Hear from Our Customers
When you live in Waterstone, a community built around water and open green space, pest pressure doesn’t take a season off. The 15 lakes here — formed from old gravel mining operations — create some of the most concentrated mosquito breeding habitat in northern Oakland County. Add 600 acres of open space, wooded walking paths, and golf course rough bordering your property, and you’re dealing with mosquitoes, ticks, and wildlife intrusion at a level most neighborhoods never see.
The good news is that professional pest control actually solves it. Not just knocks it back for a week — solves it. When your mosquito and tick pressure drops, your backyard becomes usable again. Your kids are out on the paths. You’re on the patio without spraying yourself down first. That’s what the right pest treatment does for homes in Waterstone — it gives you back the outdoor lifestyle you moved here for.
For homeowners in Golf Highlands, West Lake, or anywhere along the Granger Road corridor, there’s also the home protection side of this. Carpenter ants, mice, and other pests that come in from Waterstone’s wooded open space can do real structural damage to homes that are now 15 to 25 years old. Aging caulk, foundation settling, maturing landscaping — these create entry points that didn’t exist when your home was new. Catching that early costs a fraction of what repairs cost later.
We founded First Choice Pest Control on May 31, 2005 — which makes 2025 our 20th year serving Michigan homeowners. Roger Chinault, who leads our company, has 26 years of hands-on pest control experience. He’s been solving Michigan pest problems since before Waterstone’s first homes were built. That kind of background matters when you’re dealing with an environment as specific as this one — lake-adjacent properties, golf course borders, wooded open space, and a community where HOA standards mean visible pest problems aren’t just a nuisance, they’re a liability.
We’re IPM-certified, Angie’s List and HomeAdvisor award winners, and BBB-accredited. But what actually sets us apart is simpler than any credential: the same technician comes to your home every time. They learn your property. They know where the carpenter ants trail in spring, where the mice find their way in come October, and what your specific situation actually needs — not what a national franchise’s one-size script says to do.
It starts with a real assessment — not a sales pitch. When we come to your Waterstone home, we’re looking at the actual conditions: where your property sits relative to the lakes, what’s growing along your foundation, what kind of entry points exist, and what pests are most active for the time of year. A lakefront lot in Lake Communities of Waterstone has different pressure than a home backing up to the golf course rough on The Bluffs side. We treat them differently.
From there, we build a program around what your home actually needs. We use Integrated Pest Management — which means we start with the least invasive approach that will actually work, and we escalate only if necessary. This matters near Waterstone’s lakes, where responsible pesticide application isn’t just a preference, it’s the right call environmentally. Michigan requires all commercial pesticide applicators to hold state certification, and every one of our technicians meets that standard.
Once treatment is in place, your assigned technician stays with you. You’re not explaining your situation to a new person every visit. They already know your home, your history, and what’s worked. If something comes back between visits, we come back too — that’s part of the program, not an upsell.
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Residential pest control in Waterstone covers the full range of what this environment produces: mosquitoes, ticks, carpenter ants, pavement ants, mice, rats, wasps, hornets, spiders, and stink bugs. If you sign up for our mosquito control program, flea and tick treatment is included at no extra charge — because your yard doesn’t separate those problems, and neither do we. Most companies bill that separately. We don’t.
For bed bugs, we offer something almost no one else does: certified canine detection. Our dogs find infestations with 95 to 98 percent accuracy, compared to roughly 50 percent for a visual inspection alone. Michigan ranks second in the nation for bed bug infestations, and with Independence Village of Oxford right inside the Waterstone community, this is a service that matters here specifically — not just in theory.
We also serve the commercial side of Waterstone. Boulder Pointe’s restaurant and banquet facilities, the businesses along the M-24 corridor, and any commercial property in Oxford Township dealing with pest pressure can reach us for commercial pest control built around their specific operation. Seniors, veterans, and first responders receive discounts — and Oxford Township’s status as a designated Purple Heart Community means that’s not a throwaway line here. If a competitor gives you a reasonable quote, we’ll match it. You shouldn’t have to choose between quality and cost.
This is the right question to ask, and the answer depends heavily on who’s doing the work and how. We use Integrated Pest Management — an EPA-recognized methodology that starts with the least invasive treatment that will actually solve the problem. That means we’re not defaulting to heavy chemical applications near your lakefront property or your backyard where your kids play.
Every one of our technicians is state-certified under Michigan’s commercial pesticide applicator requirements, which means they know exactly what products are appropriate near water bodies, what application rates are safe around children and pets, and when to use targeted treatments versus broader ones. Waterstone’s lake environment is one reason we take this seriously — responsible application near those 15 lakes isn’t optional, it’s the standard we hold ourselves to on every job.
Waterstone’s environment creates a fairly predictable seasonal cycle. Spring brings carpenter ants — especially in homes near the wooded open space corridors — along with pavement ants around foundations and the first wasp and hornet nests of the year. Moles become a real problem on golf course-adjacent lots as the soil thaws. Summer is peak season for mosquitoes near the lakes and ticks in the grassy rough and wooded paths. Fleas follow close behind, especially on properties where wildlife crosses through.
Fall is when mice and rodents start looking for a way inside as temperatures drop. Homes in Waterstone that are now 15 to 25 years old have had time for foundation settling, aging weatherstripping, and maturing landscaping to create new entry points that didn’t exist when the homes were new. Winter doesn’t mean a break — bed bugs are active year-round regardless of temperature, and rodent activity continues indoors through the coldest months.
Yes — and the difference near Waterstone’s lakes is significant. Mosquitoes breed in standing and slow-moving water, which means the 15 lakes here, golf course water features, and any low-lying areas that collect runoff are constant breeding sources. A single treatment without a program built around that reality will give you maybe two weeks of relief before pressure rebuilds from the water sources surrounding your property.
What actually works is a recurring program timed to the mosquito lifecycle — typically starting in late April and running through October in Michigan. We treat the harborage areas where mosquitoes rest during the day: dense shrubs, shaded ground cover, areas along fence lines. That’s where the population lives between feedings. Eliminating that harborage, combined with targeted treatment of breeding-adjacent areas, is what produces real, sustained results. And because flea and tick treatment is included in our mosquito program at no extra charge, you’re covering the full range of outdoor pest pressure in one program.
A standard visual inspection catches bed bug infestations roughly 50 percent of the time. That’s not a knock on inspectors — bed bugs are small, they hide in seams, baseboards, electrical outlets, and inside walls where no one can see. A trained detection dog finds them with 95 to 98 percent accuracy because they’re working with scent, not sight. They can detect an infestation that hasn’t yet produced visible evidence — which is exactly when you want to find it, before it spreads.
We’re one of fewer than 100 companies in the entire United States offering certified canine bed bug detection. For Waterstone residents — especially those connected to Independence Village of Oxford or anyone who travels frequently through Metro Detroit — this level of detection accuracy matters. If bed bugs are in your home, the dog will find them. If they’re not, you’ll know that with confidence instead of just hoping a visual check was thorough enough.
Pricing depends on the size of your home, the specific pests you’re dealing with, and whether you’re looking at a one-time treatment or an ongoing program. For most Waterstone homeowners, a recurring residential pest control program — which is what actually keeps pests from coming back — runs in the range of a few hundred dollars annually, depending on what’s included. Mosquito programs, bed bug detection, and specialty treatments are priced based on scope.
What we can tell you is that if you get a reasonable quote from a competitor in the Oxford Township area, we’ll match it. You shouldn’t be paying more for a better service, and we’re not interested in winning your business by being the cheapest option — we’re interested in earning it by being the most effective one. For seniors, veterans, and first responders, we also offer discounts that apply across our service programs. The best way to get an accurate number for your specific home and situation is to call us directly.
Yes. We serve commercial properties throughout the Oxford Township area, including businesses along the M-24 corridor and facilities within the Waterstone community itself. Restaurant and banquet operations like those at Boulder Pointe have different pest control requirements than a residential home — food service environments have stricter sanitation standards, more complex treatment considerations, and less tolerance for any visible pest activity. We build commercial programs around those realities, not around a residential template.
For any commercial property in Oakland County dealing with recurring pest pressure, our approach is the same as it is on the residential side: a real assessment, a program built around your specific operation, and consistent follow-through from the same technician who knows your facility. If you manage a property in or near Waterstone and you’re currently dealing with a pest issue — or just want to get ahead of one before it becomes a problem — reach out and we’ll walk through what makes sense for your situation.
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