Hear from Our Customers
You stop waking up wondering. That low-grade anxiety — checking the mattress seams, second-guessing every itch — goes away when you know the infestation has been fully located and treated, not just partially addressed. That peace of mind is what professional bed bug control actually delivers, and it starts with getting the detection right.
Otisville’s housing stock works against a standard visual inspection. Homes built in the 1950s and 60s have had decades of settling behind them — baseboards that have pulled away from walls, original plaster with hairline gaps, aging electrical outlets with wider clearances than modern ones. These are exactly the spaces bed bugs retreat into when they sense a threat. Our canine detection team doesn’t guess at those hiding spots. We find them.
There’s also the Covenant Hills factor. If you or your family have spent time at the 321-site campground on E Farrand Road — or hosted guests who have traveled recently — your home may have been exposed without any obvious signs yet. Catching an early infestation before it spreads through multiple rooms is the difference between a straightforward treatment and a much longer, more disruptive process. Early, accurate detection is what makes that possible.
First Choice Pest Control has been serving Genesee County since May 31, 2005. That’s two decades of showing up in Otisville, Clio, Swartz Creek, and throughout the county — not as a franchise, but as a family-owned business where the owner’s name is on every job. Roger Chinault has 26 years of hands-on pest control experience, and the standards he set when he started this company are the same ones every technician works by today.
One thing that separates us from most providers is simple: you get the same technician every time. Not a rotating crew, not a part-time hire filling a weekend slot — the same trained professional who knows your property, knows your history, and is personally accountable for the results. For a small community like Otisville, where your home is likely your most significant asset, that kind of consistency matters.
We hold Integrated Pest Management training credentials, have earned awards from both Angie’s List and HomeAdvisor, and offer price matching for any reasonable competitor quote. No binding contracts, ever.
It starts with detection, and that’s where most pest control companies cut corners. We use a certified K-9 detection team to locate live bed bugs and viable eggs throughout your home — inside walls, behind outlets, under flooring, deep inside furniture. Dogs detect what human inspectors physically cannot, especially in older Otisville homes where decades of settling have created dozens of hidden voids. You get a clear, accurate picture of what’s actually present before any treatment begins.
Once detection is complete, we build the treatment plan around your specific property — not a generic checklist. Every home is different, and a house built in 1957 on a rural Genesee County lot has different considerations than a newer suburban build. The program accounts for the layout, the severity of the infestation, and your household’s specific needs, including any concerns about chemical exposure for children, pets, or elderly residents.
After treatment, you’ll know what to expect and when. If follow-up is needed, the same technician returns — someone who already knows your home and doesn’t need to start from scratch. Our goal is a complete resolution, not a recurring service call that never quite finishes the job.
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Certified K-9 bed bug detection is the foundation of every bed bug service we provide. It’s not an add-on — it’s how the inspection is done. With 90–98% detection accuracy compared to 17–40% for human visual inspection alone, it’s also the reason treatments work the first time instead of requiring repeated visits. Fewer than 100 pest control companies in the entire United States offer this. In the Otisville and Forest Township area, we are one of them.
Beyond detection, we build a customized treatment plan around your home’s specific layout and the confirmed scope of the infestation. Michigan law requires landlords to address bed bug infestations in rental properties, and if you’re a property owner in Genesee County managing a rental unit, we can document the inspection and treatment in a way that supports your compliance obligations. Residential homeowners get the same thorough approach — nothing is templated or one-size-fits-all.
We offer discounts for seniors, veterans, and first responders. With over 13% of Otisville’s population aged 65 and older, that’s a meaningful part of this community — and we recognize it. There are no binding contracts, no hidden fees, and if you’ve already gotten a quote from another local provider, bring it. We will match any reasonable competitor’s rate.
Yes, and it happens more than most people expect. RV campgrounds and shared outdoor facilities are well-documented environments for bed bug transmission. Visitors arrive from hotels, other campgrounds, and homes across Michigan and the Midwest — and bed bugs move easily in luggage, clothing, and gear. Covenant Hills draws guests from across the region, including from areas less than 30 minutes away like Frankenmuth and Birch Run.
You don’t need to have stayed at the campground yourself. If you hosted guests who traveled through shared facilities, or if a family member returned from a trip and their bags sat in your bedroom, the exposure risk is real. Bed bugs can survive weeks without feeding, so symptoms don’t always appear immediately. If you’ve had any recent travel exposure and you’re noticing unexplained bites or small blood spots on your sheets, a K-9 inspection is the most reliable way to know for certain whether bed bugs are present in your Otisville home — before an early infestation becomes a much larger one.
Homes built in the 1950s and 1960s — which describes most of Otisville’s housing stock — have had decades to settle, shift, and develop the kind of irregular gaps that bed bugs exploit. Baseboards pull away from walls over time. Original plaster develops hairline cracks. Older electrical outlets have wider clearances than modern ones. Wood framing shrinks and separates. All of these create spaces that are completely inaccessible to a human inspector without physically tearing into the structure.
This is precisely why canine detection matters so much in a community like Otisville. A trained K-9 doesn’t need to see a bug — it detects the scent of live bugs and viable eggs through walls, under flooring, and behind fixtures. In a newer home with tighter construction, a visual inspection might catch most of an infestation. In a 65-year-old home with original finishes and settled framing, the same visual inspection might miss more than half of what’s actually there. That gap in accuracy is the difference between a treatment that resolves the problem and one that doesn’t.
Bed bugs are an indoor pest, which means Michigan winters have almost no effect on them. They live where you live — inside your home, inside your mattress, inside your walls. Outdoor temperatures, no matter how low, don’t reach the interior environments where bed bugs establish themselves. In fact, winter can make an existing infestation worse, not better.
During Michigan’s colder months, Otisville residents spend more time indoors, more time in bed, and more time in close quarters with the rest of the household. That increased exposure accelerates the spread of any infestation that’s already present. If bed bugs are in one bedroom in October, they’re more likely to have spread to adjacent rooms by February simply because of how much time everyone is spending inside. The other seasonal risk worth knowing: spring garage sales and used furniture purchases — common in rural communities like Otisville as the weather warms — are one of the most frequent ways bed bugs enter a home in the first place. Year-round vigilance matters, but late winter and early spring are particularly important windows to pay attention to.
For most infestations that are caught early and treated accurately, one to two treatments is the typical range. The key word there is accurately. If the initial inspection misses a portion of the infestation — which happens frequently with human-only visual inspections — the remaining bugs repopulate and the cycle starts over. That’s how people end up on their fourth or fifth treatment with no resolution.
Starting with K-9 detection changes the math significantly. When you know the full scope of the infestation before treatment begins, the treatment plan can be built to address all of it — not just the portions that were visible. In older Otisville homes where bugs can retreat into wall voids and structural gaps, that comprehensive starting point is what makes the difference between one treatment that works and multiple treatments that don’t. If follow-up is needed, the same technician returns — someone who already knows your property and can assess progress accurately rather than starting the evaluation over from scratch.
Store-bought sprays fail for a predictable reason: they kill the bugs they contact, but bed bugs scatter when they detect a threat. In an older home with plenty of wall voids and structural gaps to retreat into, a spray-and-scatter response can actually push bugs deeper into the structure and spread them into rooms they hadn’t reached yet. It’s one of the most common ways a manageable infestation becomes a whole-house problem.
Professional treatment works differently because it starts with knowing where every active population is located — not just the ones you can see. Once the full infestation is mapped through K-9 detection, the treatment is applied in a way that addresses the entire scope, including the hiding spots a store-bought product never reached. Professional-grade treatments also use formulations that aren’t available over the counter and are applied by technicians trained in how bed bugs actually behave — not just where they’re visible. If you’ve already tried a DIY approach without success, that’s not a failure on your part. It’s just a sign that the problem needs a different tool.
Yes. We offer discounts for seniors, veterans, and first responders — and in a community like Otisville, where more than 13% of residents are 65 or older and where many households include people who have served in the military or in local emergency response roles, those discounts apply to a meaningful portion of the people who call.
The discount isn’t a complicated process. When you call to schedule, just mention that you qualify and it gets applied. We also offer price matching for any reasonable competitor quote, so if you’ve already gotten a number from another Genesee County provider, you don’t have to choose between a company you trust and a price you can work with. There are no binding contracts, no long-term commitments, and no pressure to sign up for anything beyond the service you actually need. The goal is straightforward: get the problem resolved, treat you fairly, and let the results speak for themselves.
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