Ooh That Smell

This morning my alarm went off at the normal time, 5AM, and as I reached for my phone to turn it off, an acrid scent filled my nostrils. It wasn’t the smoke from a house fire, but rather the repugnant scent of fresh skunk spray. I think I might have preferred to have my house filled with smoke. I gathered my stuff to take a shower and get ready, momentarily checking the house to determine the depth of intrusion of the scent. I localized the smell to the side of the house where my bedroom, my son’s bedroom and the bathroom are located.

There is nothing like the scent of skunk spray. Everyone can smell a skunk from a mile away, but when you get right up on it, the scent can be best described as a mixture of garlic, rotten egg, and burning rubber. It wasn’t until I read that description on the Internet that it made perfect sense to my confused nose. Now that smell is in my house, on my clothes and on nearly everything I touch. I had the pleasure of trying to decontaminate the house and ridding everything else of the smell.

I stopped by Target on the way home this afternoon for some Febreeze products for the interior of the house. I decided on using vinegar on the outside of the house. Once home, I donned a pair of old coveralls, filled the spray bottle with vinegar and began to spray down the affected side of the house. What was most disappointing is that the interior of the house smelled worse than the exterior of the house where the spraying occurred. Once the outside was covered in vinegar, I opened all the windows and doors in the house and turned on the fans in the bedroom to air out the house, while I covered everything fabric in Febreeze to kill the scent.

Currently, the house smells mostly of Febreeze, specifically coming from the NOTICEable plugged into an outlet in my room, where the bulk of the scent was originally. Hopefully what I read on the internet was accurate, that if a skunk discharges all of its spray, then it can take 10 days before it’s able to spray again. And in the meanwhile, the damn thing decides to move to a different location. Because while I don’t want to, I will trap it if I have to, because there’s no other way that I know of to convince the skunk to move without endangering the other animals in the area.

Afterthought: If it smells this bad when you come into contact with a spot that’s been sprayed, I never want to be the target of a skunk’s attack. Ever.