Hear from Our Customers
You stop finding evidence. No more droppings behind the stove, no more wings near the windowsill, no more waking up wondering what’s in the walls. That’s the outcome worth paying for — and it’s the one we’re focused on delivering.
Clio sits right at the edge of Vienna Township’s agricultural land, which means every fall, as the fields around West Vienna Road get harvested, mice start looking for somewhere warmer. Your home is the obvious candidate. The ranch-style homes that make up most of Clio — built in the 60s, 70s, and 80s — have had decades to develop the gaps, cracks, and aging utility penetrations that rodents exploit without much effort. Treating the mouse you see isn’t enough. Finding where they’re getting in is the job.
Mosquitoes are the other side of that coin. The Flint River corridor just west of Clio, combined with the drainage patterns across Vienna Township, creates real breeding pressure from June through September. When you sign up for our mosquito control program, flea and tick treatment is included at no extra charge — because those problems tend to show up in the same yards at the same time. One program, covered.
We’ve been serving Genesee County since May 31, 2005 — that’s 20 years of protecting homes and businesses in Clio, Vienna Township, and the surrounding northern county area. Roger founded this company and still leads it. That matters, because when something goes wrong or a treatment needs adjusting, there’s a real person accountable for the outcome.
We hold IPM certification — Integrated Pest Management — which is the EPA-recognized standard for treating pest problems with the least invasive approach first. That means your family and pets aren’t exposed to more than the situation actually requires. It also means the treatments work better long-term, because they address the source, not just the surface.
First Choice has earned awards from Angie’s List and HomeAdvisor and holds BBB accreditation. Those aren’t things you collect in year one. They’re built over two decades of showing up, doing the work, and standing behind it.
It starts with a real assessment of your property. Not a five-minute walkthrough — an actual look at the conditions specific to your home: the foundation, the entry points, the areas where pest activity is most likely based on your location and the time of year. In Clio, that means accounting for things like proximity to agricultural land, the age of your home’s construction, and whether you’re dealing with a seasonal surge or something that’s been building for a while.
From there, we build a treatment program around what your property actually needs. That’s not a sales pitch — it’s the difference between a technician who sprays the baseboards and leaves, and one who understands that a 1970s ranch home near Vienna Township farmland has different vulnerabilities than a newer build in Pheasant Run. The same technician comes back every time, which means they already know your home on the second visit. They’re not starting over.
After treatment, you’ll know what was done, why it was done, and what to watch for. If something comes back, so do we. Michigan’s pest seasons are predictable — carpenter ants in spring, mosquitoes and stinging insects through summer, rodents in fall — and your program is built to stay ahead of that cycle, not react to it after the fact.
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We handle the full range of pest problems that Genesee County residents actually face — carpenter ants, rodents, mosquitoes, wasps and hornets, fleas, ticks, bed bugs, boxelder bugs, and more. We serve both residential and commercial customers, and every program is personalized. That’s not a vague promise — it means your treatment plan reflects your property, your pest history, and your household’s specific needs, not a package designed for the average home in the average town.
Bed bug detection is one area where we stand completely apart. We are one of fewer than 100 companies in the entire United States offering certified canine bed bug detection. Trained dogs find infestations at 95–98% accuracy, compared to roughly 50% for visual inspection alone. Given that Michigan ranks second in the nation for bed bug infestations — and Flint, just 10 miles south on US-23, consistently ranks among the worst cities nationally — having access to this level of detection in Clio is not a small thing.
We offer discounts for seniors, veterans, and first responders. Price matching is available for reasonable competitors’ rates. All our technicians are trained, experienced professionals — we do not use part-time or seasonal workers. Every applicator is licensed through Michigan’s Department of Agriculture and Rural Development, which requires ongoing certification and renewal. That’s the baseline. We go beyond it.
Fall is the most active season for rodent calls in the Clio area, and it’s not random timing. As the agricultural fields around Vienna Township get harvested in September and October, mice lose their cover and start moving toward structures. Older ranch-style homes — which make up the majority of Clio’s housing stock — tend to have more entry points than newer construction: aging foundation seals, gaps around utility lines, and worn caulking around windows and doors that haven’t been touched in years. A mouse can fit through a gap the size of a dime, which means most homes have more access points than their owners realize.
Beyond rodents, fall also brings boxelder bugs, cluster flies, and stink bugs looking for overwintering sites inside wall voids. These aren’t dangerous, but they’re a nuisance and can be difficult to eliminate once they’ve established inside. The right time to address fall pest pressure in Clio is before it starts — a late-summer inspection and exclusion treatment is far more effective than trying to respond after you’ve already found evidence inside.
Yes — significantly more accurate. A trained detection dog finds bed bugs at roughly 95–98% accuracy. A visual inspection by a human technician, even an experienced one, comes in around 50%. The difference is biology: dogs detect the scent of live bed bugs and viable eggs, which means they can locate an infestation behind walls, inside furniture, and in areas a human inspector simply can’t see or reach without tearing things apart.
For Clio residents, this matters more than it might in some other communities. Michigan ranks second in the nation for bed bug infestations, and Flint — about 10 miles south via US-23 — consistently appears among the worst cities in the country for bed bug activity. Bed bugs travel through secondhand furniture, hotel stays, and contact with infested properties. In a community where secondhand furniture purchases are common and proximity to Flint is a daily reality, the exposure risk is real. We are one of fewer than 100 companies in the entire U.S. with certified canine detection — if you have bed bugs, the dogs will find them. If you don’t, the inspection proves it either way.
Carpenter ants are larger than most common ants — typically black, and ranging from about a quarter inch to over half an inch long. But size alone isn’t always the giveaway. The more telling sign is where you’re seeing them. Carpenter ants are drawn to moisture-damaged or aging wood, which is why they show up most often near windowsills, door frames, bathrooms, and anywhere there’s been a slow leak or long-term dampness. In Clio’s older housing stock — homes built in the 1960s through 1980s — those conditions are common.
The other thing to know is that carpenter ants don’t eat wood like termites do. They excavate it, hollowing out galleries inside structural timbers to build their nests. That means the damage builds slowly and quietly, often for months before you notice anything visible. Seeing a few ants on the kitchen counter in March or April is usually the first sign, but by then the colony may already be well established. Treating the workers you see on the surface doesn’t eliminate the colony — that requires locating and treating the nest, which is what a professional inspection is built to do.
Yes. We serve the broader Clio area, which includes Vienna Township and the surrounding communities that fall within the Clio Area School District footprint — including Thetford Township and parts of the adjacent townships. The city of Clio is just over one square mile, but the community most people identify as “Clio” extends well beyond those limits into the surrounding township areas, and that’s the service area we cover.
If you’re in a newer subdivision like Pheasant Run along West Vienna Road, in a Vienna Meadows condominium, or on a rural property further into Vienna Township, the service is the same. The technician assigned to your home will know your area specifically — not just the zip code, but the conditions that affect pest pressure in your part of Genesee County’s northern tier. That local familiarity is part of what the same-technician model is built around.
Our mosquito control program covers your yard with targeted treatments designed to reduce adult mosquito populations and disrupt breeding activity on your property. In Clio, the active season typically runs from late May through September, with peak pressure in July and August when temperatures and humidity are highest — conditions that are amplified near the drainage areas and low-lying land common throughout Vienna Township and the Flint River corridor west of town.
What makes our program different is what’s bundled in: flea and tick treatment is included at no extra charge. For families with kids who use Clio City Park or the Southern Links Trailway, or pet owners whose dogs spend time in the yard, that’s not a minor add-on — it’s meaningful coverage for the pests most likely to affect your household during the same season. Most companies charge separately for that, or don’t offer it at all. The program is recurring through the season, not a one-time spray, so protection stays consistent rather than fading after the first application.
Yes — we offer discounts for seniors, veterans, and first responders. Clio is a working-class community with a cost of living well below the national average, and a lot of the people who’ve lived here longest — or who’ve served this country and this community — are on fixed incomes or tight budgets. The discount exists because pest control shouldn’t be something you put off because the price felt out of reach, especially when waiting usually makes the problem worse and more expensive to fix.
Price matching is also available for reasonable competitors’ rates. If you’ve gotten a quote from another licensed pest control company serving the Clio area, bring it to us and we’ll work with you on the price. The goal is to make sure the best option is also an accessible one — not to win on cost alone, but to make sure cost isn’t the reason you end up with a lesser service. Call and ask directly. It’s a straightforward conversation.
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