A Victorian-style residence built at the beginning of the twentieth century, in the village heart of Saint-Charles-sur-Richelieu, a historic municipality in the Richelieu Valley, was the site of a delicate intervention involving a family of skunks installed in the semi-underground root cellar adjacent to the fieldstone foundation. This type of old construction, characteristic of the heritage sectors along the river between Saint-Marc and Saint-Denis, has many structural vulnerabilities that make the intervention more complex than in the middle of recent construction: irregular masonry foundations, multiple empty spaces and old materials that cannot be modified without affecting the heritage value of the building.
Inspection adapted to the old built heritage
Initial inspection revealed that the skunk’s main access was through a crack in the mortar between two foundation stones at the level of the exterior floor. The root cellar, accessible from the inside through a wooden trapdoor, showed obvious signs of animal occupation: disturbed earth, accumulated organic matter and a strong smell. The presence of two adults and three young born a few weeks earlier was confirmed by nocturnal observation and by the traces left in the cellar floor. This family configuration is particularly common in the spring in the Saint-Charles-sur-Richelieu region.
Our exterminator in Saint-Charles-sur-Richelieu carefully documented all the cracks in the fieldstone foundation to distinguish the active access roads from the simple structural openings unrelated to the presence of animals. This precise mapping is essential to avoid unnecessary damage to the old masonry during the sealing phase.
Gradual capture of the family
The presence of young skunks (called wild boars) requires a different approach to standard catching. The young, which are not yet moving on their own, remain in the burrow while the female goes in search of food at night. Our strategy was to capture the adult female first, placing traps at the entrance to the root cellar and at the bottom of the foundation crack. Once the female was captured, the young were manually removed by our technician equipped with protections, transferred to a transport cage and relingualized with the female for a group relocation in the wild.
This approach to capturing skunks in a family group is the only one that is ethically correct: permanently separating young from their mothers at the stage when they are not yet autonomous leads to their certain death, which our team refuses to cause. The simultaneous relocation of the whole family is therefore systematic when young people are present.
Heritage repair and closure of access
The crack in the fieldstone foundation was closed with a natural lime mortar, which complies with the standards for restoring Quebec’s built heritage, and respects the flexibility and vapour permeability of the old masonry. The other superficial cracks were treated identically. A stainless steel mesh has been discreetly attached to the bottom of the root cellar to reinforce the protection without distorting the external appearance of the building. The animal capture and relocation service adapts to the specific constraints of each type of property, including heritage buildings.
Follow-up and recommendations for old houses
A three-week follow-up confirmed the absence of any new animal activity. Homeowners have been advised on seasonal inspections to be done on fieldstone foundations, especially after winter when freeze-thaw can create new cracks. Our extermination services in Quebec are adapted to the realities of each property, whether it is modern or century-old. In old houses, prevention also involves regular monitoring of the spaces under the galleries, basement windows and wine or root cellars that remain common in the agricultural and heritage real estate stock of Saint-Charles-sur-Richelieu. Homeowners have also been asked to inspect these areas each spring as skunks begin to seek calving sites. Consult our achievements on another intervention in an old residence and on raccoons in similar foundations to understand our expertise in the built heritage environment.