Hear from Our Customers
When you’ve got mice coming in off the farm fields to the west, or mosquitoes breeding in the low-lying areas near the Tittabawassee, a single spray and a follow-up call isn’t going to cut it. What you actually need is someone who understands why the problem keeps coming back — and treats the source, not just the symptom.
Once the right treatment is in place, the difference is immediate. You stop finding droppings in the kitchen. Your yard is usable again in the evenings. You’re not waking up to new bites or spotting carpenter ants trailing across the windowsill every spring.
Thomas Township’s housing stock skews older, and homes built in the sixties and seventies have gaps, aging wood, and foundation characteristics that give pests easy entry. A licensed exterminator who knows what to look for in that kind of structure doesn’t just treat what’s visible — we find what you’d never think to check. That’s the difference between a short-term fix and a real solution.
We founded First Choice Pest Control on May 31, 2005 — which makes 2025 our 20th year serving mid-Michigan homeowners, including Thomas Township residents from the Shields area to Freeland and everywhere along the Gratiot Road corridor. Roger, our owner, brings 26 years of hands-on pest control experience to every job. That’s not a number on a website — that’s two decades of Michigan winters, spring carpenter ant seasons, and fall rodent invasions that taught him things no training manual covers.
We operate as a family-owned business, and it shows in how we work. You get the same technician every visit — someone who learns your home, your history, and your specific concerns over time. No rotating strangers. No part-time college students filling a schedule. Every technician here is a career pest control professional with real training and a long-term commitment to this work.
We hold MDARD Pesticide Application Business License #250081 and have earned awards from both Angie’s List and HomeAdvisor. For Thomas Township residents dealing with the specific pest pressures of this region, we’re a company that’s been here long enough to know exactly what you’re facing.
It starts with a thorough inspection. Before anything gets treated, a licensed technician walks your property — inside and out — to identify what’s present, where it’s coming from, and what conditions are making your home attractive to pests in the first place. In Thomas Township, that often means checking the perimeter for rodent entry points on homes that back up to agricultural land, looking for moisture conditions near the foundation, and assessing any standing water situations that feed mosquito populations through the summer.
From there, we build a treatment plan around what’s actually happening at your property — not a generic checklist. If you’re dealing with carpenter ants in aging wood framing, that’s a different protocol than a mouse problem coming in off the fields in October. Our IPM-trained technicians apply targeted treatments in the right concentrations, in the right locations, using the least-toxic effective approach for each situation. That matters when you’ve got kids in Swan Valley or Freeland Community schools, or pets that spend time in the yard.
After the initial treatment, the process doesn’t stop. Follow-up visits are scheduled based on the pest and the severity, and because you’ll have the same technician returning each time, they already know your home when they arrive. No re-explaining the problem. No starting from scratch. Just consistent, professional service that builds on itself over time.
Ready to get started?
We handle the full range of pest problems Thomas Township homeowners actually face: ants, rodents, mosquitoes, bed bugs, wasps, spiders, stink bugs, fleas, ticks, and more. Our mosquito control program includes flea and tick treatment at no extra charge — which matters when you’re spending time on the Thomas Township Trail, near Memorial Park, or in a yard that borders the kind of green space that keeps tick populations active well into fall.
Bed bug detection is handled through our certified canine program — one of fewer than 100 such services in the entire United States. The K-9 teams locate live insects and viable eggs with 95–98% accuracy in controlled conditions, finding activity in wall voids, mattress seams, and furniture that a visual inspection would miss entirely. If you’ve recently traveled through Saginaw or Bay City, purchased used furniture, or had guests staying over, this is the most accurate way to confirm whether you have a problem — or confirm that you don’t.
Our pricing is transparent, and we match reasonable competitor rates. Discounts are available for seniors, veterans, and first responders — a genuine offer for a community that has a strong retiree presence and deep respect for those who’ve served. All services are backed by a full workmanship guarantee. If it’s not right, we make it right.
Thomas Township’s combination of older housing stock, agricultural surroundings, and proximity to the Tittabawassee River creates consistent pressure from several pest types. Carpenter ants are one of the most common calls in spring — they’re drawn to aging wood framing and moisture conditions that are typical in homes built in the sixties and seventies throughout the township. Mice are a major fall concern, particularly for properties on Thomas’s western and northern edges where farm fields border residential lots. As harvest season ends and temperatures drop, rodents move toward warm structures, and homes with older foundations give them plenty of ways in.
Mosquitoes are a recognized community issue throughout Saginaw County — the county has operated its own mosquito abatement program since 1977 — but county-level treatments don’t cover your specific yard or standing water on your property. Wasps, spiders, stink bugs, and bed bugs round out the list of what Thomas Township homeowners deal with regularly. All of these are manageable with the right treatment plan and the right timing.
It depends on what you’re dealing with and what conditions are driving it. A one-time treatment can resolve an isolated issue — a wasp nest, for example, or a single ant trail. But if the underlying conditions haven’t changed, the problem usually comes back. For Thomas Township homeowners, that’s especially true with rodents and mosquitoes, where the pressure source — agricultural land, river corridor wetlands, standing water — doesn’t go away after a single visit.
An ongoing program makes more sense when you’re dealing with recurring pests, when your property has characteristics that make it consistently attractive to pests, or when you simply want the peace of mind of regular monitoring. Many homeowners in the Shields and Freeland areas of Thomas Township find that a maintenance program is more cost-effective over time than paying for repeated one-time treatments after each new problem surfaces. We can walk through your specific situation and give you an honest recommendation — not just the option that costs more.
This is one of the most common questions we hear, and it’s a fair one. The short answer is yes — when it’s applied correctly by a trained professional using an IPM approach, pest control treatment is safe for the people and animals in your home. IPM, or Integrated Pest Management, means our technician uses the least-toxic effective treatment for each specific pest situation rather than applying a broad chemical spray across every surface.
In practice, that means targeted application in the right locations, at the right concentrations, with appropriate re-entry guidance depending on what was used. For families with children in Swan Valley or Freeland Community schools — or pets that spend time in the yard near the Thomas Township Trail — this approach matters. You’ll be told exactly what was applied, where, and how long to wait before normal activity resumes. There’s no guessing, and nothing gets rushed.
Pest control pricing varies based on what pest you’re dealing with, the size of your home, the severity of the infestation, and whether you’re looking at a one-time treatment or an ongoing program. A single-visit treatment for a common pest like ants or spiders will typically run less than an initial treatment for something like carpenter ants with structural harborage, or a bed bug situation that requires multiple visits and specialized detection.
What you want to avoid is choosing the cheapest option without knowing what’s included. Incomplete treatment almost always costs more in the long run — you pay again when the problem comes back, and sometimes you’re dealing with more damage by then. We match reasonable competitor rates, so if you’ve gotten a quote from another licensed exterminator serving the Thomas area, it’s worth a call. Discounts are also available for seniors, veterans, and first responders, which can make a meaningful difference for homeowners on a fixed income.
A standard visual inspection relies on a technician looking for physical signs of bed bugs — shed skins, fecal spotting, live insects in visible locations. It’s useful, but it has real limitations. Bed bugs hide in wall voids, inside electrical outlets, deep in mattress seams, and inside furniture joints where a human inspector simply can’t see without taking things apart.
Canine detection teams are trained to locate live insects and viable eggs by scent, with 95–98% accuracy in controlled conditions. That means they can confirm activity — or confirm the absence of it — in areas a visual inspection would miss entirely. We’re one of fewer than 100 companies in the United States that offer this certified service. For Thomas Township residents who’ve recently traveled, purchased secondhand furniture, or had guests staying in your home, this is the most accurate tool available for knowing exactly what you’re dealing with before spending money on treatment.
Yes — we offer discounts for seniors, military veterans, and first responders. Thomas Township has a significant retiree population, and many of those homeowners have been in their properties for decades. They’ve maintained their homes carefully, they know their neighbors, and they’re not looking to overpay for a service they’ve earned the right to access at a fair price. The senior discount reflects that.
The veteran and first responder discounts apply the same way. These are homeowners who’ve given a lot to their communities, and the discount is a straightforward acknowledgment of that. If you or someone in your household qualifies, mention it when you call. It applies to residential pest control services in Thomas Township and the surrounding Saginaw County area, and there’s no fine print that makes it difficult to use.
Local Resources
Useful Links
