Hear from Our Customers
Bed bugs don’t announce themselves. By the time you’re sure you have them, they’ve already spread — into the seams of your mattress, behind your baseboards, inside the wall voids of your home. That’s frustrating enough in any house. In Flint, where so much of the housing stock dates back a century or more, it’s a different level of problem. Homes in neighborhoods like Civic Park — nearly 1,000 of them built in 1919 and 1920 — have original plaster walls, aged baseboards, and structural gaps that give bed bugs dozens of places to hide that a standard visual inspection will never reach.
That’s exactly why canine detection changes the outcome here. Our K-9 teams are trained to detect live bed bugs and viable eggs with 90–98% accuracy — compared to just 17–40% for a human inspector alone. That difference isn’t minor. It determines whether you’re treating the whole problem or just the part you can see. When the treatment is based on accurate detection, you stop the infestation. When it’s not, you’re back to square one in a few weeks.
Beyond getting it right the first time, you also get a technician who actually knows your home. Not a rotating stranger. Not someone who’s never been in a house built before 1950. The same professional comes back every time, and that continuity matters — especially in a city where trust with outside service providers hasn’t always been easy to come by.
First Choice Pest Control was founded on May 31, 2005 — right here in Genesee County. Roger Chinault, the owner, has 26 years of hands-on pest control experience and built this company around one straightforward idea: do the job right, treat people fairly, and earn the next call. That’s it. No corporate playbook. No rotating technicians. No binding contracts designed to keep you locked in regardless of results.
We’re based in Swartz Creek, about ten miles from downtown Flint via Corunna Road. We’ve been treating homes throughout Flint for two decades — from the North End to Mott Park to the neighborhoods surrounding UM-Flint and Kettering University. We’ve earned Angie’s List and HomeAdvisor awards, hold Integrated Pest Management training credentials, and are one of fewer than 100 companies in the entire country offering certified canine bed bug detection.
We also offer discounts for seniors, veterans, and first responders — because those discounts mean something real in a community like Flint.
It starts with detection — and this is where most companies get it wrong. A standard visual inspection in a Flint home, especially one built before World War II, is going to miss things. Bed bugs don’t sit in the open. They’re in the wall voids, behind the original trim, inside the electrical outlets, and deep in the furniture joints. Our K-9 detection team goes through your home and pinpoints exactly where the infestation is — not approximately, not probably, but with documented accuracy that holds up whether you’re a homeowner or a renter who needs proof for your landlord.
Once we know what we’re dealing with, we build a treatment plan specific to your home and your situation. This isn’t a one-size approach. The treatment for a ground-floor apartment near the University Avenue corridor is going to look different from the treatment for a standalone home in Civic Park. We account for the layout, the construction, the severity of the infestation, and what’s practical for your household during and after treatment.
After treatment, we don’t disappear. Follow-up is part of the process — because bed bug control in Flint’s rental-dense, older housing environment isn’t always a single-visit fix. We schedule follow-ups, we check the work, and your technician — the same one who was there from the beginning — stays on your case until the problem is resolved. No handoffs, no surprises.
Ready to get started?
Certified canine bed bug detection is the foundation of what makes our service different. In Flint’s housing environment — high rental density, aging construction, and a significant percentage of multi-unit buildings where infestations move through shared walls and plumbing chases — accurate detection isn’t optional. It’s the whole game. Our K-9 teams are certified, and the results are documented, which matters if you’re a renter pursuing remediation under Genesee County housing codes or a landlord who needs to demonstrate compliance.
From there, every treatment program we build is tailored to your specific property. Residential or commercial, single-family home or multi-unit building, we put together a plan that fits. We serve property managers, landlords, hotels, group homes, and individual homeowners across Flint and the surrounding Genesee County area. And because we don’t use binding contracts, you’re not locked into anything — you stay because the service works, not because the paperwork says you have to.
Price matching is available for reasonable competitor rates, so if you’ve gotten another quote in Flint or the surrounding area, bring it to us. We’ll be straight with you about what we can do. Seniors, veterans, and first responders receive discounts — no hoops, just ask when you call.
DIY bed bug treatments — sprays, powders, mattress encasements — can knock back surface activity, but they almost never eliminate an infestation. Bed bugs are exceptionally good at hiding in places that over-the-counter products don’t reach, and they can survive for months without feeding. In Flint’s older housing stock, where original plaster walls, aged baseboards, and structural gaps give them dozens of harborage points, a DIY approach typically delays the problem rather than solving it.
What usually happens is this: you treat what you can see, the visible activity slows, and you think it’s over. Then six to eight weeks later, a new generation hatches from eggs that were never reached, and you’re starting over — often with a larger infestation than you had before. Professional treatment, especially when it starts with accurate canine detection, targets the whole problem from the beginning. That’s the difference between one treatment that works and three that don’t.
Human visual inspections for bed bugs are accurate somewhere between 17% and 40% of the time, depending on the inspector and the conditions. That’s not a knock on inspectors — it’s just the reality of trying to find insects that are roughly the size of an apple seed, hide in complete darkness, and can flatten themselves into cracks thinner than a credit card. Canine detection, using dogs trained specifically for this purpose, reaches 90–98% accuracy.
In a Flint home — particularly in neighborhoods like Civic Park or the North End, where homes were built a century ago and have the structural complexity that comes with age — the gap between those two accuracy rates is enormous. There are hiding spots in a 1920s Flint home that a human inspector simply cannot access without tearing out walls. A trained dog can confirm activity behind those walls without any demolition. That’s why we’re one of fewer than 100 companies in the entire country offering this service.
Yes — and in Flint’s rental housing environment, this is one of the most common ways infestations grow. Bed bugs travel through shared wall voids, electrical conduit, and plumbing chases. In a multi-unit building, an infestation that starts in one unit can spread to adjacent units within weeks, especially if treatment in the original unit pushes the bugs to look for new hosts elsewhere in the building.
Genesee County housing codes require landlords to maintain pest-free housing, which means if you’re a renter and you’ve reported bed bugs to your landlord, the legal obligation to act is theirs. If they delay treatment and the infestation spreads, their liability increases. Our canine detection inspection provides documented proof of infestation — the kind of documentation that holds up when you need to push a landlord to act or when a property manager needs to demonstrate to a tenant that treatment was completed properly.
The timeline depends on the treatment method and the severity of the infestation. In most cases, residents need to be out of the treated area for several hours after application — typically four to six hours, though your technician will give you the specific guidance for your situation before treatment begins. You’ll also need to do some prep work beforehand: washing and bagging linens, clearing clutter from baseboards and furniture, and making sure the technician has clear access to the areas that need to be treated.
Follow-up visits are often part of the process, especially in Flint homes with complex layouts or in multi-unit buildings where re-exposure from adjacent units is a real possibility. We build that into the plan from the start rather than treating it as an afterthought. Your technician will walk you through what to expect at every stage so there are no surprises about timing, re-entry, or what comes next.
We serve both — and renters in Flint make up a significant portion of the people who call us. If you’re renting and you’ve discovered bed bugs, you’re often in a difficult position: you need the infestation confirmed, you need your landlord to act, and you may need documentation to protect yourself legally. We can help with all of that.
Our canine detection inspection provides the kind of accurate, documented confirmation that gives renters a clear record of the infestation — which matters when you’re dealing with a landlord who is slow to respond. Under Genesee County housing codes, landlords are required to maintain pest-free housing. Having professional documentation of an active infestation, produced by a certified K-9 team with 90–98% detection accuracy, puts you in a much stronger position than a self-reported complaint. If you’re a renter in Flint dealing with bed bugs and you’re not sure what your options are, call us — we’ll be straight with you about what we can do and what you’re entitled to.
Yes. We offer discounts for seniors, veterans, and first responders — and in Flint, where the cost of living is real and the per capita income reflects a community that works hard for what it has, those discounts aren’t a footnote. They’re a genuine part of how we do business. If you qualify, just mention it when you call and we’ll make sure it’s applied.
We also match reasonable competitor rates for bed bug pest control services in Flint and across Genesee County. If you’ve gotten a quote from another local provider, bring it to us. We’re not going to match a price that cuts corners on the service — but if it’s a fair comparison, we’ll work with you. The goal is to make sure cost isn’t the reason someone in Flint lives with a bed bug infestation longer than they have to.
Local Resources
Useful Links
