Pest Control in Mount Hope, Bronx
Mount Hope is a small, dense West Bronx neighborhood wedged between Jerome Avenue and the Grand Concourse, running roughly from the Cross Bronx Expressway north to Burnside Avenue. East Tremont Avenue and Burnside Avenue are its main shopping streets, crowded with bodegas, beauty salons, restaurants and phone stores. The B and D trains stop at Tremont Avenue and 182nd–183rd Streets under the Concourse, and the 4 stops at 176th Street and Burnside Avenue on the Jerome Avenue el. Echo Park is a small neighborhood green space. Residents are predominantly Dominican, along with Puerto Rican, Mexican and West African families, and almost everyone lives in large apartment buildings.
Also known as: Mt. Hope.
About Mount Hope
Mount Hope was one of several hilltop estates in the area, and its name was later reused by the street called Mount Hope Place. The neighborhood filled with apartment buildings after the Jerome Avenue subway opened in 1917 and the Concourse line followed in 1933, drawing Jewish and Irish families from Manhattan. Like much of the West Bronx, it saw widespread disinvestment in the 1970s, and many buildings were later rehabilitated by nonprofit housing groups.
Common Pest Problems in Mount Hope
Mount Hope is almost entirely apartment buildings, so pest problems here are shared problems. German cockroaches travel between units through plumbing stacks and gaps around radiators, and a single infested apartment can seed an entire line of the building. Mice are common in the colder months, entering through basement doors and gaps around utility entries, then climbing through wall voids. Buildings with small storefronts at street level on Tremont or Burnside Avenue tend to have the most persistent activity.
Rats forage around sidewalk trash on the busy commercial corridors and burrow in tree pits and the small plantings of Echo Park. The elevated 4 train structure along Jerome Avenue gives pigeons plenty of perches, and buildings facing the tracks often need netting or spikes on ledges and window air conditioners to keep birds from nesting. Because lots are small and buildings sit shoulder to shoulder, rodent control works best when neighboring landlords coordinate baiting and trash schedules instead of treating one building at a time.