I’m not quite sure how to go about asking my neighbor to call a skunk control company to get rid of the skunk in their yard.  I’m just waiting for evidence the skunk is in my yard, so I can call for skunk control myself without making my neighbor feel weird about it.

The neighbor behind us has a very large field.  They used to have horses on their lot, and then they farmed it a little, but now it’s just a big, weedy field.  They’re pretty good about keeping the weeds mowed down, and their field has been home to several feral cats that have been great at keeping the mouse population down.  We even feed a couple of their cats in addition to our own, because it’s nice to be worry-free about rodents like mice, rats or voles.  But, we started keeping our two cats inside and we stopped feeding the cats in their field once the skunk moved in.  Our neighbors love the wild animals around here, so they are refusing to get skunk control.

The neighbors have a very large shed at the end of their field closest to my yard, and a skunk has recently made its den underneath.  Even though it hasn’t sprayed close to our home, the smell is still overpowering, especially when the wind is blowing our way.  When my children are playing in our backyard on their swing set or in the sandbox, the wind shifts and we get a whiff of a musky wild smell.  We’ve gotten kind of used to it, but it’s not pleasant.  We used to be able to enjoy the smell of fresh-cut hay or the blooming cottonwood trees as we played catch or Frisbee in the backyard.  But, now, we end up spending more and more of our summer outside time at a park instead of our own property, because of the skunk smell.

If our neighbors had skunk control technicians come out to get rid of the skunk, we could go back to enjoying summer at home, we could start having barbeques again, my cats could roam freely in our yard without fear of being sprayed, and I wouldn’t constantly worry about my children around a skunk or its fleas or ticks or mites, or whatever else it might have.

I’ve talked with our neighbors and they’re actually quite proud of having a wild animal living back there.  Their home and backyard is far enough away from that shed that it doesn’t bother them, but it’s close enough to my yard and house that it continues to bother us.  Perhaps I’ll go back to putting cat food out, while keeping my children and cats inside for a few days.  Maybe that’ll be enough to lure the skunk into my yard, which would justify me calling for skunk control.  I won’t even have to tell the neighbors.  They’ll probably just assume the skunk moved on to someone else’s shed.