We've Been Skunked.

There are few disadvantages to living in a community that backs up to a forest preserve. It's fairly quiet, it's fairly beautiful, and it's fairly full of critters. I don't mind critters...usually.

Because of the forest preserve, we have an abundance of feral cats. Anyone who knows me knows that I love animals of all kinds... feral cats may be the one exception to the rule. Oh, and skunks.

Our lovely neighbors feed the feral cats, who then sleep in our driveways, on our porches, shit under our deck and pee in my flowers (when they aren't eating them). We see nary a cardinal or squirrel because the damn cats eat them. Last summer, a goose was hit by a car and somehow made it into our neighbor's driveway before expiring. The cats dragged it into the backyard and had a feast of it all. Feathers and goose carcass everywhere. Lovely. But when you aren't dealing with all of that, we have skunks who love to eat the food the neighbors leave out for the feral cats. And I don't know about you, but I'll take a raccoon eating cat food over a skunk every time. Here's why:

We have 2 dogs. Skunks are fast. But they have this lovely flag of a tail that makes them incredibly noticeable to a dog that wants to chase something fun and colorful. Our lab mix was sprayed 3 times this summer, once directly in the face, and pretty much smelled like a skunk for the entire season. You can wash a dog's body, but you can't get that damn smell out of it's membranes. She reeked. Our other dog is always on a tie-out, since she is the notorious feral cat-chaser, so luckily, she just smells like wafts of skunkiness when the other dog gets sprayed. I'd take a big fat raccoon tearing apart our garbage on a weekly basis versus a skunk any day- you can sweep up garbage, after all.

Last night, in the dead of winter, we got skunked. Not the dogs, mind you, but the house. The house we are trying to SELL. About 11pm, the holy hell of skunkiness made it's way up through our vents, to the point where we began to investigate if a skunk was IN our house. We turned off the heat to stop the sucking of nasty air through the house, checked the window wells to see if a skunk became an unsuspecting prisoner, and peeked through every window for a sign of a skunk. Nothing. But, oh nasty, does it smell like skunk. Our best theory is that a skunk was either hit or attacked or just plain ol' pissed off somewhere near the sewer line that our sump pumps dump into. And that lovely perfume just worked it way up to our basement and all through our house.

Now, I hope that skunk isn't dead and sitting in some spot that is going to KEEP permeating our sewer line with it's stink. I certainly hope it trotted off, proud of itself for smelling our house, and probably all of our neighbors, to holy hell. For the love of GOD, what do we do now???

I'm off to the store to buy some cookie-smelling candles for each floor. I've opened the windows, because the outside smells like heaven compared to the inside of our house. Yes, it's freezing outside, but freezing can be fixed- skunkiness is a much more serious problem.

If someone calls and says they want to see the house tonight, I may just die. Who wants a skunky house? Anyone have any ideas on how to de-skunk it other than windows and candles? Should I just bake until I can't bake anymore, so our house smells like chocolate covered skunkiness? Help!