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I like chocolate. Specifically dark chocolate, but I’m not turning away the semi-sweet chocolate chip cookies or the milk chocolate morsels in a good brownie. A candy bar or a filled chocolate candy will do just fine. Open a bag and I’ll be there. The closer it is, the faster I am going to find it and eat it, probably a lot of it given the chance! If I have to go to the store and buy it, or spend a few hours cooking it, obviously it’s going to take me longer to get to it and

When most people hear the word "plague," they immediately picture medieval Europe, wooden carts, and plague doctors in bird masks. It feels like an ancient historical artifact. The plague is still very much active today. Yersinia pestis (the bacterium that causes plague) has been quietly circulating in the wildlife of the American West for decades. A recent announcement from the New Mexico Department of Health: a wild rodent in Santa Fe County officially tested positive for

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

I’m back from an amazing trip overseas. That being said, I have lost all sense of time and I’m a bit jetlagged. So I forgot yesterday was Tuesday. I’m now pretending today is yesterday and getting the blog out. Speaking of time travel, do you know how old termites are? (and yes, all the pictures in this week's blog were taken by me on this trip!) While I was in Kenya last week, in between inspections and other work, I had the privilege of going on safari with some absolutely

It was World Bee Day last week, and that’s a great time to talk about bees. Honey bees specifically. Honey bees are an invasive species. These are sometimes referred to as the European honey bee, the western honey bee, but ESA states the common name is simply the “honey bee”. If you want to get scientific about it, it’s Apis mellifera*, which comes from the Latin of Apis meaning bee and mellifera meaning honey-bearing. There is still a little controversy, but most science poi

It’s a few weeks into May and that means the grass is getting longer and the weeds are coming in. Literally, in many cases, because May is “No Mow May”. This is apparently the month to not mow your lawn and let it just do its thing. You would think that whoever came up with this is brilliant to explain away their laziness in this way. It does have another purpose. The purpose was to help early-season pollinators. Not mowing allows the wildflowers (what many people will see as

Two things have happened this week that have spurred this week’s blog post. And yes, today is only Tuesday. The first is that I have found not one but three ticks in my hotel room. The second is the news report that the CDC is reporting that they are seeing the highest rate of emergency room visits for tick bites in a decade. Oh yeah, I'm in New Jersey right now, but this also hit my news feed today: Why are either of these things important? Great question, thanks for askin

I have a lot of Google alerts for words relating to pest control. I typically skim through, look for any scientific articles and quickly delete. Then this one caught my eye. Ugh, here we go again, I think to myself. And yes, here we go again. Now, I get it. Pesticides are scary, especially when you call them “poisons”. Yes, they are intended to knock down the pest. Yes, some are poisonous (ingested). Yes, we want to make sure only the target animal is impacted by the pesti

Mosquito Madness - Day 16! I’m taking my usual morning walk yesterday and since it’s getting lighter out, I can see a bit more. Around my neighborhood, I saw not one, but three yard signs advertising that a pest control company had done a mosquito treatment. You may be asking, “but why is that a big deal?” Great question, thanks for asking. A mosquito treatment doesn’t seem like a big deal until you realize that this is early March. Granted, I live in the south and we have

It's day 8 of mosquito madness! You folks know I read a lot of research on all things pests so I can help my clients provide the best service possible. I have quite a few alerts set for news stories on all things pest related. It doesn’t surprise me that pest control and pest control devices are in the news. People want to protect themselves, their homes, and their foods from harmful pests. And if you read it on the internet, it must be true. Smh Here’s a few things that

I have a lot of google alerts for words relating to pest control. I typically skim through, look for any scientific articles and quickly delete. Then this one caught my eye. Ugh, here we go again, I think to myself. And yes, here we go again. Now, I get it. Pesticides are scary, especially when you call them “poisons”. Yes, they are intended to knock down the pest. Yes, some are poisonous (ingested). Yes, we want to make sure only the target animal is impacted by the pest

Sometimes pest problems are relatively easy to manage. One or two visits, some targeted treatments, sanitation, and exclusion recommendations, and presto! Problem solved! Then there are the times it isn’t so easy. Particularly when it seems the customer is working against you. The other day, I was at a location, let’s say it was a bookstore. (It wasn’t, I’m trying to protect the innocent here!) Now, as I was browsing through the bookstore, out of the corner of my eye, I saw