Hear from Our Customers
You stop finding droppings near the baseboards. You stop hearing things in the walls when the house gets quiet at night. You stop wondering whether that soft spot in the trim is just age or something actively eating through it. That shift — from reacting to a problem to not thinking about it at all — is what a real pest control program actually delivers.
In Village Of Clarkston, that matters more than it does in a lot of other places. More than a third of homes here were built before 1940. Aging wood, settling foundations, gaps around old window frames — these aren’t just character details, they’re open invitations for carpenter ants, mice, and bats. When a professional who understands older Michigan housing stock treats your home correctly, you’re not just solving today’s problem. You’re protecting the structure you’ve invested in.
The wooded, lake-adjacent environment around Clarkston adds another layer. Living near Deer Lake, Independence Oaks, or any of the wooded neighborhoods throughout Independence Township means mosquitoes and deer ticks aren’t seasonal nuisances — they’re a real outdoor living issue from May through October. When that’s handled properly, your yard becomes usable again. That’s the outcome that matters.
We’ve been operating in Michigan since May 31, 2005 — family-owned, not franchised, and led by Roger Chinault, who has 26 years of hands-on pest control experience. That’s not a number pulled from a marketing sheet. It means Roger has treated homes through Michigan winters, Michigan springs, and every pest cycle in between. We built this company around a straightforward idea: send the same trained technician back to the same home, every time, until you don’t have a pest problem anymore.
That approach means something specific in a community like Village Of Clarkston, where homes along the M-15 corridor and throughout the surrounding Independence Township range from pre-war structures to lakefront properties — each with its own pest history and vulnerabilities. The technician who treats your home isn’t a seasonal hire filling a summer roster. They’re a trained professional who learns your property, knows its entry points, and builds on that knowledge every visit.
We’re BBB Accredited, have earned awards from Angie’s List and HomeAdvisor, and are one of fewer than 100 companies in the entire United States offering certified canine bed bug detection.
It starts with understanding what you’re actually dealing with. Before any treatment happens, your technician assesses your property — the structure, the entry points, the conditions around the home. In Clarkston, that typically means paying close attention to older wood framing, foundation gaps, and the wooded perimeter that backs up to so many properties near Independence Oaks and the lake communities throughout Independence Township. What’s happening outside your home drives a lot of what happens inside it.
From there, a program gets built around your specific situation — not a generic checklist. We use Integrated Pest Management principles, which means the approach starts with the least invasive treatment that will actually work, and escalates only when necessary. That matters in a community where families are near lakes, kids are playing in wooded yards, and residents are conscious of what gets applied around their property.
Once treatment is underway, the same technician returns for every follow-up visit. They already know your home, so they’re not starting from scratch each time. If something changes between visits — a new entry point, a shift in activity — they catch it faster because they have the baseline. That continuity is the part most pest control companies can’t offer, and it’s the part that makes the biggest difference over time.
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We handle the full range of pests that show up in Clarkston homes and businesses — carpenter ants, mice, rats, spiders, wasps, hornets, stink bugs, bed bugs, bats, and more. Carpenter ants and bats are called out specifically by multiple pest control sources as primary challenges in Clarkston’s older, wooded-area homes, and for good reason. Pre-1940 structures give both species exactly what they need: aging wood, attic access, and quiet voids to nest in. These aren’t DIY problems, and they’re not fixed with a single visit.
Our mosquito program includes flea and tick treatment at no extra charge — which is worth noting if you have a dog that roams the wooded edges of your yard, or kids who play near the park corridors that run through Independence Township. Deer ticks are active in exactly the kind of habitat that surrounds Clarkston, and bundling that coverage into the mosquito program means you’re not leaving a gap.
For bed bug concerns, we offer certified canine detection — one of fewer than 100 companies in the U.S. providing this service. Detection dogs find active infestations with 95–98% accuracy, including inside walls and under floors where a visual inspection would miss them entirely. We offer discounts for seniors, veterans, and first responders. We also match reasonable competitors’ rates, so you’re not trading quality for cost.
Carpenter ants and bats top the list in Clarkston, and the reason comes down to the housing stock. More than a third of homes in the village were built before 1940, which means aging wood framing, deteriorating seals, and structural gaps that both species exploit. Carpenter ants don’t eat wood the way termites do — they excavate it to nest, and they tend to target wood that’s already been softened by moisture. In older Michigan homes, that’s not hard to find.
Mice are another consistent issue, especially in the fall when temperatures drop and they start looking for warmth inside. Clarkston’s wooded neighborhoods near Independence Oaks and the lake communities give rodents plenty of habitat right up to the edge of residential properties. Spiders, wasps, and stink bugs round out the seasonal rotation. The key with any of these is catching them early — before a carpenter ant gallery gets deep into a structural beam or a mouse colony establishes itself behind a wall.
The honest answer is that most people don’t know until the infestation is already established — and that’s exactly the problem with relying on visual inspections alone. Visual inspections catch roughly half of active bed bug infestations. The other half are hiding inside walls, under flooring, in the tight spaces behind baseboards, and in the kinds of hard-to-reach voids that older Clarkston homes have in abundance.
We use certified detection dogs to find bed bug activity with 95–98% accuracy. These aren’t gimmick animals — they’re trained to detect the specific scent of live bed bugs and viable eggs, even through walls and floors. If you’ve recently traveled, had guests stay over, or bought secondhand furniture, those are the most common introduction points. Getting a canine inspection done early — before you’re dealing with a full infestation — is significantly cheaper and easier than treating one that’s had time to spread through a home.
Yes, and the geography makes a straightforward case for it. Deer Lake sits within the village itself. Independence Oaks County Park borders the Clarkston area to the north. Throughout Independence Township, wooded corridors and private lakes create ideal breeding and habitat conditions for both mosquitoes and deer ticks from late spring through early fall. If your property backs up to any of that — or if your yard has shade, standing water, or wooded edges — you’re in a higher-pressure zone than most.
Deer ticks specifically are worth taking seriously. They carry Lyme disease, and they’re most active in exactly the kind of brushy, wooded-edge habitat that surrounds Clarkston neighborhoods. We include flea and tick treatment in our mosquito program at no extra charge, which means you’re getting layered outdoor protection without paying for two separate services. For families with dogs or kids who spend time in wooded yards, that bundled coverage is a practical advantage, not just a nice-to-have.
It depends on what you’re dealing with and the time of year, but most Clarkston homeowners benefit from a recurring program rather than one-time treatments. Michigan’s four seasons create a predictable but demanding pest rotation — carpenter ants and stinging insects in spring, mosquitoes and ticks through summer, rodents seeking warmth in fall, and year-round issues like bed bugs and cockroaches in commercial settings that don’t follow a seasonal schedule.
For homes near wooded areas or water — which describes a large portion of Clarkston and the surrounding Independence Township — recurring visits allow your technician to stay ahead of seasonal pressure rather than respond to it after the fact. We build programs around your specific property and pest history, so the frequency is based on what your home actually needs. The same technician returns each time, which means they’re building on what they already know rather than starting from scratch on every visit.
It’s a fair question, and one that comes up often in communities like Clarkston where residents live close to Deer Lake, private lakes throughout Independence Township, and park land like Independence Oaks. The short answer is that when treatments are applied correctly by a trained professional, the risk to surrounding water and wildlife habitat is minimal — but the method matters.
Our technicians are trained in Integrated Pest Management, which means the approach starts with the least invasive option that will actually solve the problem. Chemical applications are targeted, not broadcast — and the products we use are selected with the surrounding environment in mind. All commercial pesticide applicators in Michigan must hold a valid state certification through MDARD, and we meet those requirements. If you have specific concerns about a treatment near a water feature, a wooded border, or a sensitive area of your property, that’s a conversation worth having with your technician before any treatment begins.
Yes — we offer discounts for seniors, veterans, and first responders. In a community like Village Of Clarkston, where the median age is 55.8 years and a meaningful portion of residents are retired or near retirement, that discount applies to a lot of people who’ve spent decades maintaining homes that now need real, professional pest protection.
It’s also worth knowing that we match reasonable competitors’ rates. So if you’ve gotten a quote from another local company — CJB, Griffin, EcoShield, or anyone else serving the Clarkston area — bring it to the conversation. The goal isn’t to be the cheapest option in Oakland County. It’s to make sure cost isn’t the reason a Clarkston homeowner settles for less experienced service or a rotating cast of seasonal technicians. You should be able to get the most qualified company without feeling like you overpaid for it.
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