The skunk under my house is making me sick!! *retching*

[GreenPartyVoter]

I have a constant headache and nausea.

My neighbor threw some mothballs down there and it worked once in driving it off, but since then I found out how toxic they are so I don't want to do that again. (And no, the headache is not from the mothballs. Definitely predates them.)

I heard some people dip rags into ammonia and leave them under the house, but is this also a bad plan?

Anyone have any ideas? I implored hubby to board up the bottom of the house and shed later this fall, but for now I am just dying. Please save me!!!

[Wcross]

1. The skunk is spraying under the house???????

I would send a dog under there to kill it personally. Since it is already spraying on a regular basis under the house just send in an aggressive dog & it will be dead. If you have no gas lines or vital plumbing in the way you could also shoot it with a shotgun. I usually advocate live & let live with wild animals until they violate the rules.

[GreenPartyVoter]

3. No dog and no gun. Also no idea why he would be so smelly down there

[Wcross]

7. Is it possibly rabid?

Skunks spray when they are threatened, could it be "disturbed" due to rabies? Call animal control or a pest control service.

[GreenPartyVoter]

9. Have only seen it at dusk and night and it seems to be ok. It's a young'un. Maybe half-grown. He'd

be cute if he wasn't under my house. There are 5 vacant trailers on this road. Why did he pick mine to live under? :P

[ccharles000]

2. ....

:hug:

[GreenPartyVoter]

4. Appreciate the support *hugs*

[femmocrat]

5. How about a high-pressure hose?

That could piss him off, but he sounds pissed off already. Once he is on the run, you could board up the opening.

You could try to trap him, but that would also make him spray.

Wcross is right... shooting them is probably the "safest" way to get rid of skunks. That is what the game warden told my brother when he was bothered with them.

[GreenPartyVoter]

10. I don't wanna shoot him if it can be helped, though. :^(

[Kali]

18. in my experience getting the spray wet with water sure makes it stick around longer

don't know if it is some chemical reaction or just my imagination, but a dog that gets wet after being sprayed seems to stink FOREVER.

Husband shot one on the front porch one night (last time for that!) and then tried to clean it with the hose - ugh it stayed there for months. When the dogs piss one off in the yard the stink goes away in a couple of days....

[malta blue]

6. oh hell

I have nothing to offer but :hug::hug:

That STINKS (Literally)

:hug::hug:

[GreenPartyVoter]

11. LOL Yeah it does

[NewEnglandGirl]

8. We have "Humane Wildlife Removal" people here

They are in the yellow pages. You just call them and they come out with a Havahart trap and catch whatever has invaded your home. We had a raccoon in the attic and it cost $55.00 to have them remove him. Then they take the animal far from your home and release it into the woods. Maybe you have something like that near you.
I know how bad skunk smell is. It is very nauseating. Good luck. :hi:

[GreenPartyVoter]

12. The trouble with trapping is it causes them to panic and spray more. Maybe there is a special

skunk trap, though?

[NewEnglandGirl]

13. What they told me is

that a skunk won't spray unless it makes eye contact with something that's bothering it. So they throw a towel over it (the trap) and they say it won't spray. I don't know at all if that's true but I did see one in their van with a towel over it and it hadn't sprayed.

[GreenPartyVoter]

14. I'll give them a call and see if they can help out. Thanks!

[XemaSab]

15. Yeah, but one big spray is better than a lot of little sprays

Skunk spray never bothered me until I was in a car that hit one. I had to take a BIG hike up a hill after that, and I swear I was about to barf by the time I got to the top.

Call animal control if nothing else. Or go board up the opening in the dead of night.

[Kali]

17. no it doesn't

unless something is wrong with it - I would be concerned about the rabies thing anyway. I have trapped several in the last year and even had them in my kitchen. The only time they have sprayed was when a dog got after them.

If you are afraid of disposing (killing) it then you may be out of luck. Call your local wildlife service and ask for help. oh and shooting is not a good idea - they WILL spray when you do that.

Relocating wildlife is more cruel than just killing them. In the case of skunks they will travel MILES or get run over or killed by some other animal, car etc. Most likely they will become a pest to someone who WILL kill it.

When it is gone you need to animal proof your home.

[Gormy Cuss]

16. Try the ammonia on rags bit.

It helps sometimes. Hang the rags from sticks and soak them good. The idea is that the skunk will think a predator (coyote, for example) has moved into the territory. I had success dissuading raccoons this way.

You can also use gauze bags of mothballs (less likely to get eaten by some unfortunate critter.) Just bring the mothballs in if rain is in the forecast.

And get hubby to board up the the area or do it yourself!

[Ahpook]

19. Shoot those terrorists:(

Fucking stop.

Make it less inhabitable and they move on.

We had a bit of trouble with them as well.

We made sure our trash cans were secure. I had to build an enclosed area to put them in. That seemed to stop most of it. We would have the occasional little guy walk by, but it was ok.

I could have nuked the place, but this worked just fine.

[Shine]

20. We know skunks. We had 14 of 'em living under our house, we've been there.

Here's what you should do:

Shine a bright light under the house and try to get as much light under there as you can. They hate that and will leave their den.

You could also try playing loud music from a radio. Set it up where you think they're entering from.

Basically, you want to make it very unpleasant for them to stay.......but not in any way that will harm them or make you sick.

And then, after they leave, it's absolutely imperative you make your house impenetrable, so they won't be tempted to come back.

We didn't go this route, btw. Long story, short: we ended up using a biz called "Critter Control" and they told us for a flat $89 and $100 per skunk, they'd catch the skunks in traps and release them in the wild. We agreed, thinking there were only a few of them down there. Well, 14 skunks later, (!!?!) we finally had them all out. The traps were laid out right in front of the one and only access door under our house, which was loose. Every night they'd come out, a few more of them would get trapped. After a few nights of having BOTH the traps filled, the Critter Control folks put out 4 traps and we went through several more nights of all of those being filled! Obviously we were dealing with a large family of skunks, with lots of cute skunk babies. They'd be picked up and taken away the next morning. Two of them didn't go quietly and sprayed while they were in their traps. The back end of our ranch house reeked for days, so the biz took off $200. All the same, though, we'd just bought our house at the time and didn't exactly have a lot of extra money to pay for this, so we actually had to set up a payment plan to pay for the skunks! It's quite a story.

I remember we were looking at getting a new dishwasher at the time and saying, "Oh, that's about five skunks' worth!" :rofl:

Oh, yes. Memories.......

Good luck, you have my sympathy! :hi:

[Robb]

21. The light works!

I had skunks, a good droplamp works wonders. They prefer the darkness, and will seek out new digs.

Myself, I didn't know they were down there until I found an ex-skunk stiff in the yard. And a mild (and I mean really, really faint) odor on one of the huskies.

When the score became Huskies 3, Skunks 0, I checked under the house. :eyes:

Anyhoo, ammonia works just like mothballs, and isn't very good for you either. Go with a strong light.

[Shine]

22. Our cats went under the house WITH the skunks! They never got sprayed.

It was the weirdest thing, as if they'd worked out some sort of little arrangement.

We found out about them being under our house from hearing strange scratching noises on our heating duct pipes.

At the time we were leaving the cats' dry food outside, which was a big mistake. I remember one time we saw a skunk on the deck.....then later heard a weird knocking noise in our bedroom, which was right above the outside access door to the area beneath the house. We figured out later the knocking sound came from the door, itself, which was being knocked by all the skunks going in and out.

:eyes:

[backwoodsbob]

23. 4 shepperds seems to work too :)

:shrug: