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my parents house is a 1908 Victorian (all original too) in downtown San Jose near Coyote Creek. There is a grapevine on a trellis next to the back steps that must have been planted when the house was built. Every year there are possums that raid the grapes and one year there were some rats that showed up. A few years ago (while I was still living there while saving for my own house) there was a hole that was dug leading under the foundation of the back steps. I kept filling it but it kept opening back up. My dad and I decided to investigate whether something was nesting under the back steps, so we went down into the cellar (full, finished basement) and poked our heads into the hole that joins the two spaces. Fortunately the animal was not home (I'll explain in a minute) but the dirt was all dug up and a total mess under there so we leveled the dirt back out and set a couple bricks over the hole. The next day the hole was back along with another hole on the other side.
I was getting frustrated so finally I decided to set a t-rex style rat trap to get the (assumed) rat that was digging the hole. I set it right in the path of the hole's entrance. This time I attached the trap to a stake with wire because the last time I trapped rats the traps would end up in odd places or disappear. A couple days went by with no luck. One night I happened to be sleeping in the back room on the futon. I woke up at about 2:30am and went to pee. For whatever reason I decided to use the bathroom on the back porch (it is a closed porch with a half screen/half solid outer door and a inner, heavy door). As soon as I opened the inner back door I could smell the strong odor of a skunk. I cautiously moved near the screen door and heard a lot of rustling where the trap had been set. I could not see it (not about to open that screen door) but I knew the critter that was digging the holes and was now caught in my trap was a skunk. I figured I would call animal control and let them deal with it in the morning. The next day the skunk had freed himself from the trap (thank god) and I filled the holes and stacked a couple layers of bricks over the areas where he was digging.
My dad and I are so glad the skunk was not under the porch when we went poking our noses in from the basement. Also glad it was not living in the basement either.
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