CEDAR RAPIDS -- Unwanted visitors are leaving a big mess for the caretaker of a Cedar Rapids cemetery to clean-up.

The cemetery even had to hire help to get rid of the guests.

Czech National Cemetery sits directly across the street from the old landfill in Cedar Rapids. The landfill closed about a year ago, and that opened the door to a smelly situation.

Stinky animals that used to live and dine at the landfill are looking for somewhere else to go. Some are simply crossing the street.

"You don't come here to visit your departed relatives to have to encounter that type of thing, but that's nature, I guess," cemetery caretaker Frank Edmunds said.

Edmunds says skunks from the landfill are creeping into the Czech National Cemetery.

"They dig a fairly decent size hole. It's not so much the hole...it's the dirt they pile up around it," he said.

Edmunds hired Critter Control to drive the skunks out of the graveyard. The company has caught five skunks here in the past month.

Rick Miller says the secret to his success is something the animals can't resist -- oatmeal cream pies.

"They've got a sweet tooth, I guess," Miller said.

Every time he catches a skunk, it costs the cemetery about fifty bucks. Then, Edmunds has to clean-up the mess.

"It takes time away from something else I could be doing," Edmunds said.

People in the neighborhoods surrounding the landfill have also complained about skunk problems.

"It just smells awful. You don't want to go outside. It's worse than the landfill ever smelled," Sasha Lerch said.

Critter Control says there's an easy way to solve some of the skunk problems.

"Take your pet food in at night. Don't leave it lying out," Miller said.

Pet food might just be an appetizer for a skunk used to having lunch at the landfill. But, when they're hungry, the animals will take whatever they can get.

Representatives from the landfill told us they don't think the skunks are coming from trash site.

Everyone we talked to in the surrounding area said they didn't have any problems with skunks until the landfill closed.

E-mail Mark Geary at Mark.Geary@kcrg.com