Hear from Our Customers
Living on or near Lake Fenton means you’ve got shoreline, mature trees, wooded perimeters, and all the outdoor space that makes this community worth the price tag. It also means mosquitoes breeding along the water’s edge, carpenter ants working through aging wood decks and dock structures, ticks in the grass where your dog runs, and mice looking for a warm way in once October hits. This is the reality of lake community living in Michigan.
The difference between dealing with that and not dealing with it comes down to one thing: a pest control program that actually fits your property. Not a generic spray-and-leave visit. A program built around your specific home, your shoreline exposure, your pest history, and the season you’re in. When that’s in place, you stop thinking about pests — because there’s nothing to think about.
With a median home value approaching $473,000 in Lake Fenton, protecting your property isn’t optional. Carpenter ants in a wood structure, rodents in a crawl space, or a bed bug situation in a guest room — these aren’t just nuisances. They’re threats to a significant investment. The right pest control program handles them before they become expensive problems.
We founded First Choice Pest Control on May 31, 2005 — a family-owned business based out of Swartz Creek, right here in Genesee County. Roger, who leads the company, has 26 years of hands-on pest control experience. That’s not a credential on a wall. That’s two and a half decades of knowing exactly what Michigan homes face across every season, every pest cycle, and every type of property — including the waterfront homes and older lake cottages that make up so much of the Lake Fenton housing stock.
What sets us apart isn’t a pitch — it’s a policy. You get the same technician every visit, not a rotating crew of unfamiliar faces. Every technician is a trained professional; we don’t use part-time seasonal hires. And the work is backed by IPM training — the EPA-recognized approach that uses the least invasive treatment first, which matters when you’re living near the water and have kids, pets, or both.
We hold awards from Angie’s List and HomeAdvisor, are BBB Accredited, and offer discounts for seniors, veterans, and first responders — because a significant portion of Lake Fenton’s community has earned that.
It starts with a real assessment of your property — not a checklist walkthrough, but an actual look at what’s going on. For Lake Fenton homes, that means checking the obvious entry points and the ones most people miss: dock structures, crawl spaces, wood decks, shoreline-adjacent landscaping, and the foundation gaps common in older lake homes built anywhere from the 1920s through the 1980s. Michigan’s seasonal swings matter here. What you’re dealing with in May is different from what shows up in September, and the program accounts for that.
From there, we build a treatment plan around your specific property — not a package pulled off a shelf. If mosquitoes are the priority heading into summer, the program addresses that, and flea and tick treatment is included at no extra charge. If you’re seeing carpenter ant activity in a wood structure near the water, that gets targeted specifically. If rodent prevention is the concern heading into fall, the focus shifts accordingly.
Once the program is in place, the same technician handles your property every visit. They already know your home, your history, and your preferences. You don’t have to re-explain anything. All technicians are licensed through Michigan MDARD, which requires certified training and renewal every three years — so the person showing up at your door has met a real professional standard, not just a company orientation.
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We handle the full range of pest pressure that Lake Fenton homeowners actually face. That includes mosquito control, rodent prevention, carpenter ant treatment, stinging insect removal, flea and tick treatment, cockroach control, stink bug management, and bed bug detection and treatment. For lake community properties specifically — where outdoor living is the point — the mosquito program is one of the most requested services, and it includes flea and tick treatment at no additional cost. Most companies bill those separately.
The bed bug detection service is worth calling out specifically. We are one of fewer than 100 companies in the entire United States offering certified canine bed bug detection. Trained dogs find infestations with 95 to 98 percent accuracy, compared to roughly 50 percent for a standard visual inspection. For Lake Fenton properties with seasonal guests, rental activity, or recent travel, that level of certainty matters. No other pest control company in the Fenton area appears to offer this.
For homeowners who want to compare pricing before committing, we will match reasonable competitors’ rates. If you’ve already gotten a quote from another local pest exterminator, bring it. The goal isn’t to be the cheapest option — it’s to be the one that actually delivers, at a price that’s fair. Both residential pest control and commercial pest control are available throughout the Lake Fenton area and across Fenton Township.
Fenton Township does contract with APM (Advanced Pest Management) for a municipal mosquito control program, and it does serve parts of the Fenton area — but it’s not designed to treat individual properties. The township program uses truck-based fogging on scheduled routes when conditions allow, meaning temperatures above 55°F, winds under 10 mph, and no rain. It covers common areas and roadways, not your specific yard, your dock, your shoreline edge, or the vegetation around your property where mosquitoes are actually breeding.
If you live on or near Lake Fenton, the township program is a baseline — not a solution. Our private mosquito control targets the specific areas of your property where mosquito pressure is highest, and it includes flea and tick treatment at no extra charge. For homeowners in Bayport Park, Lakeside, or anywhere along the 15 miles of Lake Fenton shoreline, that’s the level of coverage that actually makes a difference in your day-to-day outdoor experience.
The lake environment creates a specific combination of pest pressure that inland homes in Genesee County don’t face at the same level. Mosquitoes are the most obvious — standing water and shoreline vegetation are ideal breeding conditions, and Lake Fenton’s 845 acres create a lot of both. But mosquitoes aren’t the only concern. Carpenter ants are extremely active in lake communities because they’re drawn to moisture and wood — and waterfront properties tend to have aging wood decks, dock structures, and outbuildings that give them exactly what they need.
Deer ticks are confirmed in the Fenton area and are particularly relevant for households with dogs that spend time near the wooded shoreline perimeter. As fall approaches, mice start looking for entry points in older homes — and a lot of Lake Fenton’s housing stock, which dates back to the early 1900s in some cases, has the foundation gaps and crawl spaces that make rodent entry easier than it should be. Stink bugs, stinging insects like yellow jackets, and bed bugs round out the list. Michigan ranks second in the nation for bed bug infestations, and lake properties with regular guests or rental activity carry real exposure risk.
The honest answer is that it depends on what you’re dealing with and what you want the outcome to be. A one-time treatment can address an active infestation — a wasp nest, a visible rodent problem, or a confirmed bed bug situation. But if the goal is to keep pests out of your home consistently, a recurring program is what actually accomplishes that. One treatment addresses what’s there now. A program addresses what comes back.
For Lake Fenton homeowners specifically, the seasonal cycle makes a strong case for year-round coverage. Spring brings carpenter ants and stinging insects. Summer is peak mosquito, tick, and flea season. Fall is when rodents start pushing indoors. Winter keeps bed bugs and indoor pests active regardless of temperature. If you’re only treating reactively — after you already have a problem — you’re always a step behind. A personalized program built around your property means you’re not starting from scratch every season.
This is one of the most common concerns we hear from Lake Fenton families, and it’s a fair one. Living on the water means you’re more attuned to what goes into the environment around your home — and you should be. We are trained in Integrated Pest Management, which is the EPA-recognized approach that prioritizes the least invasive treatment first. That means identifying the source of the problem, sealing entry points, and using targeted treatments only where and when they’re actually needed — not blanket-spraying your yard as a default.
In practice, this matters for households with dogs that swim in the lake, kids who play on the dock, and families that spend significant time outdoors. The treatments used are selected based on your specific situation, and the approach is designed to minimize unnecessary chemical exposure while still delivering real results. If you have specific concerns about a particular product or application area — near the water, near a garden, in a space your pets use regularly — that conversation happens before the job starts, not after.
Canine bed bug detection uses specially trained dogs to locate bed bug infestations with a level of accuracy that a standard visual inspection simply can’t match. A trained detection dog finds infestations with 95 to 98 percent accuracy. A visual inspection by a technician — even an experienced one — lands around 50 percent. The difference is significant when you’re trying to confirm whether a problem exists before it spreads, or when you want a clean answer before buying, selling, or renting a property.
We are one of fewer than 100 companies in the entire United States offering this service. For Lake Fenton homeowners, this is particularly relevant. Lake properties with seasonal guests, short-term rentals, or frequent visitors carry a higher-than-average bed bug exposure risk — not because of anything the homeowner does wrong, but because bed bugs travel with people. If you’ve had guests, recently traveled, or are purchasing a lake property and want certainty before closing, canine detection gives you a definitive answer that no other pest control company in the Fenton area appears to offer.
Yes — we offer discounts for seniors, veterans, and first responders. Lake Fenton has a median age of 51.1 years and a significant retiree population, and a meaningful number of residents in this community have served in the military or in public service roles. The discount is a straightforward acknowledgment of that — it’s applied when you call and mention it, no complicated process required.
Beyond the discount, we also match reasonable competitors’ rates. So if you’ve already gotten a quote from another pest exterminator in the Fenton area and you’re comparing options, bring the number and we’ll work with it. The goal is to make professional, consistent pest control accessible to the homeowners in this community who’ve invested in their properties and deserve a company that treats the relationship the same way — with consistency, honesty, and a technician who shows up the same every time.
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