Skunk Funk

Last month, we sympathized with blogging.la's Mack Reed over his unexpected house guest: A dead skunk.

A month later, we could relate to Mack's plight even more. For more than a week, I came home to a house that smelled worse and worse, like a skunk had decided to make our crawl space his final resting place.

Not only would the smell not go away, but it got progressively worse. I began to think of Mack and his dead skunk -- and how under no circumstance did I want to clean it up myself.

At first, the smell was tolerable -- you'd be smacked in the face by it upon entering our house, but your nose would adjust. But by the end of the week, the stench was so bad it was contstant.

That's what finally got me desperate enough two Fridays ago to call someone. I googled around, and found a decent review for Canterbury Termite and Pest Control in Burbank.

I called up, and the guy quoted me $350 to clear out the dead skunk, plus extra to trap any still-living ones. When they came, however, the put down a trap and asked for $450. Not cheap -- but we were so desperate to get this thing away from us, we still said yes. But they didn't bother to look under the house, even though I was convinced it was a dead one causing our woes.

Within the next day, a skunk was caught, and removed. (A living thing was making our entire house unliveable!) A second trap was put down, but that sat empty until Friday, when a raccoon decided to check out the digs.

Now, with the smell finally starting to disappear from the house, I'm hoping our problem is solved. And thank goodness: Canterbury is still trying to find ways to charge me more. Had there been a dead skunk under the house, we would have been out a total of $800 -- plus more to seal the crawl space hole the animals were entering.

Instead, I simply secured the crawl space with a grate and a brick -- it's now tight enough that a skunk won't be able to crawl under the house anymore.

Given the lack of communication over exactly how much they're charging and what comes with the service, I'm not sure I'd recommend Canterbury again. But of course, we were so desperate at the moment and wanted the skunk gone so fast that we didn't shop around. If you have a problem like ours, I'd suggest you do your homework before committing to anyone.