the front half of my house reeks of skunk right now and I’m done

Fricken animals. 

The coons have been around since we moved in, but we haven’t seen them much (until this year) since they got evicted from the neighbor’s rear addition when the house sold (3-4ish years ago).  I haven’t seen an opossum since that one that froze to death under my basement steps one exceptionally harsh winter, like 9 years ago.  I’ve never seen a single skunk in the neighborhood until this year, but now they’re everywhere.  I’d be walking down the alley to the corner store and there they are, foraging in the bushes along someone’s property line.  I have learned to watch out, because they’re stupid and arrogant (true fact I found out recently when visiting a Raptor Sanctuary: they have no natural predators other than The Great Horned Owl - that’s because Owls have no sense of smell and the Great Horned is the only one large enough to carry one off  - and we have none of those in the city, obviously).  I mean, they can’t actually see very well at night, so many times they come around the fence/bush right into me.  If I am lucky I can see them coming a ways off and can make noise so they notice I am there before they get too close, so they bugger off another way.  I am starting to wonder if the neighbors think I’m crazy - all they hear is a guy talking angrily (cussing) but calmly to something they can’t see and probably don’t realise are animals.  I bump into (at least) one skunk in my own yard (which is tiny; downtown row house) at least every other night.  I have gotten pretty good at dealing with them, but still have had 2 close calls where the little shit (4 babies + mom; the youngins are pretty dumb - also more dangerous, like venomous snakes, because they haven’t learned to control the amount of shit they release) turned around and raised it’s tail at me.  I have never bolted so fast in my life.

Earlier in the year I was just seeing them in the alley.  Then they were trying to dig under the fence (right by the gate to the inner part of my yard from the outer/parking pad, so I would bump into them all the time) into the neighbors shed (which uses the fence as a back wall).  Had the neighbor give the all clear and I dug down deeper and stuck wood down there so they would give up digging and move on.  That worked, but then they found another spot, just across the back alley from there, again, digging under the fence and floor of my other neighbors outdoor closet/plastic shed thinger.  So they were still around my yard every dang night - but at least I could see them coming. 

I dunno how, but the neighbor evicted them.  Swore that they saw them move to a burrow up the street away from me, but I am seeing them in my yards (both front and back) even more now (them in the front is new).  The front is the worst because they poke out from the neighbors bushes literally a foot away from where I stand to smoke when it’s raining and I’m pinned against the wall/door (which I lock so the smoke don’t get in - not a good latch otherwise).

The other week I was trapped in my house - skunks front and back.  I was livid, like pick a fucking side; stay with your brother(s) you dumb fuck.

Then there started to be incidents.  I guess they’re meeting some of the other local wildlife (in my anger at skunks I totally forgot to mention that I had an opossum almost run right into me last night; apparently they’re pretty blind too.  I was grooming my tomato and bean plants out back, yes I am a nighttime gardener - that’s the time I have available, when I saw something in my peripheral vision, turn around and there’s an opossum there, litterally flipping over in the air within my reach as it realised it was running straight into a larger animal, me in case that wasn’t clear, and freaked out at it’s own stupid, scampering off back the way it came.  I had also seen it, or another, in the alley skulking slowly along the fence a few times this year, which is crazy because the thing about opossums is that you tend to never see them; they are good at the not being seen; their signature move as it were, but back to the skunks).  Had an incident where I was going out back for a smoke, opened the door and nope - there’s that smell - lets go out front instead (yes, one popped it’s head out the bush/picket fence but it was alone so I was able to scare it away with my voice; still had to retreat myself though because the assholes just come again after a few minutes when they think you’ve gone and I’ve been too lucky already).  But it was weak/normal; gone the next morning.  Then I went to the store one time and once I got around the corner in the alley I smelled it.... but then I still smelled it when I got to the store (google claims that’s just < 1/4 km) so it musta been a large, ahem, discharge in an open space (such as that T intersection of the alley) for it to spread like that.

Then last night, somewhere between 3:30 and 5 I got woke up by the stink drifting in.  At first I thought I was dreaming, because I’m inside in bed.  AC so no doors or windows open.  One of the juvenile skunks must have just blown his entire load somewhere under my front deck.  I know houses aren’t perfectly airtight, but damn, it smells so very strong in my bedroom, the front foyer, and the basement below, as if the little shit sprayed inside.  Oddly it is not traveling any further into the house, though I suppose we’ll see what the status of that is when I get home from work.

On the plus side, it covers up the dead animal smell that started from that same area a few days ago... oh wait, fuck shit ass!:

“ stronger skunk smells that have worked their way into fur, clothes, or carpeting can linger for several months to several years if immediate action is not taken. If a skunk has died near or under your home, skunk scent will linger far longer. “ from here

So yeah, this is now going to be the 4th larger mammal (mice don’t count - it’d be double or more) that has died on my property since I’ve lived here (< 15 years).  When I moved in there was a dead cat (orange tabby) under my neighbors front deck, literally just on the other side of the wood separating it from my basement steps.  That was not so bad a smell, and went away quickly (due to neighbor with issues that cat was not removed until the house was sold many years later - that’s one pissed off kitty ghost and it freaked me out occasionally to know there’s a kitty mummy right there... also it was weird because apparently it may have been his cat).  Then the aforementioned opossum under the steps (I actually opened the basement door the night before - it hissed at me so I just went ‘nope’ and went out the back instead; I wonder if it would have survived that frigid night if I had fed it).  Then I was cleaning under my back deck one time, and nearly put my hand into a dead racoon (hilariously posed as if playing dead, on it’s back with it’s tongue hanging out one side of it’s mouth and arms perched up like a TRex; cartoonish aside from the signs of decomposition, which were super gross; the abdominal cavity... never mind you don’t wanna hear it, just feel lucky that you have not seen what cannot be unseen).  I could not get out from under there fast enough let me assure you (and I was a good 5 meters in with only belly crawl room; couldn’t even turn around).  Took me a few hours to chill out, get suited up/supplied and get back under there to remove it (animal control won’t do it for you - you have to bag it and they’ll come get it from the curb; I’m a seasoned veteran by now).  Luckily I had a system down since the opossum (under the steps in a tight spot); garbage bag over a snow shovel, scoop it up and then pull the bag back over the carcass and tie it off in a hurry; coveralls, bandanna, goggles, dust mask and my dad’s old full grain leather engineers gloves.

This dead animal (I know that smell; also the flies - so many flies) is worse than before.  The cat smelled a bit for a while (would come and go with the hot weather the first summer we lived there).  The opossum not at all (frozen solid) and for some reason the racoon didn’t smell that bad either  except right up close (I mean I nearly stumbled right into it without smelling it).  But this is rank. It probably does not help that the death occurred at the start of the biggest fricken heat wave we’ve had so far this year.  The problem is (with all the smell avoidance tricks I know, and a flashlight in the daytime) I was not able to locate the source; no body... so days later the smell is still there (taking my bike in/out to go to work is such a horrible experience, I can’t even put it into words).  The skunk smell is actually a relief in comparison, but not strong enough to cover the death stench when outside the basement door (it does if you’re by the main front door on top of the front porch). ... though the rotting carcass smell does not creep inside like the skunk does, so bit of a trade off there.

Anyway, I know the undersides of both my front and back decks are animal highways at night.  Something died under there, and then a skunk came across it a few days later, and/or another live animal checking it out (apparently, opossums do eat carrion, so that’s my theory), and literally shit it’s pants, and now my life sucks so much more.  I fucking hope that corpse is your mom asshole.

It pisses me off though, because I helped my neighbors get rid of their animal invaders (see above about the  wood preventing the skunks getting in to one neighbor’s shed, and a recent post about helping the other neighbor get rid of a racoon in his porch roof) and the city won’t let me cut down the trees on the rear property line (the corners actually) that prevent me from building a fence (tree growth knocked down the old fence that used to be there). Even though they are nuisance/weed species - a Tree of Heaven (ptui! - one of them ironic names) and a Manitoba Maple.  So on my short street (6 houses) I’m the only one with open entrance, grass/plant life (rest are patio-ed/graveled) and actual full grown trees = wildlife magnet. Like literally we’re an urban mammal oasis and I am so tired of it.  This is even more annoying because the development just N of me was allowed to chop down 5 mature trees (developers can afford the ‘construction’ tree removal permit = close to 10k per tree all in after the fees and replacement costs etc vs 2k for a removal with cause, which I am starting to think they reject 100% of the time to get you to pay more) and the neighbor, where the house was sold, clear cut his rear (over 5 trees, just not mature so the regulations don’t prevent the chop... or they got away with it, whatever).  Even after 1/3rd of the Tree of Heaven fell on my (at the time) new (to me; bought used) car (10K worth of bodywork; glad it was insured).  It is not my job to bear all the responsibility for hosting all the floura and fauna on my tiny block.  I do not concent to this burden! 

In addition to the wildlife, we now have homeless people starting to congregate behind the shelter at the bottom of the street.  I was trying to be cool about it, cuz, you know, I get it, but now they’re doing drugs in broad daylight or defecating as I or my wife walk the kids home from school.  Just everything at once.  There’s screaming and fighting and fucking at night too, though luckily not in the last week or 2.  Not being able to fence my yard also means I have them (and drunken folks from the bars etc) coming in my yard to pee/litter.  I once found stolen property hidden behind my car (a bike), and the junkies (not the shelter party people; different people) try robbing us all the time (have found the car tossed because my wife, in her coming home stress, forgets to lock it; they’ve tried my rear door a number of times, a few successful (I am up late so I have also had altercations I could have lived without).