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Will Bleach Keep Skunks Away? (All You Need to Know)

Skunks are normally attracted to fruit gardens. They feel welcoming towards the sweet smell of fruits and enter your garden area. This unsound creature can be seen calmly as it moves quite slowly but can make a great mess in your garden.

Bleach to keep skunks away

Bleach is a complex mixture of powerful and active ingredients that produce an overpowering ammonium kind of animal pee scent that skunks highly dislike. Moreover, the oxidizing ingredient chlorine can cause great damage to their skin and health which makes it a potential skunk-repellent.

Skunks are the omnivore creatures who are mostly fond of attractive, sweet-smelling fruits or berries, some animal material like mice,  small rodents, grasshoppers, beetles, bugs and many other insects etc. If they find your garden attractive for their food, they may enter it. Skunks can be harmful for the children as they can bite and scratch if they feel irritated and eventually can also cause various dangerous diseases.

As bleach is a complex mixture of powerful and active ingredients like the oxidizer chlorine and hypochlorous acid, it produces a strong animal pee kind of fragrant which efficiently deter skunks. Even it causes serious health damages,  irritates or burns the skin or eyes. The reasons why bleach serves as a skunk repellent:

It exhibits harmful chemical reactions:

When bleach or its solution is sprayed or rubbed on the ground outside a house or garden, the chemical in it spreads into the air, irritating skunks’ noses and the surrounding skin. Skunks may escape the area if this happens, or if the concentration of bleach in the air is high enough to harm their respiratory system.

When skunks come into direct contact with regions that have been sprayed with bleach solution, their skin may react. If they lick the bleach, it may irritate their stomachs and, if used frequently, may damage their digestive routes in addition to causing them to vomit and have diarrhea. Which, in addition to scaring away the skunks, puts their lives in jeopardy. Therefore, if the goal is to keep skunks away, a small amount of a concentrated bleach solution should be sprayed over the area. This will help to scare off the skunks without endangering their lives.

The strong scent:

Skunks are scared off by the strong smell of bleach. The scent of bleach is similar to that of chlorine, which the skunks mistake for animal urine and do not come close to it. As a result, when exposed to bleach odors, they avoid those locations. Skunks’ smelling ability is reduced by the smell of bleach when they approach. Skunks enter any location by sniffing it, so putting bleach in specific spots will prevent them from entering that area by sniffing, helping to keep them away from that region.

 Additionally, by being distracted, they will leave. Normally, skunks give off some odors, and when their fellow skunks smell them, they travel to that location. However, when bleach releases its chloride smell, the skunks’ scent is obscured, preventing their fellow skunks from visiting that location. This is another way to keep skunks away and prevent them from locating any food sources. So bleach is effective in keeping away skunks, but bleach in limited concentration is preferred to be used and sprayed in the air as other animals can also get affected anyhow.

Will bleach terminate skunks?

As skunks are unsound, cause various diseases and damage the fruits and trees, whenever you find them near your yard, take precautionary steps to deter them. Bleach is an active repellent that has been used for a long time to deter animals such as deer, squirrels, rabbits, rodents and even skunks. In fact, by using bleach, skunks can be terminated temporarily to a great extent.

They may not pass away by consuming it but they will experience severe skin irritation if they get contact with bleach and if they lick it, they may go through stomach disturbance, vomiting, lung or respiratory dysfunction issues which will create a danger signal to them. In fact, skunks find the overpowering chloride smell similar to the smell of animal pee smell which they find a red flag and so, they run away. However, as soon as you stop using bleach, they may again visit your garden.

How effective is bleach in repelling skunks?

Skunks will be put off by bleach’s powerful, chlorine-like, animal pee fragrance, which can be mistaken for animal excrement. This solution will help to keep them away and is a very powerful repellent as a temporary remedy, even if some people prefer not to use it excessively because it includes caustic components that could affect skunks if they swallow it. When the skunks repeatedly visit such locations, bleach reacts with their nerves, which can result in nerve damage if the bleach concentration is high.

Therefore, this will deter the skunks by diverting their course of hunting for food using their sense of smell. They can’t hold this incentive fragrant for a 5 Therefore, it can be used to repel skunks. Bleach can be used particularly or just mixing up with water or detergent as a spray. Distributing it in the ground area and spraying to the ground touching leaves will work well as a skunk repellent.

How do you get skunks to leave with bleach?

There are a few methods for using bleach as a skunk repellent. Anything that contains bleach will assist in preventing skunks because of its potent odor. Nevertheless, it can be used and given a boost in power by the addition of other components. Skunks can be kept for a while by using the bleach solution they usually use. Because bleach contains chemicals, it must be used carefully to avoid causing harm. Here are several beneficial uses for this bleach that will deter skunks:

Distributing the bleach mixture:

Since bleach itself is quite powerful, spread it in the areas where skunks congregate, particularly in the gardens or backyards. Or you might use a pot and pour the bleach solution into specific locations. The powerful smell of bleach will spread through the air and naturally scare away skunks and other dangerous insects.

Adding liquid dishwashing detergent with bleach solution:

To make it more effective, add liquid dishwashing detergent with bleach solution to water. Carefully mix this solution, then spray it everywhere without coming into direct contact with your hands or skin as you do so. Additionally, baking soda can be added to increase effectiveness. This is an effective repellent against skunks.

Using vinegar:

In order to repel skunks, you must first combine two or three tablespoons of vinegar with four tablespoons of bleach and one-fourth cup of water. Carefully shake the mixture before transferring it to a spray bottle or other container. Apply this mixture right away after mixing; do not let it sit for hours as this could cause cross-reactions with the solution. Applying this solution in areas where skunks congregate will reduce their sense of smell. This is an efficient method for repelling them, but should be carefully displayed to prevent any injury to other animals.

Other things that repel skunks:

Bleach can be a bit toxic to skunks and even for your pets. You can try some other skunk repellent that will also work effectively.

Eucalyptus oil:

Skunks dislike the smell of citrus very much. Skunks find the strong scent repulsive as eucalyptus oil contains an acute citrusy kind of smell. They feel very irritated by this smell and try to maintain a distance.

Peppermint oil:

Peppermint oil is an efficient way to deter skunks as it has a minty aroma that causes irritation to their nose and whenever skunks get in contact with it, they have a burning sensation in their skin.

Garlic:

As a food material, garlic works as a great repellent. The overpowering scent of garlic is awful to skunks and their taste buds also can’t take its bitter taste. Whenever they feel the scent of garlic from a long distance, it will divert them not to inter in the area.  

A motion sensor or bright light:

If you don’t tend to use natural repellents rather use a long term technique, a motion sensor will be a great idea to repel skunks. Whenever skunks will try to enter the area, motion sensors will recognize their footsteps and will brighten the area. This will make skunks afraid as their eyes are very light sensitive and they will run away.

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Final Thoughts

Skunks are harmful creatures and they are not easy to get rid of. Bleach can be an effective skunk repellent as they are scared off by the strong smell of bleach. Even the potent, toxic, chemical compounds are highly injurious to their health and so, skunks are greatly ward off by bleach.