Pest Control in Melrose, Bronx
Melrose sits in the heart of the South Bronx, north of Mott Haven and east of the Grand Concourse, and it is anchored by the Hub, the busy five-way intersection at East 149th Street, Third Avenue, Willis Avenue and Melrose Avenue. The Hub has been the borough's shopping district for more than a century, with national chains, discount clothiers and street vendors crowding the sidewalks. The 2 and 5 trains stop at 149th Street–Third Avenue, and Metro-North's Harlem Line serves Melrose station on Park Avenue. Much of the neighborhood was rebuilt since the 1990s, and newer affordable buildings like Via Verde, with its stepped rooftop gardens, sit alongside older tenements and public housing.
Also known as: The Hub, Melrose Commons.
About Melrose
Melrose was laid out as a village in the mid-1800s and drew German immigrants, many of whom worked in local breweries and factories along the rail line. Third Avenue's elevated train, opened in the 1880s, turned the Hub into a commercial magnet with theaters and department stores. The area was devastated by disinvestment and fires in the 1970s, and the city's Melrose Commons plan later filled vacant lots with thousands of new apartments, much of it affordable housing.
Common Pest Problems in Melrose
The Hub's concentration of fast-food outlets, groceries and street vendors means constant food waste on the sidewalks, and that sustains both rats and German cockroaches in the surrounding blocks. Older tenements along Courtlandt and Elton Avenues share walls, dumbwaiter shafts and plumbing risers that let roaches spread from apartment to apartment, while NYCHA developments like Melrose Houses deal with the rodent pressure that comes with compactor rooms and large lawns. Mice move easily through the hollow spaces of these buildings, especially once temperatures drop in the fall.
Newer buildings aren't immune. Construction of Melrose Commons infill projects disturbed old foundations and vacant lots where rats had nested for decades, and new residents often carry roaches in with secondhand furniture or grocery boxes. Pigeons gather on the Hub's storefront signs and the Metro-North embankment, and pavement ants are a common summer nuisance in ground-floor apartments near planted areas like the rooftop and courtyard gardens that now dot the neighborhood.