Pest Control in Troy, Michigan

From Troy Corners farmland to a 1970s suburb

The Troy Historic Village traces the city back to settlers who arrived from New York and other eastern states in the 1820s, clearing forest for farms. By the 1880s Troy Township was known for its corn, wheat, melons, wool and dairy. What it never developed was a downtown: the township lacked the water power for a mill, and the Detroit and Milwaukee Railroad passed through Royal Oak and Pontiac instead, bypassing the crossroads hamlet of Troy Corners at Square Lake Road and Livernois.

That changed after World War II. Troy became a home rule city in 1955, and the Historic Village describes the following 25 years as a period of extraordinary growth. The Census Bureau counted 87,294 residents in 2020 on 33.45 square miles of land and estimated 88,733 in July 2025. Census QuickFacts puts the owner-occupied rate at 73.3 percent.

Why Troy’s housing age matters for an exterminator

American Community Survey estimates for 2019–2023 count about 35,000 housing units in Troy. The single largest share, 34.1 percent, was built between 1970 and 1979. Add the 1960s and 1980s and roughly 62 percent of the city’s homes date from 1960 through 1989, while only about 5 percent were built in 2010 or later. Detached single-family houses make up 71.5 percent of units, and close to 18 percent sit in buildings with five or more apartments.

A house built in 1975 is now about fifty years old. Sill plates shrink, mortar joints open, dryer vents and utility penetrations loosen, and original basement window wells and door sweeps wear out. Those are the gaps a mouse uses in October and a German yellowjacket queen uses in spring. In an older subdivision, most useful pest work in Troy starts with the building envelope rather than with a spray.

Rats and mice: Troy’s own rules and its stance on poison

The City of Troy’s Code Enforcement pest prevention page is unusually direct. Its headline advice is not to feed rodents: metal or tightly lidded trash cans, no bird feeders left out overnight, no pet food outside, fallen fruit picked up and dog waste cleaned up daily. It asks residents to deny rodents shelter by keeping woodpiles 18 inches off the ground, sealing openings around the house “especially crawlspaces,” using half-inch hardware cloth under cement porches and decks, clearing vegetation from fence lines and foundations, and removing dead trees and stumps whose roots rats nest in.

The same page tells residents to never use poison, explaining that unsecured bait risks secondary poisoning of owls and hawks, can take up to two weeks to kill, can be dropped or carried back to a nest, and that rats are gaining immunity. That does not ban a licensed company from using rodenticide under its label, but it sets expectations: in Troy, trapping, exclusion and tamper-resistant stations are the conversation to have first.

Troy’s Property Maintenance Code, Chapter 82 of the city code, adds legal weight. Structures and exterior property must be kept free of rodent harborage; foundation walls must be kept free of open cracks so rodents cannot enter; openable basement windows must have rodent shields, storm windows or other protection; and doors, windows and vents serving habitable rooms need screens of at least 16 mesh per inch from April 1 to November 1. Under Section 308, the owner or occupant is responsible for extermination, but where an infestation comes from a defect in the structure, the owner is responsible. The city’s common-codes list also says food-related waste belongs in rodent-proof containers with tight lids, not bags.

Apartments and the city’s rental inspection program

Troy runs a Multiple Family Rental Inspection Program for dwellings occupied by three or more families in separate units, most often apartment complexes, with inspections aimed at occupant health and safety. Tenants in single-family or duplex rentals are directed to Code Enforcement at 248-524-3364. For a pest problem in a Troy apartment, the practical order is: report it to the landlord in writing, note that Section 308 places structural-defect infestations on the owner, and let the owner’s licensed company treat connected units together. Bed bugs and German cockroaches rarely stay in one unit.

Mosquitoes and West Nile: what Oakland County does

In Oakland County, mosquito-borne disease is tracked by the Oakland County Health Division, whose published role is surveillance, prevention advice and funding for local governments rather than yard treatment. In August 2021 the county announced that the first West Nile-positive mosquito pool of that year had been found in Troy, and county health officials stressed that the finding meant the virus was present throughout the county. On August 18, 2025, the county confirmed its first human case of the year in a resident who had not traveled, and the health officer urged residents to protect themselves until the first hard frost.

The county’s West Nile page says risk runs highest from late July through September. As of September 4, 2026, it listed two positive birds and no positive mosquito pools or human cases in Oakland County for the season, against 100 positive pools, 19 birds and six human cases statewide. Since 2003, a county reimbursement program has helped participating cities, villages and townships pay for measures such as larviciding and personal protection; it runs March through August.

None of that reaches a private backyard. The Health Division’s advice is to empty water-holding items weekly, clean clogged gutters, treat retention ponds and drainage ditches that cannot be drained with larvicide, and keep screens intact. Troy’s code already prohibits stagnant pool water. For a yard program beyond that, Michigan requires Category 7F, Mosquito Management, certification. The Stage Nature Center — a 100-acre city preserve on Coolidge Highway where the Troy Nature Society describes the Rouge River headwaters flowing through meadow, forest and a cattail marsh — is a reminder that wet ground is part of Troy’s landscape.

Yellowjackets, hornets and carpenter ants

MSU Extension calls yellowjackets the most troublesome wasp pests in Michigan because they nest in and around homes and go after outdoor food. The German yellowjacket commonly nests in wall voids, attics and crawlspaces; the eastern yellowjacket usually nests underground, often in an old burrow. A separate MSU Extension article notes that colonies peak in August, when a yellowjacket nest can hold one or two thousand wasps and workers defend it hard. Workers usually die out by early November and old nests are not reused. MSU’s key warning for older houses: do not plug a wall-void opening while wasps are active, because they can chew through into the living space. Caulk it the following spring instead.

Carpenter ants are among the largest and most common ants in Michigan. MSU Extension explains that they nest in wood but do not eat it, and that they favor wood kept damp by leaks around windows, doors, tubs, dishwashers, pipes and roof vents. Carpenter ants seen indoors in winter strongly suggest a colony inside the building. In a fifty-year-old Troy house, that is often a moisture finding as much as a pest finding. Work on wood-destroying insects falls under MDARD Category 7B.

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Checking an Oakland County exterminator’s Michigan license

Michigan licenses the company and the applicator separately. A business applying pesticides for hire needs an MDARD Pesticide Application Business License, and each technician needs a commercial certification or registration; credentials expire every third year on December 31. MDARD’s categories include 7A, General Pest Management, for structures and food-handling sites; 7B, Wood Destroying Pest Management; 7D, Vertebrate Pest Management, for birds, rats and mice; and 7F for outdoor mosquitoes. The Oakland County Health Division’s own rodent guidance says to contact a certified pest control operator when rodents persist, and links to MDARD’s list of licensed pesticide application businesses. Asking for the business license number and the technician’s categories before any pest control services start in Troy is reasonable.