- (301) 829-0060
- Mt. Airy, MD
- info@pestshieldinc.com
Pest Shield, Inc. has provided residential pest management across Frederick County since 2011, holding Maryland Department of Agriculture license MDA #30263 and operating with over 75 years of combined pest management experience across the team. Owner Troy Yowell brings approximately 35 years of field experience to every property assessment, and entomologist Jeffrey Allwine is on staff for species-level diagnostic support when identification matters. Pest Shield has earned 338+ five-star reviews across Google and HomeAdvisor — and a Best of Frederick recognition in 2021 — serving homeowners throughout New Market, Mt. Airy, and the surrounding Frederick County corridor.
How it works
Four steps. No surprises. Same answer whether it's your first call or your tenth.
You reach Troy or someone on his team directly. No call center, no dispatcher, no routing.
Same-day or next-day for most calls. Emergency stinging-insect situations and real-estate WDI deadlines get priority.
We identify the species, locate entry points, and find the source — not just the symptom.
Written recommendation, straightforward pricing, no obligation. If you don't need treatment, we'll tell you.
New Market sits at the eastern edge of Frederick County’s wooded and agricultural corridor — a landscape that creates some of the most sustained tick habitat in Central Maryland. Wooded lot lines, deer corridors running between fields and tree cover, tall grass margins along fence lines and property edges: these are the conditions that support tick populations from early spring through late fall, and they describe a significant share of New Market residential properties.
Two tick species are responsible for the majority of exposure risk in this region:
Ticks don’t live in the middle of a mowed lawn — they rest and quest in the transitional zones: leaf litter along wooded borders, low shrubs and ornamental beds, unmowed grass margins, along fence lines, and in the shaded areas where a yard meets a field or tree line. If your New Market property backs to woods, borders agricultural land, or has any of these habitat features, you have tick habitat. The question isn’t whether ticks are present — it’s whether the population is being managed before exposure occurs.
One treatment at the start of the season doesn’t carry through. Tick activity spans multiple months across two species with overlapping but distinct seasonal windows. Effective tick control requires a treatment cadence that matches the length of the active season — not a single application in May.
60+ years of combined experience. Tell us what you’re seeing — we’ll come look, no obligation.
Pavement ants raided our basement this morning and I was desperate for someone to come today! After calling around and being told they recommended a quarterly service before even seeing our problem and couldn’t come out until Thursday(!!!) I called pest shield and they came this morning. He explained the problem and found the source. He sprayed the area and around the house and doesn’t think we need a service plan. He is also knowledgeable about mosquitoes. Call them!!
Elise Richard · June 2024 Read on Google →
Pest Shield has been absolutely wonderful! We had an issue with mice, and Pest Shield was the ONLY company we could get to come out to our house on the same day which happened to be a Sunday. The technician, Troy, was extremely knowledgeable, friendly, and honest. He saved my husband and I a lot of money. Most companies would have taken advantage of the situation. It’s been 30 days and we have not had any more issues. We were so satisfied with the company and the services we received, that we also signed up for the pest (bugs) control service last month. Since then, we have not seen any bugs (including those nasty centipedes and camel crickets)!!! Thank you so much, Pest Shield!!!!!
Myah Moxley · February 2015 Read on HomeAdvisor →
Pest Shield is a great company to work with. Troy is very knowledgeable and won’t do services you don’t need. He does a thorough job the first time so you don’t have to keep calling him back.
Jim Frizen · April 2020 Read on Google →
General pest & rodent control
Pest Shield’s approach to tick control starts with a property inspection — identifying the specific habitat zones on your lot where ticks are most likely to rest and quest. That means the wooded borders, shrub beds, leaf litter margins, fence lines, and shaded transitional areas between maintained lawn and natural cover. Treatment is targeted to those zones, not broadcast across open lawn. This focused perimeter approach keeps product use efficient and minimizes unnecessary chemical exposure in areas where ticks aren’t active.
The inspection also accounts for the property’s deer pressure — deer are the primary reproductive host for black-legged ticks, and properties with regular deer movement along their edges face a different level of ongoing tick introduction than more isolated lots. Troy’s familiarity with Frederick County property types and the regional landscape informs how each inspection is structured.
For tick control, the right service model is Pest Shield’s Standard Care Plan — treatment every 60 days on a bi-monthly cadence. A single treatment in spring doesn’t carry through the full tick season. The 60-day cycle aligns with tick activity windows across spring, summer, and fall, maintaining suppression through the black-legged tick’s dangerous nymphal peak in late spring, the American dog tick’s summer peak, and the continued black-legged tick activity into fall. The Standard Care Plan includes a 100% effective guarantee with free retreatment between scheduled visits if tick activity reappears — no additional charge, no need to call and argue about it.
You don’t need to be home for exterior treatments. Pest Shield’s approach is exterior-first: treatment focuses on the perimeter habitat zones where ticks live, which means little to no interior treatment is required for tick control.
Pest Shield uses EPA-approved products and offers treatment options safe for homes with children and pets. The standard post-treatment precaution for exterior perimeter applications is to allow treated areas to dry before re-entry — typically a short window after application. Troy will advise on specifics at the time of service based on the products used and conditions on your property.
Owner
Founded Pest Shield in 2011 after years as a pest management contractor on U.S. military bases in Iraq and Afghanistan. Around 35 years in pest management. Personally handles or leads the majority of service calls.
Pest Management Specialist
Field technician handling residential and commercial service calls across Frederick, Carroll, and Montgomery counties.
Pest Management Specialist
Field technician handling residential and commercial service calls across the service area.
Our Entomologist
Consulting entomologist on species identification, conducive conditions, and treatment strategy for difficult cases.
New Market, MD sits in eastern Frederick County along US-70, with agricultural fields and wooded corridors extending north and south of the town. Properties along the town’s edges — particularly those backing to tree lines, field margins, or the open land between New Market and neighboring communities like Monrovia and Lake Linganore — sit within active deer movement corridors. Pest Shield operates out of Mt. Airy, a few miles west on US-70, and serves New Market and the surrounding Frederick County communities as part of its core service area.
Frederick County’s combination of wooded residential lots, agricultural borders, and high deer density creates some of the most consistent tick pressure in Central Maryland. Black-legged ticks depend on deer as a reproductive host, and properties with regular deer activity along their edges face ongoing tick introduction throughout the active season. The Frederick County Health Department has documented Lyme disease cases in the region — tick exposure here carries real public health consequence, and New Market’s property profile places many residents in direct contact with tick habitat. For broader protection against the full range of pests that thrive in this environment, pest control in New Market addresses the complete seasonal pest pressure facing local homeowners.
The right time to start is before the season peaks — ideally in early spring, as temperatures consistently reach the mid-40s°F and black-legged ticks become active. In Central Maryland, that typically means March or April. Waiting until you find a tick on a family member or pet means the nymphal population — the hardest-to-detect and most exposure-prone stage — is already active. Starting treatment before the peak gives the first application time to suppress tick populations in habitat zones before activity intensifies in late spring and early summer.
One treatment is not enough for season-long tick control. Black-legged ticks are active from early spring through late fall — a window of seven or more months — and American dog ticks add a separate peak in late spring and summer. A single application in May doesn’t carry through that full window. Pest Shield’s Standard Care Plan addresses this with treatment every 60 days, a bi-monthly cadence that maintains suppression across the full active season. The plan includes a 100% effective guarantee with free retreatment between scheduled visits if tick activity reappears.
Pest Shield uses EPA-approved products and offers treatment options formulated to be safe for homes with children and pets. Exterior perimeter treatment — the focus for tick control — is applied to habitat zones like wooded borders, shrub beds, and leaf litter margins, not to open lawn or play areas. The standard precaution is to keep children and pets off treated surfaces until they’ve dried, which is typically a short window after application. Troy will walk you through the specifics at the time of service based on the products used and your property’s layout.
Both species are present in Frederick County and warrant attention, but they carry different risks and have somewhat different seasonal windows. The black-legged tick (Ixodes scapularis), commonly called the deer tick, is the primary vector for Lyme disease and is active from early spring through late fall — with a particularly dangerous nymphal stage in late spring and early summer when the ticks are tiny and easy to miss. The American dog tick (Dermacentus variabilis) is larger, peaks in late spring and summer, and is associated with Rocky Mountain spotted fever. New Market’s mix of wooded borders and open field margins supports habitat for both species, so effective tick control needs to account for the full active season rather than targeting just one species or one time of year.
No — you don’t need to be home for exterior tick treatment. Pest Shield’s approach focuses on the perimeter habitat zones where ticks rest and quest: wooded borders, shrub beds, leaf litter margins, and fence lines. That work is done entirely outside, so there’s no need to coordinate access to the interior of your home. Under the Standard Care Plan, scheduled visits proceed whether or not you’re home, which makes maintaining the 60-day treatment cadence straightforward for most households.
