the skunk in my yard to stay in the yard and away from the house, which was definitely my first mistake. My second mistake was not calling a trapper once he started spending more time near my house and even on my front porch!  And the rest is history…. I’m just kidding.  The final mistake was when my 17 year old daughter left her bedroom window open; which might not have been a big deal if her room wasn’t in the basement and her window wasn’t flush with the ground.  Can you see where this is going?

As she got out of bed to get ready for school, she leaned out her window to check the weather and was met by a big, fat, stinky skunk butt in her face.  Obviously she screamed and unfortunately the skunk did what skunks do and he released the toxic, horrible gasses from his butt right at her.  And that my friends, is where the skunk crossed the line.  My daughter refuses to leave the house (which I don’t blame her on), we have to clean and even replace everything in her room, and our agreement was violated.  Now I’m here, looking for a trapper that can get this skunk out of my yard and move it somewhere else.  I tried to be nice to him, but we had an agreement, and he sprayed it right in the face.

Having baby skunks in our yard was both delightful and terrible at the same time. Maybe not necessarily at the same time, actually.  At first it was just wonderful! I am an animal lover so seeing those tiny little tails wiggling across the grass in my lawn melted my heart immediately.  I grabbed my three daughters and brought them to the living room to show them the small skunks.  We tried to find the mother (from inside the house of course) but she didn’t seem to be anywhere in sight.  This is the part where these little, adorable baby skunks get terrible.

My husband had already left for work so it was up to me and the girls to figure out just what to do with the baby skunks in the yard.    My youngest daughter, my six year old, asked me if we could go play with them.  I tried to tell her no but in the back of my mind I could almost recall the fact that baby skunks don’t spray until they get older.  The animal lover in me couldn’t resist.  We carefully made our way outside towards the babies that were rolling around in the grass.  With our noses up in the air, we tried to make out any skunk smell to see if they in fact, couldn’t spray.  Unable to smell anything, we sat down and began to pet, hold, and play with the small skunks.

Well, when my husband Rick got home that afternoon, he couldn’t believe what he saw, or smelled for that matter.  According to him there was a green mist hanging around our entire property and the place reeked so badly that he was tearing up in the car sitting in the driveway!  Well it turns out that baby skunks are born with the scent glands that allow them to spray and my daughters and I all had a Specific Anosmia for n-butyl mercaptan, or the stuff that makes skunks smell.  Not being able to smell the skunk spray was both a blessing and a curse because we didn’t know when it was gone!  My husband says it took two months before the smell was completely eradicated, but he still claims he can smell the skunk sometimes (he’s nicknamed me Pepé Le Pew).  The point to this story is that no matter what you’ve heard, baby skunks DO spray, no matter how young they are.  So even if your animal loving heart begs you to, whatever you do, do not play with any baby skunks you find in your yard.

Having a baby is stressful enough without having to deal with skunks under your porch. It makes things 10x worse actually, with the heightened sense of smell that comes from the extra estrogen in your system you might be able to imagine how the smell of skunk could get even more awful! Besides the fact that it just smells terrible, I’m also nauseous ALL THE TIME. I’m in my third trimester and this little tyrant crawling around in me loves nothing more than to make me sick (if I didn’t love him so much already it would make me mad). So imagine my distress when I woke up at 2 a.m. the other morning to the smell of skunk, a restless baby, and my gag reflex going off once the scent hit my nose!
Unfortunately, I didn’t get to the bathroom in time before a wave of vomit hit my mouth and since bending over isn’t my forte right now it was left to my husband to do the clean-up. Needless to say after that experience, he sent me to stay with my mother. This is her first grand baby so this skunk under my porch is freaking her out more than me. She’s worried that the smell could harm the baby or that it will attack me, I’m not concerned about the skunks affect to my health but I do want it gone as badly as she does. Ever since I got here she’s been fussing about my diet, how many times I’m going to the bathroom during the day, if my pants are too tight, and various other things a soon-to-be grandmother would fret over. It’s more exhausting than all the throwing up I do!
The joy of the staying with my mother dearest has so far proven short lived so I’ve been harassing Tony (my husband) at least twice a day about our situation. He’s tried to assure me that he’ll deal with the skunk under the porch and that the traps he bought and set will work soon. I’m not convinced and since my mom will barely let me out of bed I’ve been doing research on this thing (the skunk not the baby). There are professionals that do it for a living, who knew! I’m trying to get Tony to call one of them, I’m going to have this baby sooner than he’d like to admit and I want to go to my home, skunk free, sweet home once I pop him out.