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THE Game (AKA: GOOOAAAALLL!)
The FIFA World Cup is here, and the numbers being tossed around are staggering. A recent piece by food safety expert Francine Shaw highlighted a logistics nightmare: one host city expects up to 10 million visitors but only has 28 health inspectors on staff. Yep, that’s my city of Atlanta. Let that sink in. Ten million international fans. Thousands of temporary food trucks, pop-up tents, and fan zones. The Atlanta airport has new food stalls in many terminals. All being monito

Chelle Hartzer
7 days ago3 min read


Get that out of your mouth! (AKA: the cat ate what?)
My cat was playing with a cockroach the other day, just one of the woods roaches that occasionally get in. Of course, I yelled at her (lots of good that did!) and removed the dead cockroach from her mouth and threw it out. Is my precious Max in danger from sucking on a cockroach? Probably not. Cockroaches elicit a definite “ew”, a distinct “yuck”, and a pretty definitive “nope” from most people and for good reason. The conditions they are found in are nasty and disgusting. So

Chelle Hartzer
Jun 232 min read


Best of 2025 (AKA: You folks are weird!*)
So if you follow me, and you obviously do since you are reading this, there was some good stuff last year. Along with everything else I do, I enjoy writing the blog and doing the wine-ing videos. You folks had some definite winners, so let’s take a look back and see what happened last year! Blogs: You folks really like the “ Not My Fault! ” blog talking about when pests are coming from neighbors. I’m with all of you who enjoyed “ We Don’t Talk about Bruno ” where I talked

Chelle Hartzer
Jan 61 min read


Troubleshoot With Me (AKA: Lots of puzzle pieces)
One of the reasons I have the best job is that I get to troubleshoot. I get to try to put puzzles together, often without all the pieces. I tend to have a “standard” set of questions I start with to pry out additional information, and then I let my brain start working through the problem. I know that when a question gets to me, it’s likely the client has already tried all the “basic” IPM steps so it’s always exciting to start thinking about how to get creative with pest contr

Chelle Hartzer
Dec 16, 20254 min read


Dangerous Alliens (AKA: The invasion continues)
I'm in Orlando this week at PestWorld so I'm super excited to see what's new and get to talk to everyone. Which brings up an interesting point. Is there anything new? Aside from a few new invasive insects which aren't necessarily structural pests (spotted lanternfly, spotted lady beetles, etc.) our pests haven't changed much. So here's a quick rundown of some history on our common pests. Starting with one of my favorites: cigarette beetles. These go back to ancient Egyptian

Chelle Hartzer
Oct 21, 20253 min read


Moms Rule! (AKA: I’m the favorite)
It was my mom’s birthday the other day and of course it was Mother’s Day here in the US this past weekend. It was great. It got me...

Chelle Hartzer
May 13, 20253 min read


Houston, We Have Problems (AKA: Didn’t see that coming)
I usually don’t get called until a pest issue is fairly bad. It’s been going on for months, (if not years), it has not been getting any...

Chelle Hartzer
Dec 13, 20224 min read


What Problem? (AKA: This wasn't here yesterday...)
I often don’t get called into a pest issue until it’s fairly bad. It’s been going on for months, (if not years), it has not been getting...

Chelle Hartzer
Dec 8, 20204 min read


What's New with You? (AKA: Make a change!)
Actual conversation I had with a client the other day: Client: I don’t understand why we still have this problem. Me: How long has it...

Chelle Hartzer
Dec 1, 20203 min read
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