An Undesirable Skunk Experience

[genealogynut]

While Don and I were living in Winfield, we were in a neighborhood that was over run with cats.  We had a Trane central heating and air conditioning unit that was just outside the house. And that unit was really bad about sucking in odors from the outdoors.  If someone was burning wood, then we would get the smell of wood smoke.  Well.....during the winter the cats would like to get up on top of it to keep warm, and then we had the smell of cats in the house.

So Don gets this bright idea of putting a hot wire around the CH/CA unit to keep the cats away. Well, that worked fine, until one morning about 5:30 when Don was getting ready to leave for his commute to Boeing, when all of a sudden there was this sickening, potent, horrid smell.  A skunk had apparently got to close to that hot wire, spraying the CH/CA unit and the surrounding evergreen bushes!!!  In just a matter of seconds Don grabbed his lunch pail and said "I'm outta here!" and he took off out the back door, leaving me to try and get rid of that awful smell.  Whew-w-w-e-e-e!!

Now, it was downright chilly that day, and I had the windows all open, hoping that smell would not get into our clothes closet.  I had scented candles burning, vials of vanilla sitting around, using I don't know how many cans of air freshener, and doing everthing I could think of to get rid of the stink.  By the time Don got home that evening, I had about 80% of the smell eliminated.  So he grabs the can of air freshener and went out and sprayed the evergreens pretty heavily, and that seemed to take care of the rest.

I have never forgotten that incident!!

[Teresa]

  That's funny Lois..
(Probably because I didn't have to be there and smell it)

I remember way back when we lived on Pine Street.( 20 years ago)
We had skunks roaming in the neighborhood at night.
Lord a mighty you could smell them a mile away and knew they were in the vacinity.
Skunk smell gives me an instant headache and on top of that is one of the few things that actually makes me gag.
So every time they would come around, I would gripe and grumble about it to Mark.

It was summer time and we had all the windows open with the wonderful night sounds and the warm sweet smells of that time of year....then here would come the skunks and it would stink up the whole house. Too hot to close the windows, so we were just stuck with it. The dogs would bark but we didn't dare let them out..

So one night, we smelled them so Mark takes out for the outside darkness...with shot gun and flashlight in hand.

The skunk was in the garage and so thinking he was doing a good deed for his family he blasted it!
It blew that poor critter in a million pieces all over the insides of the wooden garage walls and dirt floor... and skunk fur ..skunk blood, skunk meat and skunk stink were absolutely EVERYWHERE!

It was awful! The whole neighborhood had the putrid smell for a couple weeks.

Poor Mr Friend who lived next door, tried every kind of home remedy to help me get rid of it.. but it was too embedded into the garage walls, and nothing helped.. not even Clorox.

Funny now, but not then.

I have a few more skunk stories too... and if someone else will tell one I will tell another..
Deal?

[Ms Bear]

My Uncle had plenty of run ins with skunks when he lived in Montana and someone told him to use tomato juice to wash his pickup after it had been sprayed by a skunk.  He said it took care of the odor.

My husband air conditioned one of our sheds when he found a family of coons had taken up residence, that was about 20 years ago and the pellet holes are still there.  We didn't find any dead ones but they didn't come back.

[genealogynut]

Yes, in another incident, we had a dog that loved to bark at almost anything and everything.  She had a run in with a skunk, and was given a bath with tomato juice.  (and oh, how she hated baths!)  One time she was out at the fence row barking at the neighbors large cucumber that was growing in the fence line.  When he finally picked it, she quit barking at it.  Stupid Dog!!  Imagine the neighbors rejoiced when we finally got rid of her.  She knew she wasn't supposed to be barking. She wanted attention and knew just how to get it.

[hhjacobs]

Oh, you little stinkers!