I May or May Not Have a Pet Skunk

It started about a month ago. I would see him walking along the side of my fence and disappear underneath my shed where he apparently takes his residence. This didn't bother me too much as long as I couldn't smell him and my cats didn't fuck with him...which they didn't. I know this because about a week later, I walked around the side of my house to the front and saw the thing sitting there eating the cat food, as Jerome and Lola sat about 5 feet away just watching it eat their food. I guess I scared it and it ran straight into my cluttered mess of a garage.

This did in fact pose a problem as I had a huge ping pong match set up with my buddy in about an hour. This entails dragging all the shit out of my garage and setting up the table. My father in law came over and looked through the garage (yes, I'm a pussy) and told me that there was no skunk in there but I never took my eye off of it and I was convinced he hadn't left.

Tony came over and we had both already mentally prepared ourselves for a marathon ping pong session. So after a good hour of debate, we decided to just go in and start moving everything out with the hopes that as long as we didn't threaten him (if he was even in there), he wouldn't spray us. We very gingerly began moving out the bins and the vacuum cleaners and the bikes, etc. We were almost there when I picked up an old car seat and lo and behold the thing was sitting at my feet. I didn't play this as cool as you might think. I screamed like a little girl with a skinned knee, dropped the car seat right back down on to the skunk, and ran. Apparently he felt threatened by this and there would be no ping pong that night. This did not make for a happy Vandelay.

I laid awake that night trying to think of a way I could kill this thing without him unleashing that treacherous odor on me again. Simply blocking up the opening under my shed with some bricks during the day was a thought but someone told me that this would make him spray like there's no tomorrow.

The next morning, we cleaned out the garage, threw some bleach down in the area where he sprayed and by 3:00 that afternoon, the smell had completely subsided. I think he actually showed some mercy on us. I weakened my revenge to the point where I simply threw some mothballs under the shed. I had no idea if this would work but who likes the smell of moth balls (and how do they get their little legs open...HEY YO!!)?

Anyway, both my garage and my shed look great due to the massive re-org brought on by his chemical warfare and it really has done wonders for the ping pong stadium. We even have a beer fridge right by the table now! In a strange way, I'm sort of grateful. The other night, he was in my garage eating the cat food and I opened the door and I was literally about 4 feet from him. He just looked at me and started eating again. I had my wife come down to see him and he saw her and just scurried off very slowly. She thinks he's beautiful.

It's really not a terrible arrangement. I think now that he knows that I know what he's capable of if I fuck with him, he's not even remotely threatened by me. The cats seem to like him. We sort of have this non-verbal agreement whereupon he's gonna eat my cat food without the risk of getting a car seat dropped on his head and in return, he'll keep his stank ass to himself and let me play ping pong. Not too bad a deal, really?

So...do I have a pet skunk?

Comments

[Steve H.]

Is your Swamp handle taken from your cats?

[Art Vandelay]

Is your Swamp handle taken from your cats?

Pretty gay, huh? I couldn't think of anything else.

[Assman]

I think he's willing to let you believe that he's a pet as long as he gets some cat food.

Which isn't any different from having a pet cat, so... I'm going to say yes.

[DSafetyGuy]

The only problem is the way you'll find out when the skunk does not feel he qualifies as a pet.

[Jack Klompus]

Sounds more like the skunk has himself a bitch. You're clearly more willing to provide food and lodging for the vermin than you are to evict him.

That said, it's not completely unheard of for people to have pet skunks (they're a lot like ferrets). Difference being, most people intend to take them in and thus have the stink gland removed.

[Art Vandelay]

Klompus, if you were me, how would you go about evicting him?

[Jack Klompus]

"Klompus, if you were me, how would you go about evicting him?"

If were you, I'd start by getting a breast reduction and growing a sack. Then I'd cut off the skunk's food supply. That means moving the cat food to a zone where your cats are allowed, but wild, rabies-carrying outsiders are not. That's really his main motivation for showing up, unless he gets some kind of intense enjoyment out of bullying a creature 25 times his size -- which would understandable.

[jackie]

"Is your Swamp handle taken from your cats?"

Can't get nothing by Steve.

[Art Vandelay]

Klompus, the Masshole in you is evident. Most of this is tongue in cheek. Don't worry, I'm not intentionally leaving food out for the skunk. It's summer time. We're outside a lot. Doors get left open. This is hardly a pressing issue in my life right now. Just thought it was funny.

[Jack Klompus]

"Most of this is tongue in cheek."

Of course it is. Why do you think I stopped at "get a breast reduction and grow a sack" when you asked what I would do if I were you?

"Don't worry, I'm not intentionally leaving food out for the skunk."

Doesn't exactly sound like you're hiding it from him.

"It's summer time."

Thanks. I wasn't sure when I walked out this morning at 8:00 and 3 steps out the door wondered if that really was my balls sweating. And why I just walked through 2 spider webs.

"Just thought it was funny."

It was. It is. Truthfully, you've been carrying this blog most of the summer. Now, fuck Pittsburgh.

I'd go with leaving out a nice bowl of antifreeze....keep your cats inside during this time of course. Art - 1 Skunk - Dead

no go drink a hard lemonade tough guy

[jackie]

"Truthfully, you've been carrying this blog most of the summer."

This is the correct answer.

[daveNYC]

Buy a have-a-heart live trap, put some cat food in there and trap that puppy. Dispose of it as you wish afterwords.

[puddy]

Yeah, DaveNYC. Because the only thing better than a content skunk is a pissed off one in a confined trap that you will have to physically remove to a better location.

Call animal control on Pepe.

[Art Vandelay]

Thought of that. Animal control won't remove skunks.

[Puddy]

Pussies.

[jackie]

Animal control won't remove skunks.

Why not?

[Art Vandelay]

I suppose for the same reason that I don't try to remove it from eating the cat food. They're just gonna tell me the same thing Klompus told me...keep the cat food inside. Problem is, I don't even let the cats in the house unless it's freezing outside. Nor do they even want to come in the house.

[jackie]

I suppose for the same reason that I don't try to remove it from eating the cat food.

Did you ask? They're professionals.

[Jack Klompus]

"I suppose for the same reason that I don't try to remove it from eating the cat food. They're just gonna tell me the same thing Klompus told me...keep the cat food inside."

That's not all they'll probably tell you. First, they'll ask if your cats have rabies vaccines. Then they'll have you check under the shed and see if there are baby skunks. If not, they'll tell you to block the entrance to its residence or sprinkle some pissed-on kitty litter around the entrance to his den. Then they'll tell you to stop crying and they didn't mean to yell at you -- and that everything is going to be okay.

[Gardener]

Late one spring when we discovered that a mother raccoon and four of her babies had taken up residence in our chimney, I made several calls to various agencies and animal trappers. Advice ranged from poisoning them to lighting a fire in the fireplace and this would kill the babies because they would not be able to climb out and escape the heat. I happened to be talking about this at work when the secretary of our department told me to call "The Friends of the Wildlife of America." I did. Their advice: Keep watching the roof near the chimney every day at dusk when mother and children usually return to enter the chimney; leave them alone; when the babies were old enough one day they would not return at dusk. I watched for a few weeks, and every evening mother and children would return, sit on the roof, and ultimately disappear-- into the chimney. I followed the advice and mother and babies one evening failed to appear. A few days later I had the chimney cap replaced and sealed. Perhaps you should call this group.
Good luck.

[Art Vandelay]

I gotta tell you...that seems like a lot of time being spent trying to passively evict wildlife. If I call this place, it sounds like they are gonna say "Do nothing and wait for them to leave." That's pretty much what I'm doing now anyway.

[Gardener]

Agreed. Pretty much what you're doing. Consider, however, you could be doing something else, perhaps taking some kind of action. But, good luck.

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