Hear from Our Customers
Living near active cropland in Tuscola County means pest pressure doesn’t follow a suburban schedule. Sugar beet and soybean harvests push field mice out of their habitat every fall, and the nearest warm structure — your basement, your garage, your crawl space — is exactly where they head. Getting ahead of that cycle isn’t a luxury. It’s just what living out here in Walters requires.
Older homes in the Walters area, most built around the 1970s, come with the kind of structural gaps that make pest exclusion harder than it looks on paper. Aging foundation sills, unfinished crawl spaces, and detached outbuildings give pests more ways in than a newer build ever would. When you work with a pest control company that knows this housing stock, the treatment plan actually fits the property — not just the pest.
And it’s not only rodents. Tuscola County’s agricultural drainage ditches and low-lying field edges create standing water conditions that drive serious mosquito pressure through summer. When you add flea and tick exposure for families with dogs or kids playing outside, you’re dealing with a full seasonal pest calendar. We address all of it — not just whatever showed up last week.
First Choice Pest Control was founded on May 31, 2005 — a family-owned business serving Walters and the surrounding Tuscola County area for two decades. Roger, who leads the company, brings 26 years of hands-on pest control experience to every job. That’s not a number pulled from a bio — it’s the kind of experience that means he’s already seen whatever you’re dealing with, probably more than once.
We’ve earned recognition from Angie’s List and HomeAdvisor, hold BBB Accreditation, and are trained in Integrated Pest Management — the EPA-recognized approach that uses the least invasive treatment first. That matters for rural properties around Walters where pets, gardens, and nearby animals are part of the picture.
You’ll get the same technician every visit. Not a seasonal hire, not whoever’s available — the same trained professional who learns your property and keeps that knowledge working for you year after year.
It starts with a real assessment of your property. Not a quick walk-around, but an actual look at the entry points, the harborage areas, and the conditions that are driving the problem — whether that’s a gap in your foundation sill, moisture in a crawl space, or a grain bin fifty feet from your back door. For Walters-area homes, that context matters. A technician who understands Tuscola County’s agricultural landscape is going to catch things that a generic inspection checklist won’t.
From there, we build a treatment plan around your specific situation. We use Integrated Pest Management principles, which means the approach starts with the least invasive option that will actually work — and escalates only if it needs to. That’s not a selling point, it’s just the smarter way to treat a property where kids, pets, or livestock are nearby.
After the initial treatment, you’re not left wondering. If pests come back between scheduled visits, we return — no additional charge. Our goal isn’t to sell you a one-time fix. It’s to build a program that keeps your home protected through every season, including the ones that hit hardest out here in the Thumb.
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We handle both residential and commercial pest control in Walters, MI — from single-family homes on rural lots to businesses operating in Tuscola County. The pest list covers what actually shows up out here: mice and rats displaced by harvest, carpenter ants working through moisture-damaged wood in older homes, mosquitoes breeding in standing water along drainage ditches, wasps building under eaves, and bed bugs that travel in regardless of where you live or what season it is.
Our mosquito program is worth knowing about specifically. When you enroll, flea and tick treatment for your yard is included at no extra charge. For families with dogs or kids who spend time outside in the summer, that combination covers the full range of warm-weather pest exposure without requiring a separate call or a separate bill.
Bed bug detection is another area where we stand apart. We’re one of fewer than 100 companies in the entire United States offering certified canine bed bug detection — a method that reaches 95 to 98 percent accuracy compared to roughly 50 percent for a standard visual inspection. If you’ve bought used furniture, traveled recently, or just want to know for certain, this is the most reliable answer available anywhere in the Tuscola County area. We also offer price matching for reasonable competitor rates, plus discounts for seniors, veterans, and first responders — because this community has earned it.
It’s not random — it’s the agricultural calendar. When Tuscola County’s corn, soybean, and sugar beet harvests run from late August through October, field mice lose the ground cover and food sources they’ve been living in all summer. They don’t disappear. They move, and the nearest heated structure is where they go. For homes in Walters that sit close to active cropland, that means your basement, garage, or crawl space becomes the destination.
The problem compounds because a single mouse can squeeze through a gap the size of a quarter. Homes built in the 1970s — which describes most of the housing stock in the Walters area — have had decades to develop those gaps around foundation sills, utility penetrations, and door frames. Once mice are inside, they leave behind droppings, gnaw on wiring, and nest in insulation. A professional rodent control program addresses both the current population and the entry points that let them in — which is the only way to actually stop the cycle year over year.
The county program is a public service, and it does real work — Tuscola County enrolled 623 residents in its long drive mosquito abatement program in 2024, and it treats public parks, campgrounds, and conservation areas. But it doesn’t cover your backyard. The program focuses on public spaces and enrolled private long drives, which means the standing water along your property edge, your lawn, and your outdoor living areas are outside its scope.
That’s where a private mosquito control program fills the gap. Our mosquito treatment covers your residential yard directly, and it includes flea and tick treatment at no extra charge. Given the drainage ditches and low-lying field edges that run through much of the Walters area, mosquito pressure here can be significant — especially after rain events that leave standing water in spots that don’t drain quickly. If you want to actually use your yard in July, a private program is worth it.
Integrated Pest Management — IPM — is an approach that starts with the least invasive option that will actually solve the problem. That means identifying the root cause first: the entry point, the moisture source, the food source, whatever is driving the infestation. Treatment escalates only when it needs to, and the goal is to use the minimum effective intervention rather than applying chemicals broadly as a default.
For rural properties in the Walters area, this matters more than it might in a suburban setting. Many homes out here have dogs, outdoor cats, chickens, or other animals that could come into contact with treated areas. Our IPM-trained technicians know how to account for that. Tuscola County’s own mosquito abatement program operates on IPM principles for the same reason — it’s the standard that responsible pest management holds itself to. We’re IPM-certified, which means the approach your property gets is built around safety and effectiveness, not just convenience.
A standard visual bed bug inspection finds what a technician can see — and bed bugs are very good at hiding. Inside wall voids, behind outlet covers, deep in mattress seams, under baseboards. A trained human inspector catches roughly 50 percent of active infestations using visual methods alone. That means the other half go undetected, and the infestation continues to grow.
Certified detection dogs work differently. They’re trained to identify the specific scent of live bed bugs and viable eggs, which means they can locate an infestation in areas a visual inspection would never reach. The accuracy rate for certified canine detection runs between 95 and 98 percent. We’re one of fewer than 100 companies in the entire United States offering this service — it’s not widely available, and it’s certainly not the norm in Tuscola County. If you’ve recently purchased secondhand furniture, stayed in a hotel, or have any reason to suspect bed bugs, a canine inspection gives you a definitive answer rather than a best guess.
The honest answer is that it depends on what you’re dealing with, the size of your property, and whether you’re looking at a one-time treatment or an ongoing program. A single-service treatment for a common pest issue typically runs less than a recurring annual program, but recurring programs tend to deliver better long-term results because they address pest pressure across the full seasonal cycle — not just the problem that’s visible right now.
What’s worth keeping in mind is the cost of not treating. A mouse infestation that goes unaddressed through a Tuscola County winter can mean chewed wiring, contaminated insulation, and structural damage that runs significantly higher than the cost of a professional rodent control program. We offer price matching for reasonable competitor rates, so if you’ve received another quote, bring it. The goal is to make sure cost isn’t the reason you’re left dealing with a problem that a professional could solve.
Yes — we offer discounts for seniors, veterans, and first responders. Tuscola County has an older median population, and a meaningful portion of residents in the Walters area are either retired, on fixed incomes, or have served in the military or public safety. Those are real circumstances that affect what pest control costs feel like, and the discounts reflect that.
If you or someone in your household qualifies, mention it when you call. It applies to both one-time services and ongoing pest control programs. Pest control in Walters shouldn’t be something people put off because the cost feels out of reach — especially when the alternative is letting a rodent or insect problem get worse through the winter or into the next season. The discount is there to make it easier to get the problem handled now, before it becomes something bigger.
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