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Writer's pictureChelle Hartzer

Not My Problem (AKA: It's not me, it's you)



There it is, you are the problem. While I do agree, there are some problems with this.


Pests have been associated with humans for thousands of years. Potentially even millions of years. If we had this figured out and it was easy, we would have eradicated them centuries ago and wouldn’t be having this conversation. Pests have learned to take advantage of what we leave them. Since we eat, we produce food waste. There’s no way around that.

Any pest control intervention has to use multiple tools. Again, if we had “the one” tool that did it all, rodent problems wouldn’t exist anymore. We don’t. We have to use all the tools we have. This includes baits, traps, sanitation, exclusion, and anything else we can to reduce rodent populations and prevent them from getting into structures.


The “experts” say… In this case, one of the experts is a former grade school teacher. I am NOT saying they aren’t intelligent or capable, however they have no pest control experience. It’s very easy to say “just don’t produce any waste” when that is literally impossible.


They have used “brutal” snap traps and “hazardous poisons”. Snap traps are quick and effective when used properly. There should be no suffering. Is it “brutal” to kill rats? Absolutely, but asking them nicely to leave hasn’t worked so far. As for those “hazardous poisons”, yep, rodenticides are designed to kill rodents. Used correctly, there should be little concern. You know what else is “hazardous”? Rodent borne diseases like Salmonellosis, leptospirosis, and typhus. Those are just some of the diseases spread directly by rodents, then there are the indirectly spread ones like the plague, Lyme disease, and possibly coronavirus.


I’ve got to say I definitely agree with this!

When the “rat-czar” position was first posted, I mentioned that no pest control experience was required, and that made it a political position.

Pest control of any pest takes investment. It costs money. The bigger the pest problem, the more money it will take to mitigate it. There is not an unlimited budget for this project, there is only so much money. Then there are the people. You can certainly ask them to do certain things, you may even be able to mandate some, and that’s not going to take care of everything.


To sum it all up: yes people are the problem. Eliminating the people would be the only way to completely eradicate the problem (probably). There are many tools that have to be used and a truly integrated approach can mitigate the issue.


Want to know how you can do that? Contact us. We will provide the best rodent control program for your particular accounts.


Until then, you can always try DIY:




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