Marshall is known for one of the finest collections of 19th-century architecture in the country, and that history shapes its pest problems. Stone and brick foundations with degraded mortar. Wood sills a century and a half old. Deep porches, ornate trim, and complex rooflines that shelter wasp nests and collect the water carpenter ants are looking for. Beautiful houses are permeable houses.
Carpenter ants are the structural concern here. They excavate galleries in wood that has been softened by a failed gutter, a slow roof leak, or a porch column standing on damp ground, and in an older home that damage can go unnoticed for years. Mice use the same masonry gaps every fall, and cellar spiders own the basements.
The Kalamazoo River, Rice Creek, and the surrounding farmland and woodlots supply the rest: mosquitoes through the summer, blacklegged ticks along every wooded edge, and the annual October wave of boxelder bugs, stink bugs, and Asian lady beetles on sunny walls. An experienced local exterminator handles all of it.
Around Marshall
- Historic Downtown Marshall
- Honolulu House
- Rice Creek
- Brooks Memorial Fountain
- Kalamazoo River