The Skunk was in the Middle of the Road

People will go to great lengths to avoid exposure to skunk odor. Swerving to avoid a skunk on the road can be deadly.

People will go to great lengths to avoid exposure to skunk odor.  It wasn’t a dead skunk.  It was in the middle of the road.  It caused a head-on collision.  Thank goodness everyone was wearing their seatbelts.  It doesn’t mention if they needed gas masks or what the final condition of the skunk was. Read here for the original report out of Tulsa, Oklahoma. 

If you see a black and white animal in the road, don’t swerve.  I don’t wish ill on the animals, but lives are at stake here and I’m not just talking about the animal.  If you are only worried about your car, there are ways to get rid of skunk odor.  If you end up in a stink, call an animal control specialist, they may be able to help.  Usually we remove skunk odor from homes, furniture and clothing.  I’m sure we can get it out of metal, plastic and upholstery also. 

As wild animal populations grow in many urban and suburban areas, contact between animal and man (or man’s machines) becomes more and more common.  It is very common to see these animals on roads, but also in yards, gardens and golf courses.  The animals seem to have a fatal attraction for roads, but they also seek out shelter under porches, crawl spaces or in sheds. 

Let us know if you have skunk problems, or just skunk odor problems.  What can we do to help?

Nationwide skunk control and odor treatments: 1-888-488-7720

Dead Skunk in the middle of Salt Lake City, Utah

A live skunk under your deck smells really bad. A dead skunk odor is much, much worse.

You got yer
Dead skunk in the middle of the road
Dead skunk in the middle of the road
You got yer dead skunk in the middle of the road
Stinkin’ to high Heaven! 

(Loudon Wainwright III, 1973)

Nearly everyone has had the experience of driving down the highway and catching a sudden whiff of dead skunk.  Skunks don’t smell great when they are alive, but a dead one gives a whole new meaning to stink. 

Imagine all that smell bottled up in an enclosed space—say, under a deck directly under your back door.  Yep, it happened to me, and I have a whole new respect for the power of those black-and-white critters.

I live in the east Salt Lake City, Utah area and have a deck out back of my house.  We are on a bit of a hill so part of the deck is several feet off the ground, but part is only about 18-inches.

I will probably never know why the animal was there or why it died.  I mean, really, did it HAVE to choose my deck?!

Once we figured out that the dead animal was right up against the house under the center of the deck where there wasn’t much clearance there was a larger problem: what to do about it?

Obviously, we couldn’t just wash the deck in tomato juice, which doesn’t work anyway.  After checking around we found out about wild animal control operators.  I thought they just got rid of live animals, but it turns out that they do dead ones, too.  And, they know how to get rid of dead skunk smell.

I cannot tell you what a relief it was to have these guys show up.  They crawled under the deck and removed the carcass.  They got rid of the smelly thing, which was pretty nasty, and then got rid of the smell.  They have this special enzyme stuff that somehow makes it go away.  I was amazed.  I figured I would be living with dead skunk smell for a long time.

Next time you pass a dead skunk on the road, be very grateful that it is in the road and not under your deck!

Nationwide Skunk Trapping and Odor Control: 1-888-488-7720

Tom Hanks has a run in with a Hollywood skunk

Skunk odor can be removed from dogs, furniture, carpet, etc. The sooner treatment is applied, the better the results.

You know it is funny about how much the world around us does not really know about skunks or the services that we can perform to make people’s lives easier if they ever have to deal with their nasty spray. I thought about this again as I watch Tom Hanks on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno the other night.

Tom Hanks, an Oscar winning actor, told Leno about an unfortunate encounter with a skunk.  He was out walking his dogs in his neighborhood when the dogs bolted away from him and ran toward a bush. They sniffed out a skunk that was hiding in there and the skunk got scared and sprayed them.

The dogs came back to him and jumped up on him.

“The odor was tremendous,” he said. “It was this oozy, garbagey, gel like smell.”

Hanks put his dogs in the garage for the night, but the skunk smell was still there. He told Leno how he tried to rinse in tomato juice, but it didn’t help the problem. The smell was still there.

I felt bad for Hanks because he just doesn’t know that there are professionals like me that can come in and get rid of the smell.  No matter who you are, I don’t care if you’re a famous actor or the local newspaper carrier, you don’t need to put up with skunk smell in your house. The odor can be eliminated.  The sooner you call us after it happens, the sooner we can rid of the smell.  We have special products, especially our professional Ozonator, that breaks down the smell and eliminates the odor.

Nationwide Skunk Odor Treatment: 1-888-488-7720

PEEWWW! Skunk smell in Richmond, VA

DEAR ALLSTATE ANIMAL CONTROL: We live in a small town outside Richmond, VA.  Our house has a great front porch that overlooks a wooded area and a little pond.  We love to sit out there in the evenings, especially in the spring when everything is so fresh and nice.  Until recently.  Now our evenings not fresh and nice, they are smelly. And the smell is skunk. 

Skunk smell is overpowering, especially when they den up under your porch or in your crawlspace. We have animal traps specially designed for skunks, and can remove them from any location.

We believe there is a skunk, or maybe more than one, living under our porch.  The smell sort of comes and goes, but every few days it becomes intense.  We can even smell it inside.  At first people tried to say something had been sprayed, but we have no pets and there aren’t loose animals around, so I think the animals have moved in and are taking over. 

We want to get rid of the skunks and their smell, and we want it done right.  The porch is low to the ground and tricky to access.  I have never actually been under there as long as I have lived in this house, and I am not about to go under there now.  We need to know how to get rid of this enemy!  June N.-Richmond, VA

Our deodorizers will make your home fresh again, free of skunk smell.

DEAR JUNE:  We can help you.  I have looked at the pictures you sent.  They were very helpful.  Given the evidence, I agree that you need immediate skunk removal.  I will send your request to a technician in your area who can arrange an appointment to set traps for the animals.  He we will not leave behind any stragglers, especially babies, to die and rot under your porch.  That smell wouldn’t be any better than what you are suffering with now.  We can apply deodorizers to any part of your property currently afflicted with skunk smell.  We should be able to return your home to its former “fresh and nice” condition within a week.  There is still a lot of spring left for you to enjoy-without the extra company of the skunks!

Nationwide call: 1-888-488-7720 

DEAR READER:  We were able to solve June’s problem very quickly-within a week just as promised.  You might wonder how she found us.  She went online, just like you, and found www.AllstateAnimalControl.com. We have a nationwide directory of animal control operators and we found one for her in her hometown area of Richmond.  If you need wild animal help in Virginia, call us.  But, wherever you are, you can find help with your wild animal problems.  Go to Allstate Animal Control to get you the help you need.

Skunk Smell in Air Circulation System Near Salt Lake City, UT

Nationwide Wild Animal Control, Trapping and Removal: 1-888-488-7720

The other day I ran into Brandon, who I hadn’t seen since we played baseball against each other in high school.  I was a pitcher with a mean fast ball, if I may say so.  He hit well and was a real danger on first base. We got to catching up on old times, and newer times, too, and I found out he runs a company called Allstate Animal Control that traps and removes wild animals.  Of course, I had an animal story to share. (He says it happens all the time, like doctors hearing about health problems from everyone they meet.  But, he didn’t seem to mind.)  I’ll share here my story about skunk smell and tell you what I learned from my experience, and from Brandon. 

It is more wise to trap skunks than to shoot them.

A while back I heard my dogs barking outside my home in Plain City, UT (which is near Ogden, UT).  I went out to see what was going on and saw that they had a skunk cornered by the side of my home between the fence and our mechanical units (the A/C unit and such).  Well, being the man I am I went inside, got a .22-revolver, peeked around the corner, took careful aim and shot the skunk.  Dead skunk.

I called off the dogs, threw the carcass in the trash and thought the problem was solved. I went inside congratulating myself on a job handled as quickly and efficiently as I used to strike out baseball players in high school.

That evening I turned on the air system in my home. 

I had noticed skunk smell outside and figured the animal had sprayed a little.  The animal had actually sprayed a lot, and right into the air circulation system.  When the vents were turned on the scent was pulled in through the ducts. The entire home was contaminated and uninhabitable.  We had to go live with my in-laws while a disaster and restoration company did a huge clean up and deodorization of the home.  We filed a very large insurance claim.

Brandon and I laughed about it (I finally can laugh now, a few years later) and went our ways.  I sure wish I had known about his current work before I shot that animal.  Brandon said that skunk smell is a very common reason he gets called.  He can trap the animals and take them away, sometimes without any spray at all.  He most likely would have recognized the danger and found the trouble before it entered our home. 

It really wasn’t a good idea to shoot the skunk.  We were in city limits, but more importantly, it was near our ventilation system.  I guess it is a good thing to still be a dead-eye aim, but not in this case.  This time I was the one who struck out!

Animal Emergencies

An attic full of bats can easily become an emergency situation.

Encounters between people and wildlife easily turn into emergencies. Raccoons, skunks and bats are OK as long as they stay in the woods where they belong.  Many people can even tolerate them in their yard or near the house as long as they stay on their side of the door, so to speak. A raccoon in a wall or a skunk under the porch or bats in the attic are, however, emergencies for many people. 

When animals come inside it becomes an emergency because people don’t know what to do.  Even if it is legal, discharging a firearm in the home isn’t a good idea.  Grabbing the animals is generally impossible and certainly foolish.  Animals, even physically small ones, will fight to the death if they feel threatened.  Having a large (in their eyes) person running and grabbing at them is definitely a threat.  Trapping might be an idea, but people don’t have traps on hand or know what to do with the animal if they were to capture it.

That is where we come in.  We are professional wildlife operators.  We are here to solve problems associated with human/animal contact and control the damage caused by the animals when they enter the human world. 

Of course, the animals are stressed too. They are not used to confinement.  They are not used to noise, artificial light, and having overly excited people screaming and running around them.  The animals are often more frightened than the people and need to be handled with respect and care.

Professional wildlife operators, like those you will find listed on www.AllstateAnimalControl.com, can solve the animal emergencies in your life.  The operators listed in our directory service all 50 states and most major cities and counties and  you can rest assured you are working with the best in the business. If you have an animal emergency check out our directory online or call us at 1-888-488-7720.