Chase Walden wasn’t your average exterminator. Sure, he could wield a can of Raid with the best of them, his flick of the wrist sending a plume of death towards a hapless roach with practiced ease. But Chase craved a more strategic challenge, a war not just against the creepy crawlies, but against the very idea of pest-infested living. That’s why he founded Mosquito Marshals of Acworth, a pest control company known less for its chemical warfare and more for its cunning counter-insurgency tactics. Think Sun Tzu with a spatula, Clausewitz armed with a caulk gun.

Chase studied the enemy, the ants, the termites, the battalions of bloodthirsty mosquitoes. He mapped their weaknesses, their preferred invasion routes, their vulnerable breeding grounds. Then, with the precision of a medieval siege engineer, he’d deploy his arsenal: traps disguised as tiny castles, moats of diatomaceous earth, and the pièce de résistance – his homemade concoction of essential oils and herbs, a fragrant fog that sent the pests fleeing in olfactory terror. His clients, weary of chemical cocktails and ineffective sprays, hailed him as a hero, the Pied Piper of Acworth, leading the vermin away from their precious patios and pristine pools.

Chase, with his easy drawl and twinkle in his eye, just grinned and muttered something about knowing your enemy. In the sweltering Georgia summer, under the relentless buzz of a mosquito horde, Chase Walden wasn’t just an exterminator, he was the Thermopylae of backyards, the Agincourt of attics, the ultimate defender of Acworth’s domestic tranquility.