My better half is at her wits' end. We've lived in this house for just under a year and a half. It's a 3 street neighborhood with houses pretty close together-- perhaps 25 feet between them. that has a small brushy area separating it from a larger road. Periodically we get a reasonably strong skunk smell-- always at night. It happens so frequently now that we can't open our windows at night . . . if the smell gets into the house it lingers for days. Sometimes it gets in anyway, via the air conditioner-- which is just under our bedroom window.

Well, my compost bin is about 20 feet behind our bedroom. It's within a privacy fence, is closed up except the holes drilled through it for air, and it's never once appeared tampered with. Yet I can't help wondering if the bin is attracting the skunks, who keep coming back to the smell even though they can never get anything to eat from it. I can't recall if we ever smelled skunks before I started composting (maybe 2 months after we moved in). We have a small garden in the same area but the skunks came well before we started that.

The most likely explanations have been exhausted. They are not living in, under, or around our house. I just spent 20 minutes in our crawlspace and found no evidence or skunks and no way in. Plus, I think we would smell them during the day if there were a den.

Do you think the bin could be the cause of these visits? I am charged with ending this problem and she wants me to get someone out to trap them . . . but if it's the bin, others will just come too. I don't want to stop composting but if that is the problem, I will use what's in there and start throwing away my kitchen scraps. We want to open our windows and live without this smell, and that is a higher priority than composting.

I'd appreciate any thoughts or opinions.

Are you sure that's the problem? Various things can produce nasty odors outdoors - male cats, decaying vegetation (compost?), dead creatures, molds - even some plants.

You mention though that the stink is getting in the house ... So It sounds like they are running into something out there and spraying. You could minimally still compost veggie scraps and just skip the fruit... To see if it's your compost or something else.

Good luck!!

Only the male cat explanation could possibly work since the smell only happens at night, and not every night. And the smell is too strong and foul to be a cat. Something is bringing an animal here, almost certainly a skunk, and I'm just trying to figure out if it's the compost.

Do you have anything outside that is likely to attract wildlife other than the compost bin? Do your neighbors?

Not that I know of. I've read many times that skunks are attracted to compost piles/bins . . . I just wasn't sure if they would keep coming back to a bin they weren't able to get to. Then again, it may not always be the same skunk.

I think I will try moving it from the front corner of the back yard to the back corner. That gets it away from our window and the A/C. If that doesn't fix the skunk problem I may have to eliminate composting entirely. Hopefully that would stop it completely.

Hmm . . . that may help explain the attraction then. I've noticed that whenever I add fresh scraps (from peppers, cucumbers, zucchini, apples, potatoes, etc.) to my bin, the next day those scraps are swimming with maggots. I don't add them every day-- maybe a few times a week-- and I wonder if that's when the skunks are coming. They smell those little buggers and think they're in for an easy meal.

So it seems you're on their 'route.' If you could deter them, even temporarily, they might permanently change their route. How about emptying the compost bin and forgoing kitchen scraps for a week or two? Or store them in the freezer if you have space. Bright lights, motion sensitive sprinkler (cheap to buy nowadays), rodent repellent products sprinkled around the perimeter...you get the idea.

Hope you find a solution or they move on soon.

We also get skunk stink every week or so with no particular commotion that I could notice. I think they'll spray at a passing car if it disturbs them.

At dusk, I saw a skunk nosing around the yard and by the compost pile. This morning it looked disturbed.. but not eaten at all.

Skunks can reek to high heaven w/o having anything bothering them at the moment - I always figured they'd sprayed at something some time previously, and just had the waxy stink stuff on their fur.

They are also a creature of specific habits, so they'll follow a similar path .... going along the fence line here, then headed over to the vegetable garden there, then along the side of the house under the bedroom window which wakes us all up from the stench, then along to the side of the pond, etc.

When they start coming around the house on a regular basis, I put a single moth ball every 10 feet along the base of the house - of course, you don't put any right near an open window. They won't come near it. I've read, but haven't tried it, that hot pepper works as well - I suppose spraying a bit with one of those key-chain, personal protection capsicum sprays or spurting a bit using a can of bear spray would do the trick. I've also read - but not tried - that ammonia in a dish will work- seems reasonable.

Any thing that messes with their sense of smell should work - they're basically after grubs and earth worms, using their noses and, I suppose, ears. Look around your compost bin, and see if there is any shallow holes were they've dug up worms.

Good luck. We had one earlier that came by the bedroom window about an hour after we went to bed, and the smell from that one would peel paint.