Hear from Our Customers
Out here in Conway Township, the pest pressure isn’t the same as it is in a suburb with a quarter-acre lot and a manicured lawn. You’re dealing with field edges, fence lines, abandoned rodent burrows, and wooded areas that create exactly the kind of environment where Eastern Yellowjackets build ground nests — often with no visible warning until someone steps too close.
When the nest is gone and the entry points are sealed, what changes is real. You can mow along the field edge without bracing yourself. Your kids can play in the yard. Your dogs can run the property. If you have livestock or chickens, you’re not managing animal panic every time someone walks near the barn. The outdoor spaces you actually paid for — and use — are yours again.
For properties with older farmhouse-style construction common in Nicholson, that also means not wondering what’s happening inside your walls. German Yellowjackets love wall voids, attics, and crawlspaces in older rural homes, and once they’re established inside a structure, the risk goes up significantly. Getting that handled early — before a colony reaches full size in August — makes the job safer, faster, and far less disruptive to your home.
First Choice Pest Control was founded in Swartz Creek on May 31, 2005 — which makes 2025 our 20th year serving Michigan families and properties, including the Nicholson area and surrounding Shiawassee and Livingston counties. Roger Chinault, our founder and president, has 26 years of personal pest control experience. We built this company without franchising it, without outsourcing it, and without rotating seasonal technicians through customer accounts like they’re interchangeable.
That last part matters more than it sounds. When you call First Choice, you get the same career professional assigned to your property year after year. They’ll know your barn, your field edge, the wall void we treated last summer. You won’t spend ten minutes re-explaining your property every time you call.
We serve both Shiawassee County and the surrounding region — which puts Nicholson, sitting right on that Livingston and Shiawassee County line on East Lovejoy Road, squarely in our service area. We hold Angie’s List and HomeAdvisor awards, are fully licensed through MDARD, and are trained in Integrated Pest Management. No contracts. Discounts for seniors, veterans, and first responders.
It starts with a real conversation — not a call center script. You describe what you’re seeing, where the activity is, and what’s happened so far. If you tried a hardware store spray and it didn’t work, that’s useful information. If you haven’t touched it yet, that’s fine too. Either way, we show up prepared for your specific situation, not a generic one.
When our technician arrives, the first step is a thorough inspection of your property — not just the nest you called about. On a rural Nicholson property with outbuildings, a woodlot, and field edges, there’s often more than one problem. Paper wasps under the back porch eave, yellow jacket activity near the garden, a suspected ground nest along the fence line. You’ll get a complete picture before any treatment begins.
Treatment is targeted and appropriate to the nest type and location. Ground nests are handled differently than wall void infestations, which are handled differently than aerial nests in tree branches or structural overhangs. After the colony is eliminated, we remove the physical nest and seal entry points — because wasps don’t reuse the same nest, but they absolutely return to the same favorable spots the following season. Michigan’s peak wasp season runs hard through August and September, so timing matters. The sooner it’s handled, the smaller the colony and the cleaner the job.
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Wasp nest removal on a Nicholson-area property isn’t the same job it is in a subdivision. You’ve got more square footage, more structure types, and more habitat variety than a standard suburban lot — which means our service has to account for all of it. We inspect the full property: the house, the outbuildings, the barn if you have one, the field edges, and any wooded buffer areas where paper wasps and bald-faced hornets like to build.
Treatment is species-specific. Eastern Yellowjackets nesting in the ground near your field edges get a different approach than German Yellowjackets that have found their way into a wall void in your farmhouse. Paper wasps under the eaves of a detached garage get handled differently than a bald-faced hornet nest in a tree line. The right product, applied the right way, in the right location — that’s what Integrated Pest Management training actually looks like in practice.
After treatment, you’ll get clear re-entry guidance for your family and your animals. If you have livestock, chickens, or working dogs, that conversation is part of our service — not an afterthought. We also offer price matching for reasonable competitor rates, so if you’ve gotten a quote elsewhere, bring it up. There’s no reason to delay getting this handled while a colony keeps growing.
The most common problem in the Conway Township and Nicholson area is Eastern Yellowjackets nesting underground. They typically start in abandoned rodent burrows — and on agricultural land with field edges, fence lines, and pasture, those burrows are everywhere. You can walk past the same spot fifty times before you disturb the entrance and suddenly have a situation on your hands.
The other two you’ll run into regularly are German Yellowjackets, which love getting inside older structures — wall voids, attics, crawlspaces — and paper wasps, which build the open, umbrella-shaped nests you’ll find under eaves, on outbuilding overhangs, and in tree branches along wooded edges. Bald-faced hornets also show up on properties with mature trees and wooded buffers, which is common on the timbered lots throughout this part of Livingston County. Knowing which species you’re dealing with matters, because the treatment approach is different for each one.
The clearest sign is seeing wasps emerging from or disappearing into a gap in your siding, soffit, foundation, or trim — especially in the same spot repeatedly. You might also hear a low buzzing or chewing sound from inside the wall, particularly in the evening when the colony is active. In older farmhouse-style construction common in the Nicholson area, there are more potential entry points than in newer builds — gaps around window frames, deteriorating soffits, spaces where utility lines enter the structure.
If you’re seeing wasps inside your home without an obvious open window or door, that’s another strong indicator they’ve established inside a wall void. Don’t seal the entry point yourself before treatment — that traps the colony inside and can push them further into the structure or cause them to chew through drywall into your living space. Get it treated first, then sealed. That’s the correct order, and it’s something we handle very differently than a can of spray from the hardware store.
Honestly, the best time is as early as you notice the problem. In Michigan, queen yellowjackets and paper wasps start building new nests in April and May. At that stage, colonies are small — sometimes just a handful of workers — and treatment is straightforward. Most people don’t call until July or August, when the nest is already large and the workers are at their most defensive.
By August and into September, yellow jacket colonies in Michigan can reach 5,000 to 15,000 workers. That’s when the majority of stings happen, and that’s when the job is more involved. If you’re in the Nicholson area and you’re noticing wasp activity near your property — even if you haven’t found the actual nest yet — it’s worth making the call sooner rather than later. Waiting doesn’t make the problem easier or cheaper to deal with.
Yes, when it’s done correctly — and the re-entry timing is communicated clearly. We use targeted treatments appropriate to the nest type and location, which means the product isn’t being broadcast across your entire property. After treatment, you’ll get specific guidance on when it’s safe for your family and animals to return to the treated area, based on the product used and the location of the nest.
For properties in the Nicholson area with livestock, chickens, or working dogs, this isn’t a generic answer — it’s a real part of the service conversation. If you have animals that use the same area where the nest is located, that gets factored into the treatment approach and the timing. The goal is to eliminate the nest without creating a secondary problem. If you have specific concerns about a particular animal or a specific area of your property, bring it up when you call. That’s exactly the kind of detail that helps our technician prepare before they arrive.
For a small paper wasp nest under an eave — a few workers, early in the season, easy access — some homeowners handle it themselves without issue. But most situations that lead someone to search for professional wasp removal are already past that point. Ground nests are genuinely dangerous to treat without the right equipment and protective gear, especially when the colony is large. Wall void infestations require treatment from the outside in and proper sealing afterward — not something a can of hardware store spray is designed to handle.
The risk isn’t just getting stung once. Disturbing a large yellow jacket colony without fully eliminating it can trigger a mass defensive response. For someone with a known allergy, that’s a medical emergency. For anyone near a ground nest on rural property — mowing, moving equipment, walking field edges — the exposure risk is real and regular. If you’ve already tried a DIY approach and the activity is still there, that’s the clearest sign the colony wasn’t fully eliminated and the problem is still active.
Yes. We offer discounts for seniors, military veterans, and first responders. In a rural community like Nicholson — where a lot of the long-time residents are older homeowners managing larger properties on fixed incomes, and where veterans and first responders are your actual neighbors — it felt right to make the service more accessible to those folks. It’s not a fine-print offer. Just mention it when you call.
We also offer price matching for reasonable competitor rates. So if you’ve already gotten a quote from another company, you don’t have to choose between price and quality. Bring the number, and if it’s reasonable, we’ll match it. The goal is to remove the barrier between you and getting the problem handled — not to make you jump through hoops to get a fair price.
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