Hear from Our Customers
Most people dealing with bed bugs in Burnt don’t have a treatment problem — they have a detection problem. Bed bugs in older rural homes have more places to disappear: aging baseboards, plaster walls, wall voids behind decades-old paneling, furniture that’s been in the family for years. A standard visual inspection misses a significant portion of what’s actually there. That’s not a knock on anyone — it’s just the reality of how these insects survive.
When detection is accurate, treatment becomes targeted. You’re not spraying everything and hoping for the best. You’re addressing what’s confirmed, where it’s confirmed, which means fewer treatments, less disruption to your home, and a cleaner outcome overall. For homeowners in Burnt who’ve already tried a store-bought solution and watched the problem come back, this is the difference that actually matters.
There’s also the peace of mind side of it. Knowing the job was done right — not just done — is worth something real. Whether you picked up a secondhand piece of furniture at an estate sale, had visitors from out of town, or just can’t figure out where it started, the goal is the same: get it handled correctly the first time so you’re not dealing with it again in six weeks.
We were founded on May 31, 2005 — which means 2025 marks 20 years of serving Michigan families. First Choice Pest Control is based in Swartz Creek and is family-owned, led by Roger Chinault, who has 26 years of hands-on pest control experience. This isn’t a franchise. There’s no rotating management, no part-time technicians, and no one running through a checklist on their third job of the day.
One of the things that separates us from larger operations is simple: you get the same technician every time. They learn your Burnt home, your history, and your specific situation. That consistency builds real familiarity — and in a close-knit community like this one, that matters. Our team holds Integrated Pest Management training credentials and has earned recognition from both Angie’s List and HomeAdvisor. We offer discounts for seniors, veterans, and first responders — because this community has earned them.
It starts with detection — and this is where we do something most pest control companies in Michigan simply can’t. Our certified canine detection team locates live bed bugs and viable eggs with 90 to 98 percent accuracy. For context, a standard human visual inspection lands somewhere between 17 and 40 percent. In an older home — the kind common throughout Burnt and the surrounding Shiawassee County area — that accuracy gap is the entire difference between finding the infestation and missing half of it.
Once the detection is complete and the affected areas are confirmed, we apply treatment in a targeted, methodical way. Bed bug treatment typically requires two to four visits over three to six weeks. That’s not a flaw in the process — it’s the biology. Eggs are resistant to most chemical treatments, so follow-up visits address the next generation before it has a chance to establish. Skipping that step is why so many DIY attempts and one-visit treatments fail.
After treatment is complete, your technician walks you through what to watch for and what to do if anything comes up. Because you’re working with the same person each time, they already know your home and your situation. There’s no re-explaining, no starting over. You call, they know who you are, and they handle it.
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First Choice Pest Control is one of fewer than 100 companies in the entire United States offering certified canine bed bug detection. That’s not a marketing number — it’s a reflection of how specialized and rigorous the certification process actually is. For homeowners in rural Shiawassee County, where older housing stock and agricultural surroundings create unique harborage conditions, this level of detection precision isn’t a luxury — it’s what makes the treatment work.
We service both residential and commercial properties. Whether you own a home in Burnt, manage a rental property in the area, or run a small business nearby, the process is the same: accurate detection first, targeted treatment second, and follow-up built into the plan. No contracts required. If a competitor offers a comparable service at a lower price, we’ll match it — so you’re not choosing between quality and cost.
Michigan’s climate doesn’t give you a seasonal window where bed bugs slow down or die off on their own. They’re indoor pests, and a heated home in January is just as hospitable to them as it is in July. If you’re waiting for winter to solve the problem, it won’t. The right time to call is when you know something’s wrong — and the right call is one that actually finds what’s there before treating it.
The most common signs are small rust-colored stains on your mattress or sheets, tiny dark spots along seams and baseboards (which is fecal matter), shed skins, and of course, bites — though bites alone aren’t a reliable indicator since reactions vary widely from person to person. Some people have no visible reaction at all, which means an infestation can grow for months without obvious symptoms.
In older homes throughout Burnt, bed bugs have more structural cover than in newer construction. Gaps in baseboards, plaster walls, aging furniture joints, and wall voids give them places to hide that a visual scan simply won’t catch. If you’ve noticed any of the signs above, or if you’ve recently brought secondhand furniture into the home or had overnight guests from out of the area, it’s worth getting a professional inspection rather than waiting to be certain. The longer they’re in the home, the harder the job gets.
This comes up often, and it’s worth being direct about: yes, sustained extreme cold can eventually kill bed bugs, but the temperature required is well below zero Fahrenheit — and it needs to hold there for several days straight. The interior of a home, even one that’s been left unheated during a Michigan winter, rarely reaches those conditions in a controlled way.
More practically, leaving your Burnt home unheated to kill bed bugs creates its own problems — frozen pipes, structural damage, and the reality that you still need somewhere to live in the meantime. Professional heat treatments or targeted chemical treatments administered by a licensed technician are far more reliable and far less disruptive. Don’t count on a Shiawassee County winter to handle this for you — it’s not a realistic solution, and the delay only gives the infestation more time to spread.
It comes down to biology. Bed bug eggs are protected by a shell that most chemical treatments can’t penetrate. So even a thorough first treatment that eliminates every live bug won’t touch the eggs already in your walls, mattress seams, or baseboards. Those eggs hatch on their own timeline — typically within one to two weeks — and the newly hatched nymphs need to be addressed before they mature and start reproducing.
A proper treatment plan accounts for this cycle. Two to four visits over three to six weeks isn’t padding the invoice — it’s the minimum needed to break the reproductive cycle and prevent re-infestation. Companies or products that promise a one-visit solution are either not being upfront about what to expect, or they’re not accounting for the full life cycle. In homes throughout Burnt where older construction gives bed bugs more places to hide and lay eggs, skipping follow-up visits is one of the most common reasons infestations come back.
No — and this is one of the most persistent misconceptions that keeps people from calling sooner than they should. Bed bugs don’t care about cleanliness. They’re not attracted to food waste or unsanitary conditions. They follow one thing: a blood source. A spotless home with a well-maintained bedroom is just as viable a habitat as any other, as long as there are people sleeping in it.
In rural communities like Burnt, the more common transmission paths are secondhand furniture purchased at estate sales or through online marketplaces, clothing or bags that traveled with you to nearby cities, or guests who stayed overnight and unknowingly brought them along. None of those scenarios have anything to do with how clean your home is. If you’ve been holding off on calling because you’re embarrassed or because it feels like an admission of something, don’t. It’s not. It’s a pest problem with a straightforward solution, and the only thing that makes it worse is waiting.
There are a few things that genuinely help and a few that can make the job harder. On the helpful side: wash and dry your bedding, clothing, and any fabric items near the affected area on high heat before the appointment. Bag them and keep them sealed until after treatment. Clear access to baseboards, furniture, and wall outlets in the affected rooms so the technician can work efficiently.
What tends to hurt the process is moving furniture or belongings from the affected room to other parts of the house before treatment. It feels like the right instinct — get things away from the problem — but it can spread the infestation to areas that weren’t originally affected. Similarly, using store-bought sprays or foggers before the appointment can cause bed bugs to scatter deeper into wall voids and harder-to-reach areas, which makes our certified canine detection step less straightforward. Your technician will give you specific prep instructions based on your home’s layout and the severity of the situation — follow those over anything general you’ve read online.
Yes — we offer discounts for seniors, military veterans, and first responders. Burnt and the surrounding Shiawassee County area have a strong base of long-time residents, retired families, and people who’ve spent careers in service — and those discounts reflect a straightforward acknowledgment of that. It’s not a complicated program or a limited-time offer. If you fall into one of those categories, mention it when you call and it gets applied to your service.
Beyond the discounts, we also match reasonable competitor pricing. So if you’ve already gotten a quote from another licensed provider and it came in lower, bring it to the conversation. The goal is to make sure cost isn’t the reason someone in this community delays getting a real infestation handled. A small bed bug problem that gets addressed early is a fraction of the cost — and a fraction of the disruption — of one that’s been growing for three or four months because the price felt out of reach.
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