Hear from Our Customers
If you’ve spotted a nest under your eave, noticed wasps coming and going near your shed, or found a ground nest while mowing — you already know the problem isn’t going away on its own. The longer a colony sits, the larger it gets. By late August and into September, a yellow jacket colony in Lapeer County can reach thousands of workers, and they get noticeably more aggressive as the season shifts. That’s not the time to be experimenting with a can of hardware store spray.
Hunters Creek properties create near-perfect conditions for stinging insects. The mature tree canopy throughout the area — including the large shade trees that define neighborhoods along Hunters Creek Road and DeMille Road — gives paper wasps and bald-faced hornets ideal overhead nesting habitat. The creek corridor itself runs through the southern portion of Lapeer Township, and the wooded, riparian edges along it are exactly where yellow jacket colonies establish ground nests, often hidden under root systems or near outbuilding foundations.
The homes here — most built between 1940 and 1999 — have aging soffits, weathered fascia, and structural gaps that wasps find and use every season. Getting rid of the nest is one part of the job. Making sure the conditions that invited them in don’t invite them back is the other part. That’s what professional wasp removal actually looks like, and it’s what you should expect when you call us.
First Choice Pest Control has been protecting Michigan homes since May 31, 2005 — and in 2025, that’s 20 years of showing up, doing the work right, and earning customers back without a contract. Roger Chinault founded this company and still brings 26 years of hands-on pest control experience to every service call. We’re not a franchise operation with rotating seasonal staff. We’re a family-owned, owner-operated business where the person treating your Hunters Creek property is a career professional — not a part-time hire filling a summer schedule.
We serve residential and commercial customers across the region, including Lapeer County communities like Hunters Creek. Whether you’re on a wooded homestead off Clark Road or in the Hunters Creek MHC on DeMille Road, our approach is the same: identify what’s there, treat it properly, and give you straight answers about what to expect. We hold Integrated Pest Management training, are fully licensed through Michigan’s Department of Agriculture and Rural Development, and have earned recognition from both Angie’s List and HomeAdvisor — not through paid placement, but through consistent customer reviews over time. Discounts are available for seniors, veterans, and first responders.
It starts with a proper assessment. Before any treatment happens, our technician identifies the species, locates the nest — whether it’s under an eave, inside a wall void, in a tree overhead, or in a ground burrow near your deck — and determines the size and activity level of the colony. This matters because paper wasps, yellow jackets, and bald-faced hornets each require a different approach. Treating a yellow jacket ground nest the same way you’d treat a paper wasp nest under a soffit is how people get stung and problems come back.
Once the nest is identified, we apply treatment directly to the colony using the appropriate method for that species and nesting location. For Hunters Creek properties, that often means addressing nests in older structural gaps — weathered fascia, deteriorating soffits, spaces under manufactured home skirting — that give colonies easy access to protected cavities. After the colony is eliminated, we physically remove the nest where accessible and seal entry points to cut off the conditions that made your property a target in the first place.
Timing matters here. Michigan’s stinging insect season peaks in August and September in Lapeer County — that’s when colonies are at maximum size and workers are most aggressive. If you’re calling during that window, same-day or next-day service is our priority. If you’re calling earlier in the season, spring treatment stops a small colony from becoming a large one before it ever gets to that point. Either way, you’ll get a clear answer on re-entry timing and what to watch for afterward — no vague reassurances, just real information.
Ready to get started?
Our wasp nest removal service in Hunters Creek covers the full range of stinging insect scenarios common to this area — aerial nests in mature trees, under-eave paper wasp nests on older homes, yellow jacket colonies in ground burrows near outbuildings, and nests in the structural voids of manufactured homes throughout the Hunters Creek MHC community on DeMille Road. Every service includes species identification, direct colony treatment, physical nest removal where safely accessible, and entry point sealing to reduce the likelihood of re-infestation in the same location.
We don’t use broad-spectrum chemical saturation. Integrated Pest Management means the treatment is targeted — applied where it needs to go, in the concentration it needs to be, for the species that’s actually there. That approach matters on Lapeer County rural properties where children, pets, and larger outdoor spaces are part of the picture. You’ll know what was used, why, and when it’s safe to be back outside.
There are no binding contracts. You’re not locked into anything. If you want ongoing seasonal protection — spring treatment to stop colonies before they establish, late-summer service during peak season — that’s available. But it’s your call, not a default enrollment. We also match reasonable competitors’ rates, so if you’ve already gotten a quote from another local provider in the Lapeer area, bring it. Our goal is to solve the problem, not win a pricing argument.
The short answer: all active wasp nests carry some level of risk, but the species and location are what determine how urgent the situation is. Paper wasps — the ones that build the small, open, umbrella-shaped nests under eaves and deck railings — are relatively docile unless you disturb them directly. Yellow jackets are a different story. They nest in the ground or inside wall voids, they defend aggressively with little warning, and their colonies grow through the summer into the thousands by late August in Lapeer County.
If you’re seeing wasps going in and out of a hole in the ground near your foundation, under your shed, or near a tree root — that’s almost certainly yellow jackets, and that’s the scenario where accidental disturbance during mowing or yard work is most likely to result in multiple stings. On Hunters Creek properties with larger lots and more ground-level structures, that risk is real and specific. If anyone in your household has a known allergy to stings, treat any active nest as urgent and call us before attempting anything yourself.
DIY wasp removal works sometimes — usually on a small, early-season paper wasp nest that’s easy to reach and hasn’t grown large yet. The problem is that most people don’t call until the nest is well-established, the colony is in the hundreds or thousands, and the location is somewhere awkward — inside a wall void, deep in a ground burrow, or up in a tree where a ladder and a can of spray isn’t a realistic plan.
Yellow jacket nests in particular are not good candidates for DIY treatment. They respond to vibration and perceived threats with mass defensive stinging, and a disturbed ground nest can send dozens of workers after you before you’ve had time to react. If you’ve already tried treating a nest and the wasps came back, that’s usually a sign the queen wasn’t reached and the colony is still active. Our professional treatment targets the queen and the colony directly, removes the nest, and seals the entry point — which is the difference between solving the problem and managing it temporarily.
Michigan’s stinging insect season follows a predictable pattern, and Lapeer County is no exception. Queen wasps emerge from overwintering sites in April and May — often from the wall voids and structural gaps of the older homes common in Hunters Creek — and start building new colonies. Through June and July, colonies grow steadily and you’ll start noticing workers foraging near your home.
August and September are the peak. Yellow jacket colonies can reach 5,000 to 15,000 workers by late summer, and as natural food sources decline, they shift toward scavenging and become noticeably more aggressive. That’s when most stings happen, and it’s when the majority of emergency service calls come in. The first hard frost in October kills off the workers, but queens survive by overwintering in protected spots — including the structural gaps of your home — and start the cycle again next spring. If you’re treating a nest in late summer, you’re dealing with the largest and most aggressive version of the colony. Earlier treatment is always easier and safer.
The four species you’re most likely to encounter in the Hunters Creek area are paper wasps, yellow jackets, bald-faced hornets, and European hornets. Paper wasps are the most visible — they build the open, papery nests under eaves, on deck railings, and around window frames. They’re common on the older homes throughout the area and are generally less aggressive than yellow jackets unless you get close to the nest.
Yellow jackets are the most problematic for Hunters Creek residents. They nest in the ground — often in old rodent burrows, root voids, or under the foundations of outbuildings — and their colonies grow large through the summer. The wooded, creek-side character of the area, with its mature root systems and established tree canopy, gives them abundant nesting sites. Bald-faced hornets build the large, gray, football-shaped aerial nests you’ll see in trees and shrubs — the big shade trees throughout the Hunters Creek MHC community are common locations. European hornets are less common but larger, and they can nest in hollow trees and wall voids of older structures. Knowing which species you’re dealing with changes the treatment approach, which is why identification comes before anything else.
Yellow jackets don’t reuse the same nest the following year — each spring, new queens build new colonies from scratch. But they absolutely return to the same favorable locations if the conditions that attracted them are still there. A ground void near your shed foundation, a gap in your soffit, a space under manufactured home skirting — if those entry points aren’t sealed after treatment, you’re likely looking at a new colony in the same spot next season.
That’s why nest removal and entry point sealing are part of our service, not optional add-ons. On Hunters Creek properties — particularly the older homes built between the 1940s and 1990s with aging structural features — there are often multiple potential nesting sites that need to be addressed, not just the one that’s currently active. After treatment, our technician will walk you through what was sealed, what to monitor, and whether a follow-up spring service makes sense for your specific property. The goal isn’t a one-time fix that leaves you calling again next August.
Yes — we offer discounts for seniors, veterans, and first responders. Hunters Creek has a meaningful population of long-term residents, retirees, and working households, and these discounts reflect a straightforward commitment to the people who make up this community. If you or someone in your household qualifies, just mention it when you call and it’ll be applied to your service.
We also match reasonable competitors’ rates. If you’ve already gotten a quote from another pest control provider serving the Lapeer area — whether that’s a local operator or a regional company — bring it to the conversation. There’s no pressure and no contract required. You’re not enrolling in anything by calling. We’ve operated without binding contracts since we were founded in 2005, which means every customer is kept through the quality of the work, not paperwork. For Hunters Creek residents who’ve dealt with pest control companies that oversell and underdeliver, that’s a meaningful difference.
Local Resources
Useful Links
