Pest Control in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn
Bay Ridge fills the southwestern corner of Brooklyn, overlooking the Narrows and the Verrazzano-Narrows Bridge. It runs roughly from Sunset Park at 65th Street south toward Fort Hamilton, with Shore Road and its long waterfront park on the west and Dyker Heights to the east. Third Avenue is famous for its bars and restaurants, while Fifth Avenue and 86th Street carry shops and services. The R train along Fourth Avenue is the only subway line, giving the area a small-town feel. Residents include longtime Irish, Italian, Greek and Norwegian families along with a large Arab American community, and tree-lined side streets are full of rowhouses, apartment buildings and grand single-family homes.
Also known as: The Ridge.
About Bay Ridge
Originally known as Yellow Hook for the color of its clay soil, the area was renamed Bay Ridge in the 1850s, partly to escape associations with yellow fever. Wealthy New Yorkers built estates along the bluffs above the Narrows in the 19th century. The opening of the Fourth Avenue subway in 1915 and 1916 set off a building boom of rowhouses and apartments, and Scandinavian sailors and shipbuilders settled here in large numbers. The Verrazzano-Narrows Bridge opened in 1964, changing the neighborhood's southern edge.
Common Pest Problems in Bay Ridge
Bay Ridge's many prewar apartment buildings and limestone rowhouses tend to have deep closets, older wool rugs and stored clothing, a setup where clothes moths can work unnoticed for months. Silverfish also turn up in older bathrooms and basements where plaster and paper stay damp. Mice are a steady cold-weather complaint in both rowhouses and co-ops, entering through gaps around old radiator pipes and under entry doors. Behind radiators and inside wall cavities, they often go unnoticed until droppings appear.
The restaurant row on Third Avenue and the shops on Fifth Avenue create food sources that support rats and German cockroaches, particularly in the rear yards and basements of mixed-use buildings. Along Shore Road and in blocks with mature street trees, gray squirrels frequently climb into attics and soffits of the larger detached homes, and the long green corridor of Shore Road Park gives rodents and squirrels an easy route through the neighborhood.