The chances of smelling a skunk are much greater than seeing them, although they are easily identifiable by their characteristic black and white stripes. If people smell an unpleasant and persistent musty smell, one of these specimens may be sheltering in your garden or around the house.
Finding small holes at a certain depth is another sign that a skunk may be lurking in your yard. If some plants wake up scratched and damaged, it is a symptom that a skunk is living on your property. Although they carry out a natural control of insects, this animal can become a great health problem due to the diseases they can transmit.
What Are Moth Balls?
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Mothballs are products made from the chemicals naphthalene or paradichlorobenzene to repel insects. This product can be very harmful to people and pets’ health, so its use and handling must be very controlled.
If your pet or a member of your family suffers from mothball poisoning, they will experience severe pain in their abdomen, vomiting, nausea, shortness of breath, and even diarrhea. In these cases, you should go immediately to a hospital emergency unit to apply the respective treatments.
Do Moth Balls Work To Keep Skunks Away?
Mothballs are effective chemicals in repelling skunks. Its strong scent will signal the animal that the area it wishes to roam is inhospitable. The odor generated by this type of product is generated by the vaporization of the chemical compounds they are manufactured.
These fumes are so toxic that they can also affect pets and children, so you must be sure where to place them only to affect skunks. These places can be around garbage cans, around piles of wood and bushes, on trails and pastures, places where skunks are usually foraging.
How Do Moth Balls Affect Skunks?
Mothballs give off very odorous vapors generated by the chemicals naphthalene or paradichlorobenzene with the environment. This gas is highly toxic to small mammals and even to people without inhaling it for long periods.
When skunks approach the places where the mothballs are found and feel the strong smell, they immediately leave the place not affected. This is done by animal instinct. All mammals can suffer from inhalation of these vapors’ difficulty in respiratory processes and spasms, among other manifestations in the body.
Other Homemade Skunk Repellents To Keep Them Away
Besides mothballs, other chemical solutions can be used as repellants for skunks. Ammonia balls are one of those solutions; their strong smell immediately scares the animal away. Liquid repellants and granules that keep skunks at bay are also available in stores.
Non-chemical repellants
Since skunks are nocturnal animals and they go out at night, you can install LED lights or yellow light bulbs that will make your garden an uncomfortable place for them. You can also use electronic repelling systems such as motion-activated water sprinklers. These turn on automatically by launching blasts of water in different directions, scaring the animal away.
