Hear from Our Customers
You stop losing your evenings to mosquitoes on the back porch. You stop finding mouse droppings in the garage every fall. You stop wondering whether that soft spot near the window frame means carpenter ants have been working in the wall for a year. That’s what changes — and it’s more than just comfort.
Brandon Gardens sits at M-15 and Glass Road in the middle of one of the most pest-active environments in Oakland County. The township has more than a dozen named lakes, Kearsley Creek running through it, and the Flint River headwaters starting right here. That much standing water doesn’t just make for beautiful scenery — it makes mosquito season a real problem from May through September, and Brandon Township even distributes free repellent and dunks to residents every spring because the pressure is that consistent.
Then there’s the wooded lot factor. Older homes on tree-lined properties near a 5,400-acre recreation area aren’t just charming — they’re exactly the kind of environment where carpenter ants nest in aging wood, where squirrels find their way into soffits, and where rodents start looking for a warm way inside the moment October hits. A pest control program that actually fits this environment makes a measurable difference in how you use your home and your yard.
We founded First Choice Pest Control on May 31, 2005 — which means this year marks 20 years of serving southeast Michigan homeowners, including families throughout Brandon Gardens and the surrounding areas. Roger, our owner, has 26 years of hands-on pest control experience and built this company on a straightforward idea: send a real professional, solve the actual problem, and show up the same way every time.
That means you get the same technician on every visit — not a rotating crew, not a seasonal hire who finished a two-week training last month. The person who comes to your home near Brandon Gardens learns your property over time. Where the ants come in each spring. Which entry points need sealing before the first frost. That kind of familiarity doesn’t happen with a national chain.
We hold MDARD Pesticide Application Business License #250081, a Michigan Nuisance Animal Control license, and have completed Integrated Pest Management training. We’ve earned awards through both Angie’s List and HomeAdvisor — and we offer discounts for seniors, veterans, and first responders, because a lot of the people in this community have earned that.
It starts with understanding what you’re actually dealing with. When one of our technicians comes to your property in Brandon Gardens, the first step isn’t spraying — it’s assessing. Wooded lots, lake proximity, older home construction, and wildlife corridors all change what’s happening and where. A thorough inspection identifies current activity, likely entry points, and what conditions on your specific property are driving the problem.
From there, treatment is targeted — not a blanket application across every surface. We use Integrated Pest Management principles, which means the least-toxic effective solution gets used in the right places, at the right time. That matters especially near the lakes and waterways in Brandon Township, where responsible pesticide application isn’t just good practice — it’s required under Oakland County’s water quality framework. If mosquito control is part of the plan, flea and tick treatment is included at no extra charge, because in a wooded area bordering the Ortonville State Recreation Area, those three pressures come together.
After the initial treatment, you’ll know what was done, why, and what to expect next. If the problem comes back, so do we — that’s what our workmanship guarantee covers. The goal is a program that fits your property and stays ahead of Michigan’s seasonal pest cycle, not a one-time visit that leaves you starting over in six months.
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We handle the full range of pest and wildlife challenges that Brandon Gardens homeowners actually face — not just the easy ones. General pest control covers ants, spiders, stinging insects, cockroaches, and the seasonal invaders that show up every fall in older homes with gaps in the foundation or aging weatherstripping. Rodent control addresses the mice and rat pressure that picks up every October as temperatures drop and wildlife starts looking for a way inside. For properties near the lakes or wooded lot lines, that pressure is consistent and predictable — which means a seasonal program makes more sense than a reactive one.
Mosquito control is a significant service in this area, and we include flea and tick treatment in every mosquito program at no additional cost. Given how much time Brandon Gardens residents spend outdoors — on the water, on trails near the recreation area, in their own backyards — that bundled coverage is genuinely useful, not just a marketing add-on. For bed bugs, we offer certified canine detection, a capability held by fewer than 100 companies in the entire United States. It catches infestations earlier and with greater accuracy than standard visual inspection.
Wildlife removal is also covered. With a Michigan Nuisance Animal Control license, we can legally and properly handle raccoons, squirrels, bats, and other animals that find their way into attics and soffits — something competitors without that license simply cannot do. If you want to know how our pricing compares, we’ll match reasonable competitor rates. Just ask.
Brandon Township has more standing water than most communities in Oakland County — over a dozen named lakes, Kearsley Creek, and the headwaters of the Flint River all within the township’s boundaries. Standing water is where mosquitoes breed, and in an area with this much of it, the pressure doesn’t let up after a single dry week. Every rain event replenishes breeding habitat within close proximity to residential properties, which is why mosquito season in Brandon Gardens can feel relentless from late May through early September.
Brandon Township actually distributes free mosquito repellent and dunks to residents every spring — a direct acknowledgment from local government that this is a community-level problem, not just a backyard nuisance. Professional mosquito treatment targets the vegetation, mulched areas, and shaded spots where mosquitoes rest during the day, not just the standing water itself. That’s what makes it more effective than repellent alone. Our mosquito program also includes flea and tick treatment at no extra charge, which matters when your property backs up to wooded land or trails near the Ortonville State Recreation Area.
Carpenter ants don’t eat wood the way termites do — they excavate it to build galleries for nesting. That means they’re attracted to wood that’s already soft, moist, or decaying, which is common in older homes with established tree cover, aging soffits, or wood that’s been exposed to Michigan’s freeze-thaw cycles over many years. If you’re seeing large black ants inside your home — especially in spring, especially near windows, doors, or the kitchen — there’s a reasonable chance they’re not just wandering in from outside.
Signs of an active interior infestation include small piles of frass (a sawdust-like material mixed with insect parts) near baseboards or window frames, faint rustling sounds in walls at night, and ants appearing consistently in the same interior locations. A professional inspection can confirm whether the activity is structural. In Brandon Gardens, where many homes sit on wooded lots with mature trees close to the foundation, carpenter ant pressure is a recurring seasonal issue — not a one-time event. Treatment that only addresses the ants you can see rarely solves the problem long-term.
A one-time treatment addresses what’s active right now. An ongoing program accounts for the fact that pest pressure in a place like Brandon Gardens changes with every season — and that the conditions driving it (wooded lots, lake proximity, older home construction, adjacent recreation land) don’t go away after a single visit. Mice don’t stop looking for entry points in October just because you had a treatment in July. Mosquitoes don’t skip a season because you sprayed once in May.
An ongoing program keeps a trained technician familiar with your property, allows for seasonal adjustments, and catches new activity before it becomes a full infestation. It’s also typically more cost-effective over time than paying for emergency treatments after a problem has already established itself. For homeowners near the Ortonville area who are dealing with the full range of Michigan’s seasonal pest cycle — spring ants, summer mosquitoes, fall rodents — a program built around that rhythm makes more practical sense than reacting to each problem as it appears.
For minor, isolated pest activity — a few ants near a doorway, a single wasp nest you can safely reach — over-the-counter products can work. But there’s a meaningful difference between managing a small surface problem and addressing an infestation that has a source, a pathway, and conditions that will keep producing it. Most store-bought products treat what’s visible. A licensed exterminator identifies why the problem exists and treats accordingly.
Michigan requires pest control operators to hold a valid MDARD Pesticide Application Business License for every county they serve — that licensing requires training, examination, and ongoing compliance. It also matters for wildlife removal: handling raccoons, squirrels, or bats in Michigan requires a separate Nuisance Animal Control license. Attempting wildlife removal without it isn’t just ineffective — it can create additional problems and potential liability. In a wooded community like Brandon Gardens, where pest and wildlife issues often overlap, working with a properly licensed professional from the start is usually the faster and less expensive path.
Trained detection dogs locate bed bugs by scent — they can identify live bugs and viable eggs hidden inside wall voids, electrical outlets, furniture frames, and other spaces that a human inspector would have to partially disassemble to check. The accuracy rate for certified canine detection is significantly higher than standard visual inspection, particularly in early-stage infestations where there may be very few bugs present and no visible signs yet.
We’re one of fewer than 100 companies in the United States offering certified canine bed bug detection. That’s not a common capability — most pest control companies, including large regional operators, don’t have it. For Brandon Gardens homeowners who travel, have college students returning home, or purchase secondhand furniture, early detection is the difference between a straightforward treatment and a months-long battle. Catching an infestation at the earliest possible stage costs significantly less to treat and causes far less disruption to your home.
Yes — we offer discounts for seniors, veterans, and first responders. Brandon Township skews older, with an average resident age of 44, and many of the homeowners in the area around Ortonville and Brandon Gardens are long-established in their homes and on fixed or near-fixed incomes. The discount reflects a straightforward recognition that the people who’ve invested the most in this community deserve access to professional pest control without paying a premium for it.
If you’re comparing prices with other local exterminators, we also match reasonable competitor rates. The goal is to make sure cost isn’t the reason someone puts off dealing with a rodent problem heading into winter or a mosquito issue that’s keeping the family off the back porch all summer. You can ask about discount eligibility and price matching when you call — no complicated process, no fine print to sort through.
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