A few weeks ago when our neighbours were in Italy, I got a text from a number that didn't have a contact assigned while I was at work on Monday morning. It was from their daughter, and their dog had been sprayed by a skunk and tracked it all through the house. She was letting me know that they had blocked off Lucy and Riley's dog door in the fence because the grass still smelled like skunk and they wanted to prevent Lucy from going and rolling in it.
They handled it all so well. Yvonne said her sister picked up the plastic suits when it happened, but I have a small suspicion she has a serial killer side gig, to which I say, go girl, nice hustle.
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| "How have I come to this?" |
For some reason we just said 'good job' and moved on with our lives. Why did we do that? Did we think there was only one skunk in the world? Did we think the skunk had done its damage and moved on? Why would we think that? Why were we so moronically blissfully complacent? WHY?
Monday evening, Eve's friends had just left after painting their pumpkins. Angus was downstairs watching tv. Matt was on a work call. Eve had just gone upstairs to get ready to shower. I let Lucy out and then started to clean up the table.
I heard Lucy scratching to get in - a little more enthusiastically than normal, maybe, but I didn't think anything of it. I opened the door, then picked up a chair and carried it out to the dining room table. As soon as I plunked it down, I smelled a weird kind of burning smell. Idiotically, I looked down as if to ensure that I had not started a fire by somehow introducing the wood of the chair leg to the wood of the floor. Then I turned my head to the right and saw Lucy frantically scrubbing herself on the carpet of the bottom stair.
I grabbed her around her middle and screamed for Matt, and the kids, and possibly the national guard (Canada doesn't have a national guard). Everyone jumped into action pretty impressively: I got Matt to open the back door and chucked Lucy outside as gently as possible. Matt somehow apparated a Rubbermaid bin and I googled what to put in it and dispatched Eve to find hydrogen peroxide. We dumped in baking soda and peroxide and dish soap and warm water and bathed Lucy thoroughly on the back step. Then Angus and I took her up for a normal bath while Eve and Matt used the little green machine on the stairs - fortunately she had only touched the first two, but the house was filled with a poisonous stinging miasma.
We texted our neighbours so they would know the skunk was around again (as if they wouldn't have figured it out).
We got Lucy as dry as possible, then realized her head and neck were still bad because we'd been avoiding her eyes. We put her back in the bath and filled the sink with the peroxide mixture to go over her head and neck, then rinsed her eyes thoroughly,.
We put a blanket on Eve's bed for her and she spent the next half hour diving into it, then peaking out reproachfully as if to say "you thundering idiots, the smelly thing is OUT THERE". We lit a bunch of candles and opened a bunch of windows, but there's not a lot that's effective. The boys were fine, but Eve and I were headachey and nauseated. Eve said "we should be so much more grateful that every animal can't do this. And that skunks aren't bigger."
For the next few days I was really careful every time I let Lucy out. Unfortunately, it has become clear that the skunk has taken up residence under our back step, beside the furnace intake. So skunk smell is seeping into our house and everything is very terrible. We had someone come and set a trap yesterday, but it was pouring rain so the skunk presumably stayed cozy under the step. If the trap remains skunkless tonight, we will have to resort to drastic measures because I cannot live like this. I don't feel good about it, believe me! I know the other side of this is a heartwarming children's book about a poor misunderstood mephitid who only wants to make friends and live its life.
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| Sorry Sammy, NOT ON MY WATCH |
Skunks need a place too. Unfortunately their place cannot be this close to my place because I can't breathe or see or live in my house. I can't seem to remember a time Before the Skunk. We paid someone a considerable amount of money to come and set a trap two days ago with the promise that they would come back and remove it once the skunk went in the trap. The skunk has not gone in the trap. We have sprinkled coyote urine and garlic powder and put out bright lanterns and so far the skunk has resisted all efforts at eviction. I ordered a cheap bluetooth speaker because my friend said they played podcasts loudly until their skunk left.
Okay, I wrote all this yesterday when my head was pounding and I felt like crap, which may have just been general allergies rather than skunk reaction - apparently our long fall with no frost has been brutal on the allergy front. Today I am feeling a little more sanguine about the whole thing. My friend took Lucy for a couple of days while we worked this problem. I picked her up today and we're just monitoring her when she goes out so she doesn't go for round two with our malodorous guest. It's colder today and the smell isn't quite as pervasive. We got a one-way door that we're zip-tying to some chicken wire and that will be our next step.
And then? I don't know. Throw a rave in the back yard? Cage match with Lucy? Exorcism?
17 comments:
Oh, noooo! I am so sorry you're dealing with this. I have no useful advice, but all the sympathy in the world. What a smell to have in the house.
Moth balls! We had a skunk living under our living room and the wildlife people would not do anything about it. But they did recommend moth balls, tossed into the skunk den.
Poor Lucy . Sweet girl.
(This is Suzanne.)
OH MY GOD NO.
When you said "skunk issue" I figured that Lucy got skunked, I did not realize that you now have a skunk as a housemate. I think the only thing you can do is move and burn the house down. Okay, no, that's not tenable. I have no idea but you have all my sympathy. As I mentioned to you before, my neighbour in Calgary kept bees which attract skunks and HOW Barkley never got skunked, I have no idea. OMG I just imagined Rex getting skunked, what would I do, he's too big to bath! Okay, okay, now I'm just making this about me. Back to you - I hope that the skunk goes into the cage and that's the end of the story.
Oh, what an ordeal. I hope you find a solution first.
Ha, I love Nicole's advice! I actually had no idea how bad a skunk spraying could be. I mean, i know it smells bad, but it sounds like it's actually making you ill. I hope this can all be resolved soon. Skunks are so cute! How can they be so problematic??? I like Eve's comment that it's lucky more animals don't do this. Kind of interesting that it's only skunks when you think about it.
No. No. No. Just no. This is high on my list of dog fears. A few weeks ago our dog had a belly issue and needed to go outside frequently. On one of our many treks outside in the wee hours of the morning, I opened the door and there was a huge whiff of skunk and all that I could think was that yes, there was a way for the night to get worse.
Okay, so
1. Trap
2. Mothballs
3. Radio.
These are all the tips I used to get a skunk out from under our porch, and what the neighbors used to get a skunk out from under their shed.
And I AM SO SORRY FOR ALL YOUR SMELLY TROUBLES. It sounds awful. I always feel terrible when I see dead animals on the roadside, but not when they are skunks even though I did a wonderful animal report on skunks in the fifth grade and got an A.
Fingers crossed that your skunk is dead/gone soon.
The trap has been a dismal failure. Mothballs and bluetooth speaker on the way. We shall overcome! Maybe!
I was told skunks can't take their own smell after two weeks so they move on - that's supposedly why skunk removal services always schedule appointments 1.5 weeks out. But, because it's getting colder, they might be denning, or tucked in for the winter.
No, even when it was happening I was thinking how much worse it would be with a big dog.
I did NOT know bees attract skunks. This knowledge is unlikely to come in handy unless it's for trivia, but I am glad to know it anyway (note to self: do not start raising bees).
I had no idea what a full-strength skunk spray was like. The rotten-egg smell is the very very least of it. It's a burning, acid-y, weaponized horribleness. And I agree, as usual Eve said something I had never thought but is really interesting.
I'm finding it difficult to find actual moth balls. I might try Home Depot.
I would have said Lucy was unaffected, but her recall seems to have gotten better and she is sniffing around the back yard curiously but does not have to be told to stay away from the place where the skunk is.
It's better now that it's colder. But yeah, not ideal.
Oh, no!!!! So awful to think of Pepe LePew taking up residence there. I have no solutions to offer but just hope there is a quick resolution.
If you want, you can have our National Guard (PLEASE take our National Guard) but judging from their performance here in the past 276 days I don't think they will be much help with anything. They haven't gotten rid of our stinkiest problems.
I'm with Nicole! The house must be burned to the ground. Gah.
How HORRIBLE. That smell is so distinctive and awful.
It's weird because I grew up smelling skunk all the time (it felt like every time we went on the highway somewhere, there would be a dead skunk) and now...I literally cannot remember how long it's been. A decade?? What happened to all the skunks?? Is this another byproduct of global warming?
That said, I am very, very sorry YOU have a skunk on your property and I am all for finding ways to
Ohhhhhhhhh nooooooooooooo
I love your comment to Nance…”We shall overcome! Maybe!” You’re hilarious.
Coincidentally, I got a sniff of skunk today, and thought, ‘ACK’, that’s a skunk! So I know we have them in the area. Our neighbor saw a big raccoon in our parking lot last night, and the squirrels have been eating the decorative pumpkin I put out front. Thankfully, that is the extent of our current wildlife issues. I really, really hope that the moth balls and noise help! I don’t want to see them dead like Nance (though to be fair, I’ve never had to deal with one), I just want them to stay in the countryside and not come near us.
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