Is a polecat living under your house? That’s how I got rid of mine
In this article, I’d like to share what I learned about a polecat that took up residence under my house and I didn’t even know it was there.
My wife and I were shocked to find out that we had one or more polecats living under our house even though the signs were there. For several years, every time we left and came home, there was a birdlike smell of a polecat on the front door from inside the garage. You may know a polecat. The other name it goes by is skunk.
It was always in the same area. The door was 20 feet from the nearest exterior wall, so the smell made no sense. I looked around me and then the scent dissipated before I found anything. It was never the full scent, just a whiff every now and then.
The way we found the real problem was when our HVAC unit needed some work. While our HVAC repairman was working on our unit, he said that he thought there was a cat living under our house. My attitude was that if the cat didn’t pay the rent, he was out. So, I went to see how the cat got under our house.
We live in a brick house with a concrete foundation and no discernible access points. It turned out that in the inside wall of the crawlspace, there was a hole about two feet long and six inches wide that went down and then turned out. The hole appeared under our terrace, near the house, under a torn plastic sheet that covered the ground behind the terrace lattice.
The hole, on the outside, measured two feet by two feet and tapered to about ten inches in diameter. We couldn’t see under the platform and therefore didn’t see the hole. The hole went down two feet and under the footer of the house, then up and into the crawlspace.
The plastic ground cover under the house had been lifted and no longer provided a good moisture barrier. So, I squeezed it tight and stapled it to the ground with landscape staples.
In the process of stapling, I found the skunk’s home. It was directly under the steps of the garage. There were a few black and white hairs in a corner next to some concrete blocks. Suddenly, everything made sense. That was what we smelled from time to time when we got home.
With all evidence of the skunk removed and with the help of my son, we proceeded to pour 640 pounds of concrete into the hole to keep the skunk OUT. New soil was brought in to finish filling the hole and a new plastic ground cover was stapled on. A new one inch opening plastic lattice was installed around the deck.
We believe the skunk got in by going behind the platform steps and crawling past the support boards. We also added 1/4 inch mesh galvanized wire behind the lattice to keep all but the smallest critters out. This year there have been no aromatic smells.
It turns out that skunks are very good at digging. They have large front claws, but cannot climb. Can you imagine under a house in a space three feet high, face to face with a skunk? Well, I’m happy to report that the skunk wasn’t home when we went looking for the cat under the house.
If you think an occupant is home when you need to get into your crawl space, call animal control and have them check to make sure the pest is gone. Better them than you!
