Friday, January 7, 2011

Skunk Much?

...Why yes, I'll take two!


Okay, so my story goes a little somethin' like this:


I was minding my own sleep business, probably dreaming of unicorns and rainbows I'm sure, when what to my surprise, I awoke in the night (3:00 am to be precise) amidst panic and confusion (in my own head of course) to the horrid, awful, toxic, and lethal smell of a little Pepe Le Pew.


(Insert: I have smelled skunks before, and yes, they are atrocious.  I have even owned a dog, who got sprayed by a skunk and then came in the house, and yes, that was crazy dirty terrible bad.  But the Pepe I woke up to Monday night was THE.WORST.SMELL.EV.ER.IN.MY.LIFE.  We're talking like acid in my nose, and ammonia poured directly into my brain type of burn.)


Okay, so once I realized that Pepe was not under my bed, in my pantry, or snuggled up on our laundry basket...I promptly attempted to go back to sleep and deal with him in the morning because let's admit it...I LUUUUB ME SOME SLEEP!


Next morning: House wreaks of Pepe Juice and now we can hear critter scratches in the attic!  (Insert: Oh Shit!)


(Insert: Last year we had a kitty living in the crawl space of the house during the winter...which of course pissed me off because quite frankly, a house (be it rental or not) should never have a hole large enough in the foundation for said kitty to crawl through.  But, we never knew when it was there and wasn't, and we sure as hell didn't want to trap a cat in the crawl space and then deal with the inevitable smell of rotting, decaying kitty in the summer when our house hit a cozy 90 degrees inside.  This being said, my first thought was that Pepe chased some gorgeous broad under our house and Juiced her real good!)


So now we're dealing with Pepe, something in the attic, and possibilities of something in the crawl space...who knows!  Our lovely landlord was kind enough to provide us with her last package of D-Con Bait, provided I pick it up from her house.  Apparently, she tells me, that they've had the attic noises before and it's probably just mice coming in from the winter cold (not that it's been cold for like 2 MONTHS NOW or anything!).  She then laments on about how they have had to deal with a skunk spraying their house during Christmas this year and had to go live with her mom for 5 days while their house aired out.  Good, good.  Thank you so much for sympathizing but quite frankly, 'I don't give a flying rat's ass about the issues you are having with the HOME that you OWN and is YOURS!'  Here are some of my favorite quotes from my phone conversation with Lovely Landlord:


'Just stick your head up in the attic and toss the D-Con in there!'
'No, it wont leave behind a smell of rotting carcass.'
'D-Con eats up the mouse and just leaves fur behind.'
'You should probably do the same in the crawl space, but I only have one bait left.'
'Dogs?  No, it's in the attic...it's not like they're going to get a hold of it.'
'No, we never had $222.81 gas bills in the winter when we lived there!'  (Insert: Bold Faced Liar!)


We came home the next night from work, and our said shithole wreaked yet again of Pepe.  He's a very busy little man if I do say so myself.  And then last night, Justin walked in on me in my fleece PJ's, broom in hand, wild woman look on my face, crouching in silence to listen for the scratches.  My thoughts were if I could bang the broom on our ceiling, it would scare the critter...and if it was a Pepe, it would spray (because hell if I no if skunks spray when startled) and then we at least would for sure know it was a Pepe and where he was bombing his juices at.  I know, hindsight's 20/20, but either way, he didn't spray.  Plus, after my first attempt at hitting the ceiling with the broom, I could here dirt hitting the floor from some cracks up there and decided that creating my own access point to Pepe's apartment wouldn't be wise.  And I scared the dog, who in turn scared the be-jee-zus out of me when she came running in like a wild woman barking and growling.


Right now you're probably saying to yourself, 'Why don't they just call an exterminator and be done with it?'  And to you I say, 'It's complicated man!' 
A. It's a principle thing, I don't think I should pay a minimum of $50 out of my pocket for someone else's lack of upkeep to their house.  
B. I'm of German decent and very stubborn.  
C. I'm now extremely curious at some of the ideas friends have came up with to eradicate said problem.  Douse towels in ammonia and toss them up there has been the most intriguing.  (Which still entails one of us on a ladder with our heads up a dark hole and the possibility of a Pepe in there...while holding towels doused in mind-blinding ammonia...I'm not sure which I'd rather have my house smell like quite frankly.)
D. Had we done this already, Justin wouldn't have been able to come up with a text to his buddy reading: 'Screw it!  We decided against the bait and threw some apples up there instead.  We've decided to be friends.'  (tee hee)


Okay, so that's what we're dealing with this week.  The exterminator, which is now scheduled by the way, told me that if we didn't want to pay for them to come out and take a look that all we'd really have to do is stick our head up there in the daytime to look for exposed light and poo.  Exposed light would hint to whether or not it's mice or a Pepe.  Little poo = little critter.  Large poo = large critter.  Uh-huh, yeah right, sure...you couldn't PAY ME ENOUGH LADY!  He's all yours!

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