Fragrant Friends

We have a little friend.
He pops by from time to time, and is always careful to leave us lingering memories of his visit.
Usually, his offerings have me trying to remember just how to load our .22.

Did you know, if a skunk is in your crawl space or inside your walls, the smell inside is powerful, and almost completely unnoticeable from outside?
Also, after several hours, you will wonder if it finally dissipated, or if you're just used to it?
You will continue to wonder this as you and your Tribe trail through the grocery store, and you will add to it wondering whether people are staring at you because of the size of your Tribe (happens all the time) or because you are the modern day representation of Pepe LePew, times 8?

We got home from the grocery store, badly in need of blankies and stories and snacks, to find that our little friend was worried that his previous visit had been too brief.

Yep.

My house got sprayed twice in one day. And you don't know it till you walk inside.

We've held off doing what we've done in the past for skunks that got a little too cozy - trapping and shooting - because we have 3 outdoor cats that we don't want to have to release from a trap every morning.

After today though, I think I'll just give my cats the chance to get smart about entering traps. Surely one  of these nights, the skunk will have to go into the trap first. It's like, a statistical impossibility to catch my own cat every single night, right?

I'm already dreading killing the thing though. I hate killing things. I even feel horrid when I stomp a bug or set/empty a mousetrap. Last time I killed a skunk, it looked at me right before I pulled the trigger.I sunk the bullet right in its eye and it never knew what happened, but still.

And let me tell you. There is no stink on earth like a freshly killed skunk 5 feet away. Every stink that it was going to stink for the rest of its life was released right then and there, before I could get away.

I think I'm selfish enough to be dreading that part the most.

We had a pest removal guy here last week, but this house is so old (built in the 1820s) that there is no way to seal it up to keep the critters out. He just smiled and told me I live in the country in an old house. I'd figured that was what he would say. Seeing as how this is a rental, we won't be putting much into sealing it up, which leaves dealing with invasions as they happen.

Anyone have a live trap? We got rid of ours a few years ago.