Greetings folks - I've never posted on this forum, usually just at Trapper Talk. Talking to a buddy ("Muskrat") and he suggested I post over here for your experience on this.

This winter my wife and I are smelling skunk scent around the front door, around the door into the garage ( and just inside the garage door in the house ) and also sometimes in the basement, however - there is no skunk in the house/basement. There appears to be a den entrance under our front porch, which is a concrete slab.

It's winter here, we have snow and cold temps. I've got a live trap with a fresh can of cheap cat food. I had the trap outside, near the den hole, but have just re-set the trap in the garage again. We were in town all morning and when we returned to the farm about 1:30 - it smelled like a skunk had sprayed in the garage and around the front of the house.

Can the skunk essence penetrate through a foundation ?

Anyway - I'm totally frustrated with this situation. What do you guys suggest ? I'm not always around the computer, but I'll check in as often as I can.

Regards, Vic

If you are smelling odor but seeing no tracks, chances are good that you have a dead one under there some place. You'll have to figure out where the body is or use the proper amounts of odo-ban or some other cover-up until the smell finally disappears.I've done some fancy digging to get dead skunks out from underneath customer's concrete slabs. Good luck ( I hope he's still alive )

And if you do catch the live skunk.you need to have a plan of what to do with it. Sometimes, wind direction can make a difference in the amount and location of smell. Also, like Paul said, a lot of times the skunk is already dead.

The plan of action is huge! We get lots of calls to pick up a skunk that was caught by accident or the people didn't think about what to do on the next step.

I had. Family of skunk living under my house once and I feel your pain. I got some industrial strength pesticide and put it by the entrance. After about a month of no more skunk smell I dug down around the only area they could get under and hurried a big L shaped piece of diamond mesh I had and never had a problem again. The smell could get so bad that the school bus driver would not let my kids on the bus. I even on occasion went out and slept in my truck it was so bad. Funny thing is now I carry a bottle of essence in my truck for TrappinDad g or whatever I may need it for.

POSITIVE SET the entry hole. Preferably using a 2-door trap, no bait required. If it is in or out, you WILL catch it, unless it is one of the rare occurrences where it digs a new hole to get in/out.

Here's a pic showing a 2-door trap (has skunk in it) and a single door, both face-to-face at the hole. Plywood piece was placed along the lattice to keep them from going out through the diamond-shaped openings in the lattice panel. Also a piece of wood along the outside of the traps. Skunks are not big climbers, so easy to posi-set for them. I caught NINE skunks here!

I have a live trap set and yes, this works as I have trapped and dispatched at least two skunks to date.

I do have a plan once I trap it. I have a 6x8 canvas tarp set up and ready to put over the live trap once I catch the skunk. I will take the trap to a nearby stream that isn't iced over and drown it. If for some reason I can't get to the stream, then I will get the trap well away from the house and shoot it (head shot).

The skunk essence has really penetrated into the house. This isn't a dead skunk. For some reason it is spraying around my house, but I don't know why. It isn't being threatened.

We've lived here 14 years and never had this problem. It's January and right now it's -12 outside. This really sucks big time.

Around here this is very common as Paul has stated. Distemper takes it toll on them on what seems like a daily basis. We have one now under the slab of a raised ranch home. We have done all we can to locate it, found the burrow under a wooden front porch, pulled the deck boards and followed it down with shovels along the wall as deep as we could go, 3-4 feet and it is still heading down along the footer. I have never seen one go this deep. The owners are very persistent about locating it, and I was honest about the marginal chances of finding it( and removing it) if 5 to 10 feet + back under that slab where we believe it is. Saturday they have hired an excavator, and are going to remove the complete porch, and dig along the foundation to the depth it turns under the home to try and locate it. When finished and before they back fill it, they agreed to let us install exclusion wire along the foundation so this does not happen again. So far it has been over a month, all the furniture is moved into storage and a restoration company has been de-odorizing it with 4 machines running full time. The house is fine with them running, but we turn them off for a day to check and the odor returns. The people have moved out and the insurance company is working with them on extended living arrangements.

Wow - wasn't counting on this drastic approach.

So - how is the skunk essence penetrating into the house ? Through the concrete ? Honestly - I don't know anything about this.

Is the answer for me to dig the den out ? Can you explain "exclusion wire" ?

Paul,

The darn skunk has to be alive as the smell that's here is fresh skunk essence and not a rotting carcass - especially at this time of year.

Thanks, Vic

I'm an electrician and we had skunks under a porch we were supposed to wire up. The local game warden at the time said to soak a tennis ball with ammonia and throw it under the porch. We did that, and by the next day, the skunks were gone and never returned. If you're wanting to trap them, I've got zero experience with that. If it's dead, like was already stated, I'd dig it out.

Good luck!!!

You would be amazed at how porous concrete is, and how odor can penetrate it. I had one similar to this many years back, it had dug under the slab and worked it's way back before expiring. You could tell within a feet square feet where it was under the kitchen. Also dead decaying skunks have a completely different smell than a healthy one that sprays. Almost like a burning type smell. Many people will contact the utility company first, thinking they are having an electrical issue. Also, even if there is a dead one, many times I can catch live skunks also inhabiting the den at the same time,so it is worth setting cages to see what happens.

I've had females kill a male when momma has young around.

Well......bought another trap today, now have a gallon of ammonia and I'll pick up some tennis balls while in town this evening.

This has got to end.

If a skunk died under the home/slab for the first few days as it decomposes the pressure in the body can force essence out. few hours/day later more pressure and and another burst. this may happen for up to a week in the right environment. then as the pods and skunk in general break down the acrid burning polyester/electrical smell becomes more prevalent. Using any irritant as a means of exclusion is normally frowned upon. It can back fire just as well as it may work.

As I've already said, this is fresh skunk essence (spray) and not a rotting carcass. Rotting dead animal carcasses will not have any adverse smell until the spring thaw in late March or April - here anyway.

quote=Ron Scheller]POSITIVE SET the entry hole. Preferably using a 2-door trap, no bait required. If it is in or out, you WILL catch it, unless it is one of the rare occurrences where it digs a new hole to get in/out.

Here's a pic showing a 2-door trap (has skunk in it) and a single door, both face-to-face at the hole. Plywood piece was placed along the lattice to keep them from going out through the diamond-shaped openings in the lattice panel. Also a piece of wood along the outside of the traps. Skunks are not big climbers, so easy to posi-set for them. I caught NINE skunks here!


[/quote]

Ron,

Is your trap a home made arrangement or is that made somewhere ? Looks like a real, no nonsense set up.

Regards, Vic

The odor of a live skunk and a dead skunk are very close to the same. It is NOT a dead animal smell. Most people can not tell the difference. Unless you have smelled several different dead skunks. A dead skunk smell can linger on for a couple of months or more. And still smell like a live skunk. And just when you th ink it is gone, the wind will change directions and the smell is back. Several of the people that are saying dead skunk have been in the business for a lot of years and know about what they talk.

Hmmm, interesting. Still, we're very cold here and nothing dead smells dead until spring and warmer weather gets here.

The double-door is from Advanced Trap

http://trappintales.com/AT/product/4-double-door-tube-trap/?v=400b9db48e62

The single-door models are available at Tomahawk or Snare Shop. I like the Snare Shop ones best, as they are heavy duty. Tomahawk has them, also. There are some models with thin, galvanized doors and have a very delicate internal triggering pan system, and usually need rebuilt after a few catches.

http://www.snareshop.com/prodinfo.asp?number=ADC6

http://www.livetrap.com/index.php?dispatch=products.view&product_id=31168