Precision Pest Control services homes and buildings across Detroit, from neighborhoods along the Detroit River and Belle Isle to blocks further inland near the Rouge River. Water shapes a lot of what we deal with here, whether it's basement moisture from an aging storm sewer system or standing water after heavy rain drawing pests toward a house.


Mosquitoes breed fast anywhere water collects, and with the Detroit River, the Rouge River, and a citywide combined sewer system that backs up during heavy storms, there's no shortage of standing water in low-lying blocks. Rodents move along riverbanks and drainage corridors into basements once the weather cools, and cockroaches thrive in the humidity that collects in older basements with a history of water intrusion. Wasps build nests under eaves and porch roofs near any yard with standing water nearby, ants and termites both work through moisture-softened wood in older foundations, and centipedes turn up in damp basements hunting the other bugs that gathered there first.
Detroit sits on a river that connects two Great Lakes, with the Detroit River running along the city's eastern edge and the Rouge River cutting through its southwest side before both feed toward Lake Erie. That much water close to a dense, old city means a high water table in a lot of neighborhoods, especially closer to the riverfront and around Belle Isle, and a combined sewer system, built to carry stormwater and wastewater in the same pipes, that still backs up into basements during a heavy summer storm. Every one of those backups leaves standing water and moisture behind, and that's exactly the setup mosquitoes, cockroaches, and centipedes need to establish themselves indoors instead of just passing through.
Our work on Detroit properties usually starts in the basement, because that's where water problems show up first and pests follow soon after. We look at sump pump function, foundation cracks below grade, and whether a basement has a history of backup during storms, since a basement that floods even occasionally becomes a standing invitation for cockroaches and centipedes even after the water itself is gone. Rodent pressure gets tied to the same drainage patterns, since rats travel along the same low, wet corridors that water does, whether that's an alley with poor drainage or a yard backing up to a ditch near the Rouge. Treating the pest without addressing the moisture behind it just means the same call again after the next storm.


See at Pest World!


See at Pest World!