So theres a skunk living under my neighbor’s concrete deck.
The neighbor lives behind me; theres a hill in the back of my property and they’re on top of the hill.
Their back yard has a big concrete slab that runs up to our fence. Recently, a skunk has made his home under this slab. He’s got a high burrow under the concrete that comes out through a hole under my fence, in the side of the hill.
We have dogs, and have been unable to make use of our yard due to the skunk.
I’ve had a trap out for about two weeks now, and occasionally I’ll find it closed and reeking of skunk, but we havent caught the critter yet. I’m beginning to worry he wont fall for this trap.
Anything else I can do to get rid of this bastard?
A trap baited with canned cat food should work. I’d work on figuring out why your trap isn’t working. Oil the moving parts, set it in an ideal location with only one end open and the trap, other than the open end, covered with a blanket.
There are people you can pay to remove wildlife and there are poisons you can use that are cruel.
I suppose the challenge upon catching a skunk in a Havahart-type trap is how to then transport and release the animal without getting sprayed (a tarp or blanket quickly thrown over the beast?).
Fortunately I’ve never had to deal with this situation. Growling and hissing raccoons were bad enough.
I’d find the entrance to the burrow, wait until you’re sure that the animal is out of the burrow, and then seal it up. Skunks can dig, but I think they strongly prefer finding pre-existing sites that are suitable for a home (like the hollow that often forms under a slab). It’ll find a new home on its own.
If you’re not sure whether the animal is in or out, put something in front of the burrow that’ll leave tracks.
I saw someone on TV boil traps to get rid of human scent.
Once you’re sure the trap isn’t going to work, just kill the skunk. I’d be reluctant to do so if the only consequence were getting sprayed, but skunks are carriers of rabies.
Alternatively, you could try setting up the trap in a way that the skunk will have to enter it upon exiting its lair. Force smoke into the hole and he’ll eventually come out, assuming there are no other exits.
That is a good way to trap the neighborhood cats. If you bait the trap with Milk Bone dog treats the cats won’t bother it but a small dog might. Works for raccoons.
If you get a trap that is the right size, the skunk does not have room to lift its tail. The odor is just as offensive to them as it is to us. If it cannot spray without fouling itself, it is unlikely to spray. Cover the trap with a cloth, and you are pretty safe.
If you don’t have cat food to use as bait, they also like raw eggs.
I don’t know what the beast will do when you open the trap and let it out. I would guess that you could use a rope to pull the release lever from a distance. My dad would just toss the trap into a barrel full of water and drown it. We never got skunked when we dumped the bodies.
Skunks routinely live in close proximity to humans. They are not afraid of our scent. Just set out the trap near the place where the skunk is digging up your lawn, and leave it alone overnight. We never had to wait more than a few nights before the skunk went for the bait, and got trapped.
I trap and relocate raccoons in our barn every year or two. I use marshmallows as bait; raccoons love them, opossums like them less, and cats never go near them.
Personally, I prefer to induce skunks to move out over trapping them.
I’ve had success two ways:
First, I’ve smoked them out using a metal pail filled with moist smoker wood chips and an electric charcoal starter.
I’ve also used mothballs liberally strewn into the area where they have nested. If you place a good number of mothballs into their den, they’ll move along.
Obviously you’ll have to restrain your dogs from gaining access to the mothballs if they’re of the type that like to eat things they shouldn’t. One way you could do that would be to drill holes in a length of PVC pipe, fill the PVC pipe with mothballs, cap both ends and shove the pipe into the nest.
Once you’ve dislodged them, a few mothballs tossed into the hole each year around nesting time should keep them out.
Good luck! They can be quite tenacious when they’ve found an area they like.
The trap isnt ours – it belongs to a company that will remove the trapped skunk when we catch it. I’ve baited it with cat food and dog food, and have caught a possum and a cat so far – but no skunk. Trap is right next to his entrance.
I’ve sealed up the hole a few times (when I thought it was my dog doing the digging) but the skunk seems to be a particularly adapt digger because he expanded his hole greatly. In one place I put a big flat brick tile to block the hole, and the skunk left some gnarly scratches in it before pushing it out of the way.
I strongly endorse the mothball method Aspenglow mentions here. I remember my father using them to get rid of some that were under our porch years ago. Works like a charm.
That’s my suggestion too. We bought our wooded property with a 20-foot steel shipping container onsite for storage - no base or foundation, just sitting on the forest floor. A skunk took up residence underneath. We squirted a load of mothballs in his access point, and more at ports under our modular house to discourage relocation. Pepé Le Pew moved away.
NOTE: Do NOT put many mothballs under a house unless you can readily retrieve them when they’ve served their purpose. We made that mistake at an older house - had to rip up flooring to reach the stench. :smack:
Double emphasis on that last past. Mothballs are very much Not Good For Breathing™ and you really do not want to draw the fumes into your lungs long term. Chuck 'em around, but only where you can retrieve them.
Wildlife moves on because that shit is caustic to breathe and if you throw them in or around your own home and then let them sit there, then … well, you are less smart than a skunk.
For the once in multiple years occassion when a gun might prove slightly useful (but not as useful as repellents or traps, since I’ve never actually seen the thing) I do not feel it is worth it to bring a deadly weapon into my home – one that’s much more likely to end up killing me or a loved one than actually proving useful.
Mothballs seem like a good idea, especially putting them in a container with holes to stink up the skunk hole. The burrow isnt under my house – it’s in the side of a hill in the back yard.
In my old house, the previous owner was animal lover and fed all kinds of wildlife. One day, the wife and I were in our bedrooms and heard a scratching in the ceiling. I asked my wife to go outside and pounded in that spot of the scratching. a squirrel popped out of our eave, so we called the wildlife people in our area and they said, “put mothballs in the hole and cover the hole with panty hose. that way, if they are still in the house, they can get out, and the mothballs will drive them out.” We did this and the next day, when I came home from work, my wife said, “you have GOT to see this.” the squirrel had pulled out half of the panty hose, was holding onto it with her hind legs and and was throwing the mothballs out of the hole.
We have flying squirrels* that we watch in the small Japanese maple in front of our house at dusk most evenings. We have a peanut feeder specifically for them. Someone told me they’re probably living in our attic and we should kill them.
I went into the attic, and yep, they were living up there. Instead of killing them or driving them out, we hired the guy who did our roof to replace some of the wet wood (squirrel urine), then cover that with metal sheet, then cage in that corner with heavy hardware cloth. Now they live up there without damaging anything. I put some old rags up by their entrance and they used it for nesting material.
The Southern Flying Squirrel is incredibly cool. They scamper and leap from branch to branch so fast that it looks like you’re viewing them at the wrong speed. Ours have gotten used to us, so we can quietly go out on the porch and watch them.