So if you’re coming here from a search engine, let me give you my words of wisdom on how to get rid of skunks yourself. The short answer is, you can’t. But you can improve things a whole lot, at least to the point that it isn’t a wildlife adventure to walk in your garden at dusk.
The best approach to getting rid of skunks is to trap them in a Havahart trap and turn them loose far away from where you captured them. (“Far away” means ten miles or more; skunks are almost as good as dogs at finding their way home again.)
But I live in California, where it’s illegal to do that:
The California Code of Regulations, Title 14, Section 679 (f)(4) states: “[t]hese regulations do not authorize any person, facility or organization to accept, possess or relocate nuisance wildlife. Any healthy wildlife trapped in towns or cities or removed from under buildings or otherwise taken or trapped because of human/animal conflict shall be immediately released in the area where trapped or disposed of as directed or authorized by the department[…]”
What that means is that if you catch a skunk, your only options are to release it where you caught it (that sort of defeats the purpose) or humanely euthanize it. And, of course, California has all sorts of regulations that define “humanely euthanize”. I won’t quote them here, but suffice it to say that you can’t do it in your backyard. Besides, then you still have to dispose of the corpse, and I do not recommend putting it in your garbage can. I cannot tell you why I know that, but please, take my word for it.
Anyway, forget trapping them. You can call a “nuisance wildlife trapper” but they charge big bucks for their services. Forget County Animal Control… if you can even get ahold of human there, they don’t care unless the skunk bit someone.
So what are you going to do? Simple: convince them to move somewhere else!
If you know where they’re nesting (say, under a deck or a shed, which is where mine were) block off all entrances EXCEPT THE MAIN ONE. (That might seem obvious, but if you’ve got a dead skunk under your deck you’re going to have a long time to regret it!) Chicken wire or quarter-inch steel mesh is good for this. Peg the bottom into the ground so the skunk can’t push under it.
Prepare a cover for the main entrance. If you do this during the day, in bright sunlight, the skunk will not come out unless you really, really piss him off. If it does come out, run away. Quickly.
Once you have the cover fitted, take it off and set it somewhere nearby. You’ll need to be able to find it after dark. Take the opportunity to think like a skunk, and make sure there aren’t any other places nearby where a skunk might like to make a home.
Now pour some fine sand, flour, or chalk in front of the main entrance. Wait until a couple of hours after dark, when things are quiet. Go out and check your sand patch. If there are tracks going out, excellent! Slap your cover in place and you’re done for the night. (Be a little careful; there might still be another skunk hiding inside. Make noise and carry a bright light.)
If this worked, great! You’re well on your way to being skunk-free. It’s your neighbor’s problem now. But (and this is important) you need to repeat this process for a couple of nights. Smooth out your sand patch and pull the cover off during daylight, and go out at night and put the cover back on. Skunks live in families at this time of the year, and you want to get them all out.
If that little procedure didn’t work, leave a comment and I’ll post some more. There are other strategies!