Hear from Our Customers
A wasp nest near a dock or under a deck rail doesn’t just ruin one afternoon. It shuts down the outdoor lifestyle you moved to East Highland for. Whether you’re entertaining lakeside on Duck Lake, letting the kids run the yard, or managing horses on an equestrian property, a nest in the wrong place means nobody goes outside — and that’s not a situation you should have to wait out.
The wooded, elevated terrain around East Highland creates ideal nesting conditions. Yellow jackets burrow into the ground near tree roots and fence lines. Paper wasps hang nests in barn rafters and under eave overhangs. Bald-faced hornets build in the shrubs and tree lines that border so many properties here. These aren’t random occurrences — they’re predictable patterns in this specific landscape, and treating them requires someone who understands what Michigan’s lake-country terrain actually looks like.
When the nest is gone and treated correctly, the difference is immediate. You stop planning your movements around where the wasps are. Your kids go back outside. Your horses aren’t at risk from a disturbed ground nest near the paddock. That’s what professional wasp nest removal in East Highland actually delivers — not just a dead nest, but your property back.
We were founded on May 31, 2005 — which means 2025 marks 20 years of continuous service to Michigan homeowners, including the East Highland community and Highland Township. Roger Chinault, our founder, has 26 years of hands-on pest control experience and remains personally involved in the work. This isn’t a franchise with rotating seasonal staff. It’s a company where the person responsible for your service has been doing this longer than most pest control companies in Oakland County have existed.
East Highland and the broader Highland Township area — with its wooded lots, lake properties, equestrian facilities, and proximity to the Highland State Recreation Area — represents exactly the kind of Michigan terrain we’ve been working in for two decades. The same technician comes back year after year, which means they learn your property, not just your address.
We hold MDARD licensing, IPM training, and have earned recognition from both Angie’s List and HomeAdvisor. Discounts are available for seniors, veterans, and first responders.
It starts with identifying exactly what you’re dealing with. Yellow jackets, paper wasps, bald-faced hornets, and European hornets all behave differently and nest in different locations — and treating a yellow jacket ground nest the same way you’d treat a paper wasp nest under an eave is how jobs go wrong. On properties near the Highland Recreation Area, where foraging wasps can travel from wild colonies hundreds of yards into adjacent neighborhoods, locating the actual nest — not just where you’re seeing activity — is the critical first step.
Once the nest is located and the species confirmed, we apply treatment directly and precisely. We use an Integrated Pest Management approach, which means targeted application to the nest itself rather than broadcasting chemicals across your property. That matters especially here in East Highland, given how many homes sit near lakes, wetlands, and the natural areas that make this community worth living in. After treatment, the nest is addressed at the source so the colony can’t simply regroup.
You’ll know exactly when it’s safe to go back outside — specific timing, not vague reassurances. If you have dogs, horses, or children who use the yard regularly, that re-entry guidance is part of every service call, not an afterthought. And if something comes back, so do we.
Ready to get started?
Wasp nest removal in East Highland covers the full job — not just a spray and a handshake. That means species identification, nest location (including ground nests that aren’t immediately visible), targeted treatment, and clear post-service communication about what to expect in the days that follow. For properties with barns, stables, or outbuildings — which are common across Highland Township’s equestrian community — exposed rafters, wall voids, and equipment storage areas all get assessed, because paper wasps and yellow jackets don’t limit themselves to the main house.
Highland Township’s 26 lakes and the wooded terrain surrounding communities like East Highland mean that many properties have multiple potential nesting zones: ground cover near tree lines, deck structures over water, boathouses, fence lines, and overgrown borders adjacent to the recreation area. A thorough service accounts for all of it, not just the one nest you already found.
We also offer price matching against reasonable competitors — so if you’ve already gotten a quote from another company serving the East Highland area, bring it. Seniors, veterans, and first responders receive discounts. There are no binding contracts. You’re not locked into anything. The work either earns your trust or it doesn’t, and that accountability is built into how we’ve operated for 20 years.
Yellow jackets that nest in the ground are easy to miss until you’ve already disturbed them. The most common sign is a steady stream of wasps flying in and out of a small hole in the soil — often near a tree root, along a fence line, or in a patch of ground cover. On East Highland properties with wooded lots or borders adjacent to the Highland Recreation Area, ground nests are especially common because the terrain provides the undisturbed, sheltered soil conditions yellow jackets prefer.
If you’re seeing wasps low to the ground and disappearing into the yard rather than flying toward a visible structure, that’s a strong indicator of a ground nest. Don’t probe the area or pour anything into the hole — yellow jacket colonies in Michigan can reach 5,000 to 15,000 workers by late summer, and disturbing a ground nest without the right equipment and approach can trigger a mass stinging response within seconds. We can locate the nest entrance, assess the colony size, and treat it correctly without turning the situation into an emergency.
The honest answer is: it depends on the nest, but for most situations near water or on larger East Highland properties, DIY removal carries more risk than most people expect. Store-bought aerosol sprays work at close range and require you to be within a few feet of an active nest — which is a problem if the nest is large, in a hard-to-reach location, or if you’re on a dock or deck where retreat is limited. Getting stung once is unpleasant. Getting stung multiple times near water, far from the house, is a genuine safety concern.
On East Highland lake properties along Duck Lake, the combination of outdoor entertaining spaces, water proximity, and wooded borders means nests often appear in locations where a DIY attempt is physically awkward and potentially dangerous. We come with the right protective equipment, the right product for the specific species, and the ability to treat the nest from a controlled position. The cost of a professional service is a fraction of what a trip to urgent care costs — and the job gets done completely the first time.
In Oakland County, the peak danger window for wasps — particularly yellow jackets — runs from mid-August through late September. That’s when colonies have had the entire spring and summer to grow, and workers are at maximum numbers and maximum aggression. It’s also, not coincidentally, when East Highland residents are most active outdoors: swimming, boating, hiking the recreation area trails, and entertaining on lakefront decks.
Earlier in the season, from May through July, colonies are smaller and generally less reactive. You might see a few wasps around a nest and not realize the full scale of what’s there. By August, that same nest can contain thousands of workers defending a much larger territory. If you’ve noticed wasp activity earlier in the season and held off, late summer is exactly when that decision becomes more consequential. Workers die off after the first hard frost — typically late October in this part of Michigan — but waiting that long means months of restricted outdoor use during the best part of the year.
Yes, and it’s one of the more common situations we see on properties in Highland Township’s equestrian community. Paper wasps in particular are drawn to exposed wooden rafters, open wall cavities, and the sheltered overhangs of barns, stables, and equipment storage buildings. They build open-comb nests that are sometimes easy to spot and sometimes tucked into corners or structural gaps where they go unnoticed until someone walks underneath them.
The concern on equestrian properties goes beyond inconvenience. Horses that disturb a ground nest near a paddock or fence line can trigger a mass stinging response — and a panicked horse in an enclosed space is a serious situation. Dogs that investigate a nest opening are equally at risk. Treatment in barn and outbuilding environments requires care around animals and feed storage, and it’s one reason IPM-based, targeted application matters here. Our approach focuses on the nest itself, not broad chemical application across spaces where animals live and eat. If you’re managing a property with horses or livestock near East Highland, that distinction is worth asking about when you call.
For a standard aerial nest — paper wasps or bald-faced hornets on an eave, in a shrub, or under a deck — professional removal in the East Highland area generally falls in the range of $150 to $400, depending on nest size, location, and accessibility. Yellow jacket removal tends to run higher, often $300 to $600 or more, because ground nests and wall void infestations are more labor-intensive and require more product to treat completely.
The variables that affect cost most significantly are how accessible the nest is, whether it’s a single nest or multiple nesting sites on the property, and whether the colony has established itself inside a wall void or structure rather than in an exposed location. Properties near the Highland Recreation Area or with significant wooded acreage sometimes have multiple nesting zones that aren’t immediately obvious. We offer price matching against reasonable competitor quotes, so if you’ve already gotten a number from another company serving the Oakland County area, that conversation is worth having before you book.
Not differently in terms of the treatment itself, but the proximity to the Highland State Recreation Area does affect how we think about ongoing pressure on your property. The 5,900 acres of wooded habitat directly adjacent to East Highland — including the Haven Hill Natural Area south of M-59 — functions as a permanent reservoir of wild wasp colonies. Foraging workers from nests inside the recreation area routinely travel several hundred yards into adjacent neighborhoods, which means properties near the park boundary can see recurring activity even after a nest on their own property has been treated.
That’s part of why the same-technician model matters in this area. When the same professional returns to your property year after year, they already know your yard, your entry points, and your history with nesting activity. They’re not starting from scratch every spring. For East Highland homeowners near the recreation area boundary, that continuity is genuinely useful — it’s the difference between reactive treatment every summer and a professional who understands your property well enough to catch problems early.
Local Resources
Useful Links
