Skunked!
They're cute little bastards, but they sure do stink
Hi. Diary post ahead. Hopefully it gives you people a nice little chuckle or something.
My life has been a nightmare lately. And before you suggest I’m being silly about all this: I have a brain malfunction called Obsessive Compulsive Disorder. I’m fully aware I’m being “dramatic.” That's why having OCD is so fun!
Anyway, on with the tale of the Stinkening.
Skunk
noun
ˈskəŋk
Any of various common omnivorous black-and-white New World mammals (family Mephitidae, especially genus Mephitis) related to weasels that have a pair of perineal glands from which a secretion of pungent and offensive odor is ejected
—Merriam Webster
On Tuesday morning, my dog—bless her stupid heart—decided to startle a skunk that had dug under my house and taken residence under this strange space that sort of connects to my basement stairs. Thankfully my dog didn't take a direct hit, but my house did!
If you don’t live in North America or maybe you live in an urban area and have never seen or smelled a skunk you may not comprehend just how powerful the smell of fresh spray is. I think, and I could be wrong, the only other smell harder to get out is Dead Body Smell.
Last time a pet was skunked was 20 years ago and I was finding objects in my house that still smelled like skunk MONTHS later. It’s penetrating!
If I could clean where the spray had directly hit, things might have gone more smoothly from here, but the pest control people with the LOICENSE to catch skunks can’t come by to set traps until after Easter weekend. Goody!!!
(And yes, we debated DIY skunk removal. But once a skunk dies you have a 45 minute window before the glands leak out and the smell is just… Astronomically bad. So, a live trap by people who know what they’re doing is better.)
To make matters worse, my furnace was, of course, on, as April is still very cold where I live. As soon as my initial panic of “AAAHHH THE DOG GOT SKUNKED”1 was over the damage had already been done: I turned the heat off, which did help “contain” (lmao we’re talking in relative terms) the smell to my basement, but over Tuesday and Wednesday nights we froze our asses off. Due to my family complaining about being too cold, and my husband’s fair concern over frozen pipes I had no choice but to turn the furnace back on.
It was like getting punched in the face with fresh spray smell, again. And again. And again. Every time the furnace kicked on.
The only product I could find locally that was suggested to me here or elsewhere was this tiny bottle of concentrated bullshit called Nilodor.
I DO NOT RECOMMEND THIS PRODUCT. At least not in the Battle vs Skunk Smell.
I would *almost* prefer my whole house and everything I own smelling like skunk. Now my whole house and everything I own smells like aniseed/fennel/mint/licorice + skunk.2 And, yes, you’re only supposed to use one drop at a time per room. I have a small house, so I shouldn’t have needed much. Tiny glass bottle. It’s concentrated!
But guess what, the bottle did not operate correctly and a big SPLORT came out in my basement and all over my hands. (This shit is so powerful I put the leaky bottle down on a piece of painted wood and it melted the paint. There’s a permanent oval where I sat it down, now.)
Oh my God. If I could describe the wires frying in my skull when that bottle spilled it’s like… “I have made a huge mistake. Also I should kill myself. Because of smells.” (As you can see, I did not kill myself.)
My husband took me for a drive because I was so upset at myself for overreacting to the skunk smell that I’d even try that Nilodor shit. Problem is, I’ve been running on survival mode since Tuesday. Washing laundry, hanging it on the line, airing out bedding, that sort of Task Mode. This new thing was just one thing too many and it broke my brain. I had a horrible mental breakdown in the car, so he drove me to my mom’s wherein I had to explain “no, no one is dead, I just hate thinking about smells. Do I smell? Sorry if I smell. Do I smell?” Like, I don’t know if anyone reading this has OCD but I was… Ugh. Hysterical melt down time over *smell* and I know, I KNOW, that I’m retarded for this. That's the thing about mental illness: it’s irrational!
(I just can't stop thinking about it! I woke up at 3:30 AM on Good Friday for some reason and now it’s 5am and I’m writing this because I can't sleep! Just constant thinking!)
So yeah, I had the worst OCD-related meltdown since… 2014? Probably? That's the year I got my diagnosis, anyway.
Also: to top everything off, my modem died. I have to wait for a new one in the mail and it’s a long weekend now. I’ve already gone over my shitty data allotment on my phone and I can't wait for Bell Canada to charge me up the ass for the data required to make this post. For those not in Canada, we have the most expensive data rates in the world. Talk about things that stink! Where’s our Luigi to call for CEO pest control?
My kids have a looooong internet-free Easter weekend ahead. Hey, if nothing else, maybe the detox will be good for them. After this post, I’m turning my data back off for a bit. Hopefully this helps me get some reading done, too.
If you’d like to support me and buy a fresh copy of my books, or maybe if you already read them but haven’t left a review… it sure would lift my spirits right now.
The Highwayman Kennedy Thornwick [Amazon] [Kobo]
The Ghosts of Tieros Kol [Amazon] [Kobo]
Ta ta for now!
Like I said, dog was thankfully missed, but this wasn't immediately apparent. We did the peroxide/baking soda/dish soap routine anyway—she’s probably the least stinky thing in the whole house, now!
When my kids came home from school they said the house smelled like burnt Christmas cookies or wet dog + mint. “But can you smell the skunk?” Obviously yes lmao
I hear if you catch them young and descent them they make good pets. 🤔
The only surefire way to ensure it goes away is wait. We got skunked before flying out of state for a funeral. We got there, and all the good clothes vaguely had a skunky aroma.... Damn dogs.