The Age Old Question

So yeah, lately I have been having to ask myself that age old question: what's worse?  Two hours of coffee and chatting with your retired, heart-of-gold landlady or getting sprayed by skunks?  Tuff choice, I know.  Actually, there is a third option I guess...remaining in my apartment like a hermit and never washing any clothes.  I'm sure all of you can relate to my problem completely! 
So here's the story.  The washer and dryer here are in Sheila's (my landlady and Rex's grandma) garage, which is above my apartment.  To access them, I have to walk right by her huge kitchen window, behind which she hangs out for the majority of the day waiting for unsuspecting chat-targets like myself to walk by so she can pounce with her infamous "come in for some coffee!" attacks.  Could be worse, I know; but you see it is so impossible to resist this lady that when I have somewhere to be it can mean the difference between on-time and so-late-it's-not-worth-going.  So I have developed a superhuman swiftness whenever I exit or enter my apartment during the day to lower the probability of a chance meeting with her.
The solution to this dilemma used to be simple...do laundry at night!  But you see Sheila is a cat lover, and daily she leaves small mountains of canned cat-food out for all the feral cats to feast on.  She leaves this cat-food on her balcony, which is part of the roof of my apartment and right next to the entrance to the laundry room.  What she apparently doesn't realize, is that the cats eat about 20% of this food.  The rest is consumed by various woodland creatures who travel far and wide to camp out by my apartment and wait for the fancy feast.  Currently there are two possums, a family of four raccoons, and a pair of skunks who make the trip nightly.  More than once I have had surprise, face-to-face encounters with these
critters, and normally they are more spooked by the situation than I
am.  Before this I have never encountered skunks before, so I am a bit nervous having them around.  So far they have been gentle and never raised a tail...but there is always this underlying nervousness...this hunter-like awareness that I must have just making my way to the front door of my apartment. 
Solutions anyone?  Be creative please!  Meagan has already recommended some kind of magical skunk-be-gone spray that you make out of peppers and onions.  That will definitely be a LAST RESORT.  Anyone else?