Saturday, Sep. 20, 2008

W. Richland homeowners told skunk attacks not covered by insurance

By Joe Chapman, Herald staff writer

WEST RICHLAND -- Add skunks to the list of things homeowners might want to make sure their insurance policies cover.

Carl and Jo Kostoff of West Richland know firsthand the damage the malodorous animals can do to a home after skunks got into a fight underneath their house.

The stench of skunk spray has so infested their home that they need a restoration company to come in -- a service their insurance is telling them won't be covered.

"I'm really upset with them right now, because we've had this same insurance -- my parents had it -- clear back to the '40s," Jo said. "We've paid into it for decades, and now that we need them, why wouldn't something like this be covered?"

The trouble started Wednesday night, when she got home from a church youth group activity. Jo heard a high-pitched scream, one sounding like that of a woman, and traced it to under the house, beneath the kitchen.

The sound lasted for about 10 minutes. Then the smell came.

"Oh my goodness. It just permeated," Jo recalled with disgust. "It was not only a skunk spray, it was a urine, too. Acrid. Just awful."

It's not uncommon to encounter skunks in West Richland. Last year, residents went to the city council wanting the city's animal control officials to do something about them.

But the city's animal control is for domestic animals, not wild ones, police Chief Layne Erdman said. Instead, the city put together a flier, available at the police station, with tips about detecting and preventing skunks.

"We found out you create the skunk problem, typically," by leaving food where it can attract skunks, Erdman said. "Once the food source is gone, skunks move on."

Previously, the Kostoffs had detected skunks when they used to feed their cats outside at night. Once when Jo came out the door and saw a skunk at the cat's food dish, she froze and backed up into the house.

The skunk looked up at her, but she didn't dare try to shoo it off with a broom or anything.

"There's nothing you can do unless you want to get sprayed," she said.

Another time, when one was hanging out under the shed, Carl -- knowing skunks are nocturnal and sleep during the day -- set a radio out and played some harsh-sounding rock 'n' roll as loud as he could, without disturbing the neighbors, to deter the critter's presence.

But they didn't know any were under the house until the skunk fight. The next day, Carl investigated and found where one had burrowed under the house from a crawl space under the front deck.

He waited until a few hours after dark -- when he was pretty sure any skunks under there would have gotten out for the night -- and then he boarded up the crawl space and positioned cinder blocks over another spot where they had burrowed.

That may have solved one problem but not the bigger problem of the stench.

When Jo went to work Thursday, she cried and returned home after her supervisor said she could smell skunk on her. When Carl picked up his daughter, Kelsey, 10, from school Friday, he could smell it when he reached into her locker to grab her backpack.

At home, the odor makes Jo's eyes water, she said. But after a while, you don't notice it so much, until you go outside and come back in or open a cabinet and get a strong whiff. They've kept the windows to their home open as much as possible to air it out.

The family said North West Restoration of Richland plans to assess the damage Monday but they don't know if their insurance company, Grange Insurance Group, will cover the cost. Their adjuster said their policy doesn't cover pollutants or contaminants caused by vermin or pests.

Jeff Barrows, chief estimator for North West Restoration, said home insurance can cover claims related to skunks, but it depends on the company and the policy.

"It's kind of important to make sure that you have the proper insurance when you're insuring your house," Barrows said. "If you don't really know your policy and you don't really know what you have, you can run into a lot of problems."

The Kostoffs' skunk encounter isn't the first Barrows has heard of involving a house. In one case, a client spent $7,000 to restore a home after a skunk got into the garage and sprayed the dog. The smell infiltrated the car so much that it had to be replaced, he said.

Jo herself recalls reading about a similar instance of a skunk messing up a home, reported many years ago in the Herald. Until now, she never would have dreamed she and her family would be in such a stink.

"That can't happen to us," Jo recalled thinking. "That happened to somebody else."