The Skunks (and Rats) in the Walls

More specifically, in our ducting.

I may have mentioned before that when we moved into the house, we noticed LOTs of rat activity both in the attic and crawlspace. I managed to kill ’em off in the attic, but every winter when the rains started, we’d get more rats in the crawlspace and I’d have to poison ’em all over again. Figured out this fall when we had the CAT digging up the back yard that there was a tunnel to the crawlspace under the root ball of a tree we tore out. Closed that up, and thought I was rid of the rat problem.

Well, no. I just discovered that when we got our A/C unit replaced last year, the repair guy didn’t close up the wall hole for the cables/hoses very well. They’ve been coming in through there.

Unfortunately one of our HVAC ducts in the crawlspace has a rat-sized hole, because they run around in the ducting too. This is hardly hygienic.

Anyway, I’ve been meaning to take care of this problem once and for all, followed by a good duct cleaning, but events have now brought that to a head.

Last night the dogs went crazy as we heard several thumps in the floor-level ducting, followed by many high-pitched squeals coming out of the vents, accompanied with…. the scent of skunk spray.

Best I can figure, one of the baby skunks birthed by the wild skunks fed by our dear neighbor (don’t get me started) managed to squeeze into the crawlspace through that A/C unit hole, and is probably too big now to get back out, so it’s resorted to eating the rats.

Or, a bunch of rats cornered it and attacked it.

Either way, we’ve got a skunk problem to go with our annual rat problem.

So in addition to the rat poison I’ll be dropping into the crawlspace this evening, I’ll have some nice Hershey’s Kisses for Mr. Skunk.