Skunks and Laundry
Skunks. We have them.
A year ago I kinda liked the skunk that lived around our place. The first time I saw it I ran screaming from it, but I learned quickly that it wasn't going to bother me if I didn't ever bother it. It lived around our place for a long time without any incidents. Only one of our cats ever smelled skunky and I'm guessing it was because she tried to make friends with it and the skunk didn't understand.
Unfortunately, skunk rabies is now considered endemic to our area. I didn't even know there were different forms of rabies, but I suppose it's like any other disease that mutates as it spreads. So when our local skunk started wandering around during the day and acting hostile, we decided it was in the best interest of our family, pets, and chickens to put an end to the skunk.
I'm probably the only person in this whole country who gets sad over the death of a skunk. Sigh.
But when you remove one skunk, there are always more ready to move in! That's why we weren't totally surprised when we caught a whiff of skunk one evening last week. I smelled it right before bed when I was letting the dog in, so I closed the door really quick to keep the odor out of the house. But somehow the odor got in! We woke up the next morning to find that our back porch/laundry room utterly reeked of skunk! It totally puzzled us. We sniffed the dog and cat, but neither smelled bad. We poked around to make sure a skunk hadn't snuck into the porch in the night, but found nothing. We tried to leave some windows open to air out the porch, but it was awfully cold that day and I just couldn't stand wearing my coat indoors. Finally, after a few days, the odor started to weaken with frequent airing out and a lot of Febreeze sprayed about.
The worse part came later. I went to take a shower and decided that I needed a fresh towel, so I pulled one out of the cabinet in the back porch . . . . Do you see where this is leading? I got out of the shower and buried my face in my new towel only to discover it smelled like skunk! And it was the only towel available in the bathroom, so I had to finish my drying with a skunky towel. Oh the misery!
That finally led to the laundry part of this story . . .
Before any more towels can be used I have to wash them all.
Before any of these jackets can be worn again I have to wash them all.
And just for good measure, I think I'll wash the rugs that were on the floor, too. If all this laundry doesn't take care of the skunk smell then I don't know how to cure it!
Have I mentioned that I don't really like doing laundry?
A year ago I kinda liked the skunk that lived around our place. The first time I saw it I ran screaming from it, but I learned quickly that it wasn't going to bother me if I didn't ever bother it. It lived around our place for a long time without any incidents. Only one of our cats ever smelled skunky and I'm guessing it was because she tried to make friends with it and the skunk didn't understand.
Unfortunately, skunk rabies is now considered endemic to our area. I didn't even know there were different forms of rabies, but I suppose it's like any other disease that mutates as it spreads. So when our local skunk started wandering around during the day and acting hostile, we decided it was in the best interest of our family, pets, and chickens to put an end to the skunk.
I'm probably the only person in this whole country who gets sad over the death of a skunk. Sigh.
But when you remove one skunk, there are always more ready to move in! That's why we weren't totally surprised when we caught a whiff of skunk one evening last week. I smelled it right before bed when I was letting the dog in, so I closed the door really quick to keep the odor out of the house. But somehow the odor got in! We woke up the next morning to find that our back porch/laundry room utterly reeked of skunk! It totally puzzled us. We sniffed the dog and cat, but neither smelled bad. We poked around to make sure a skunk hadn't snuck into the porch in the night, but found nothing. We tried to leave some windows open to air out the porch, but it was awfully cold that day and I just couldn't stand wearing my coat indoors. Finally, after a few days, the odor started to weaken with frequent airing out and a lot of Febreeze sprayed about.
The worse part came later. I went to take a shower and decided that I needed a fresh towel, so I pulled one out of the cabinet in the back porch . . . . Do you see where this is leading? I got out of the shower and buried my face in my new towel only to discover it smelled like skunk! And it was the only towel available in the bathroom, so I had to finish my drying with a skunky towel. Oh the misery!
That finally led to the laundry part of this story . . .
Before any more towels can be used I have to wash them all.
Before any of these jackets can be worn again I have to wash them all.
And just for good measure, I think I'll wash the rugs that were on the floor, too. If all this laundry doesn't take care of the skunk smell then I don't know how to cure it!
Have I mentioned that I don't really like doing laundry?
Posted by Susan at March 29, 2010 
Categories: Rural Living
Tags: northeast colorado phillips county odor laundry haxtun skunk rabies
Categories: Rural Living
Tags: northeast colorado phillips county odor laundry haxtun skunk rabies
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