Tag Archives: skunk smell

It’s a Dog-Eat-Dog World

There is a skunk in my yard and he is at war with my dogs. It started about two weeks ago after we had about 3 days of hard rain.  The skunk was denning underneath our shed out back, and I think that the rain may have flooded it out which is why we’re just now seeing activity from it.  The problem is that now that it’s out it is wandering around our property and we have two small dogs.  Needless to say the two types of animals do NOT get along.

Even though I know the skunk is out and about, the sightings are scattered.  We will smell him long before we see him, especially with the dogs.  It has been a nightmare dealing with it, if we let them out and forget to watch them they’ll be long gone, chasing after the skunk before we realize it and can stop them.  In two weeks, they have each been sprayed twice; the hydrogen peroxide and baking soda are practically all gone from using them so much and I can still smell the skunk lingering in their fur.         I’m not even sure if the skunk is in the yard or if it’s hiding out under the shed still.  I know that when I let the dogs out the immediately head for the foundation of the shed, but they just sniff and don’t usually bark or scratch.  When they see the skunk, though, they go absolutely bananas!

We need help getting rid of this thing.  The skunk is turning our backyard into a war zone, world war three is happening: dogs vs. skunk!  I’ve looked up skunk traps and skunk repellents, but it seems unlikely to me that they would help get the skunk out of my yard for good.  I’d rather have him trapped and relocated so that I know he’s gone.  I need a professional skunk trapper and I don’t even know if that’s a real job!

Skunk in the Window Well

skunk          Skunks are not good climbers, so when a skunk falls down into a window well, it can get stressed, dehydrated, panicked and then spray.  You may not even be aware you had a skunk in the window well, but when the smell hits you, you’ll figure out soon enough that you have a skunk problem.

A woman I know works at a hospital and often works the night shift.  She came home in the early hours one morning, stepped out of her car, and gagged on the smell of a fresh skunk spray.  Skunks have poor eyesight, which is ironic since they are nocturnal, and one had fallen down into a window well leading to the half-finished basement.  Unfortunately, her teenage son had been painting the walls of his soon-to-be-bedroom the evening before and had left the window slightly ajar.  It wasn’t wide enough to let in the animal, but the sharp, musky, oily scent of the spray got in.

My friend initially thought a skunk had gotten inside the house or was somehow in the basement, so they were afraid to go and investigate.  For hours, they tried to combat the stench, not realizing they had a skunk trapped in the window well.  Finally, the animal was discovered, and they figured out what must have happened.  But, what to do?  They wanted to help the skunk in the window well, but they didn’t want to risk getting hurt or sprayed.  Of course, they were concerned the skunk might have rabies, too, so there was no way they were going to approach it to try to help get it out of there.

My friend lowered a spare piece of wood they had lying around in the garage, hoping the animal would be able to climb out at an angle.  They had a bad moment when they were trying this, because the animal was skittish and panicky and turned around, lifting its tail as if to spray again.  Everyone ran for cover and the plan was abandoned.  After a while the skunk tried to walk up the lumber, but the angle was still too steep and it couldn’t make it out on its own.

Exhausted, after working all night and coming home to a stench and a mess and a wild animal in the window well, my friend finally gave up trying to handle the problem on her own.  She made a call to Allstate Animal Control, and they sent someone out to take a look at the problem and remove the skunk.  They even knew how to get the skunk smell out of the basement.  Of course, my friend got window well covers installed, and now so do I.  I don’t want to ever go through that kind of drama.

Skunk Smell

skunk

 

It happened suddenly, before I even realized a skunk had sprayed my daughter.  One moment I was helping my son with his bike, and the next my little girl is gagging and coughing and trying to scream.

The day had not started out well.  Both children had missed the bus, apparently because I failed to yell “Hurry Up” enough times.  It never fails to surprise me how slowly my children can do normal, every-day things, like put a shirt on or eat cereal or brush their teeth.  So, the bus came and went, and my children were not on it.  That meant that I had to search for my purse and keys while tugging on a bra and tennis shoes at the same time so I could drive them.  Driving them was the only way to get them to school safely and on time, although I would have loved to have just made them stay home, do homework and stay in bed all day long after the morning they gave me.

Nevertheless, I got them to the proper place at the proper time so they do the requisite learning activities and I could have the next several hours to prepare for my afternoon meeting.  That meetig did not go well, unfortunately, and I didn’t get the bid, despite all the hours of work I’d put into my presentation.

I barely got home in time for the kids to get off the bus, and we headed straight into whining homework time.  I powered through, helping them with their homework, cleaning the kitchen, folding laundry and getting dinner ready all at the same time.

I realized it was too quiet at the dinner table.  I’d spent all the time I had with my children that day yelling at them to hurry up or do something or focus on their work, and they were just as tired as I was.  It was time to do something fun.

We pulled out the bikes and rode around the neighborhood.  It was a lovely, early spring day, one of those rare warm ones, and the evening was turning out to be beautiful.  We laughed and raced and spent some wonderful quality time.

Then my son’s bike broke.  Then, my daughter chased down a skunk and the skunk sprayed her.  I had no idea what to do.  I wanted to grab her and hold her and console her, but we couldn’t stop coughing and gagging on that nasty skunk smell.  I somehow managed to calm her down, get us and the bikes back home, stripped her down in the garage and threw away the clothes, and got her in the tub while I searched for how to remove skunk smell.  After many hours, lot of my daughter’s tears and some tears on my part, we managed to get rid of the skunk smell, mostly.  Compared to today, tomorrow can only be better.

Skunk in the House

It took forever for us to figure out we had a skunk in the house.  It shouldn’t have taken us that long, but you have to understand we live in a duplex, and we’ve had problems with our neighbors for years.  Now, we’re not the ritziest people.  We work hard, though.  I work two jobs and my boyfriend does construction work, so he can either be working a 16 hour day for three days in a row, or have no work for a week.  On the days he’s not working, he’ll pick up odd jobs and fix up houses and stuff.  We made some bad choices a couple of years back, so we have some real serious debts to pay off, and we want to put money down on a new house.  That’s why we work so much, so we can pay off the debt, buy a house, get married and start a family, maybe.

 

But the people that live next door are a nightmare.  They throw all-night parties, people coming and going until 3 or 4 in the morning.  Makes it kind of hard when I get home at ten at night and have to be up again at six.  They throw their trash out on the front lawn.  Never even makes it to the garbage can.  It’s just junk and stuff rotting or rusting.  Makes it embarrassing when we have our friends over, because they have to walk next to that.  I think they have to have mice or something nesting in that garbage, though, which is probably how we ended up with a skunk in the house.

 

Sure, we’ve complained.  The guy who owns the duplex doesn’t really care, though.  He’s got tenants that pay regular rent, so that’s that.  Yeah, he’s talked to them a couple of times, but it doesn’t look like anyone’s going anywhere.  We can’t move out fast enough, if you ask me.

 

We weren’t all that surprised when we started smelling a new awful smell.  Took us a while to figure out what it was, though.  We just assumed it was more garbage, or something had died or something.  Then, one morning, I was headed out to work around six, when I saw the black and white cat-sized animal come out of a hole in the wall, right behind the gas meter.  That’s when I realized we have a skunk in the house.  The meters are kind of in between the two duplexes, so it’s hard to tell whether it’s on our side or not.  I don’t care.  We can all smell it, and it can probably get into either side.

 

I called my husband from work, since he didn’t have a job that day, and told him all about it.  He called the landlord, who promised to get Allstate Animal Control out there to get rid of the skunk in the house.  I hope so.  If only we could ask them to get rid of the neighbors at the same time.

 

 

Skunk Control

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.

How To Get Rid of Skunks

skunks
A skunk and her babies playing outside their hole into a home.
(Artwork by Sharon Davis. Contact us for her contact info.)

A couple in Maryland want to know how to get rid of skunk smell.  They had planned a weekend getaway in their log cabin.  The cabin was a few hours away from their home, but up in the mountains where they could relax and enjoy some peace and quiet, and get back to nature.  Unfortunately, nature got there first.

After several hours of packing, and then a long drive to the cabin, they finally arrived, only to be chased back outside by a horrible smell.  It was unmistakable.  Skunk.  At the time, they didn’t know if the skunk was still in the property or if it had just gotten in there temporarily to root around for food.  Obviously, though, something had disturbed it and it had let off its noxious spray into the enclosed space.

They weren’t sure how to get rid of a skunk or its odor, so they called wildlife control specialists to come out and take a look the next day.  They spent the night in the car and waited for the professionals to come out to inspect the property before they went inside again.  Skunks can be a carrier of rabies, they can bite or scratch if provoked, and they can certainly spray again.  They did not want to risk any of that.  Let the professionals handle it!

It was eventually determined that the skunk had left, but they still had to deal with the damage and odor.  A search around the outside of the log cabin revealed the skunk had entered through a hole in the foundation.  It was unclear whether it had burrowed through the foundation itself, or if it had merely taken advantage of a hole made by a raccoon or other creature.  It had nested inside the cabin for a while, made free with the couple’s food stores in the kitchen, and had been disturbed enough at some point to spray its noxious odor.

The smell was horrific, even though it wasn’t fresh.  They searched through the cabin and found that most of their belongings stored within had to be thrown away.  The smell had ruined mattresses, clothes, rugs, towels.  They had to get a special cleaning company to come out to clean the cabin and get rid of the smell.  They started tallying up the damage to the structure itself, including the hole through the foundation.  The cost started stacking up.

Unfortunately, their insurance company denied the claim and refused to pay for the damages.  It was hard not to think of the “what if’s.”  What if they had learned how to keep skunks out?  What if they had checked in on the cabin more regularly?  Or, what if they had been home, ignorant to the hole in their foundation, when the skunk had come in?  Things might have been even worse.

Get Rid of Skunks

get rid of skunks
            Thinking of ways of how to get rid of a skunk is just not something you want to do while running at five-thirty in the morning.  But, in my neighborhood, you’d better give it a little bit of thought, for your own safety.

            Around the end of April, my scale and an upcoming trip to the beach reminded me of my New Years Resolution to get fit and trim down.  I spent a lot of time calculating how many calories I needed to burn each day to make my beach trip something more than a Mumu-fest.  I invested in a great pair of running shoes, planned out a route, got a lot of great tips online, and decided which the day I would begin my valiant efforts to get fit.  I figured the best time to get running into my schedule was to go early in the morning before the kids woke up.  So, I also bought a small light to wear on my hip, to alert the few possible drivers of my presence.  A crash diet was possibly in order, but having a car crash into me wasn’t.

          I went to sleep early and excited about my new routine, and woke up angry at the vicious alarm clock and moaning about the indecency of running while it was still dark outside.

            But, I did it.  I started my routine, and after about a week and a half, it got a lot easier.  I didn’t moan as loudly when I woke up, and I finally stopped swearing at the alarm clock.  My breathing was getting easier and I was almost able to run a full mile without stopping.  And, if I was truly honest with myself, I enjoyed running while it was still dark outside.  I felt so virtuous, thinking of myself as a “hard core” runner, alone and free out there in the dim pre-dawn.  It was the only quiet time I had each day, and I was beginning to actually enjoy it. 

            I heard a sound, and then the light on my hip caught a flash of something moving just ahead of me.  I couldn’t make out quite what it was, but it was large enough to make me stop.  Adrenaline pumping, I tried to calm my breathing and squinted, grabbing at the small light.  It moved again.  A cat?  Noooo, what is . . .?  Then my mind finally put it together.  Skunk!!!  Rooting around in someone’s garbage.  Long nose, bushy tail, and of course the white stripes on black fur.  If I hadn’t stopped, I would have run right next to it, probably startling it enough to spray me.

            I backed up slowly and eased over to the other side of the road, warily watching the black shape moving around.  As long as it didn’t turn its tail towards me, I was okay, right?  Unless it was rabid?  No, probably not rabid or it would have charged me by now.  Right?  Maybe?  How many days had I run right by it?  Where was it living?  How do I get rid of a skunk in my neighborhood?  My stomach churned, thinking of how I might have been sprayed before I even knew there was a skunk in the road.