We are the Wilderness Family!

Skunks! We can add skunks to our list of critters and bugs we have encountered living here. Tuesday morning I woke to the smell of pole cat. I figured there was some ruckus outside between a cat and a skunk and skunk won.

When I came downstairs my husband had been up early watching the Australian Open and told me about our new friend. He could hear something whining or crying under floor under the washer and dryer in the utility room. He could also hear it in the family room which is beside the family room. Then it stunk to high heaven! After awhile he saw the skunk meandering around the back patio and then lumbered up the back yard. The house smelled most of the day but it dissipated and we thought it was a fluke event.

Sunday morning about 1:30am, I heard something in the wall between the utility room and family room. It sounded like something walking up the one side of the wall, turning around and walking back. Now there is a little trap door between the family room and the utility room. This door allows you to get to the plumbing behind the utility room. I was terrified this critter was going to greet me in the family room and it smelled worse this morning than on Tuesday. I thought I was going to be sick. I scrambled around shut everything down and skittered upstairs to bed. I shut the door tight to the family room just in case my worst fears of a visitor in the family room appeared, it would go no further. It is almost 24 hours and the house still has that lovely pole cat smell!

We think that the skunk and whoever else got into the crawl space under our house. So tomorrow a pest control guy is coming to set traps outside the crawl space and see what they catch. I hope I didn't smell at church and I won't smell tomorrow at work!

I am so sick of bugs and other creepy crawlies!

Today has been a really bad day for bugs and creepy crawlie things. I don't know why today has been so bad since it hasn't rained and is average warm. We live in the middle of LOTS of foliage - trees, ivy, etc. (You can hardly see our house from the street.) So I know it is all breeding ground for these things, but can't they stay outside?!

Let's see, today I found a cricket spider or camel spider, caterpillar (fuzzy and striped), a BIG FAT 4" - 6" millipede, and 4 other bugs, not to mention tiny little ants in the bathroom we can't get rid of. We always have spiders, little ones, daddy longlegs and several BIG wolf spiders. There is always some sort of bug trying to get in our house. We look like crazy people coming out of our house as we wave our arms like crazy to get rid of the spider webs outside the door. (There are two big tall bushes on either side of the door and we have cut them back almost to bare sticks to try and cut down on the webs.) My neighbor does the same thing - so I don't feel so bad!