Pest Control in Flatlands, Brooklyn
Flatlands is a residential neighborhood in southeastern Brooklyn, lying between Midwood and East Flatbush to the west and north, Canarsie to the east, and Marine Park, Mill Basin and Bergen Beach to the south. Flatbush Avenue and Kings Highway are its main commercial corridors, with Avenue J, Avenue N and Flatlands Avenue carrying local shops. The 2 and 5 trains end at Flatbush Avenue-Brooklyn College on the northwestern edge, and many residents rely on buses. The historic Flatlands Dutch Reformed Church at Kings Highway and East 40th Street recalls the area's colonial roots. Housing is mostly attached and semi-detached brick homes, and the community includes large Caribbean, African American, Jewish and Italian American populations.
Also known as: Nieuw Amersfoort.
About Flatlands
Flatlands was one of the original six towns of Kings County, first settled by the Dutch in the 1630s as Nieuw Amersfoort. The level, fertile land was ideal for farming, and the area remained agricultural into the 20th century. The Flatlands Dutch Reformed Church congregation dates to 1654, and its current building was completed in 1848. The town was annexed to the City of Brooklyn in 1896, and extensive home building followed in the 1920s through the 1950s as subway and road access improved.
Common Pest Problems in Flatlands
Flatlands' long rows of attached and semi-detached brick homes share walls and often have connected basements, allowing mice to spread from house to house as soon as the weather cools. Older detached frame houses and homes with wood porches, especially in the southern blocks closer to Marine Park and the Jamaica Bay marshes, face real subterranean termite pressure, since the neighborhood's low, flat land holds moisture in the soil. Converted basements and wood-paneled rec rooms are common hiding spots.
Rats and German cockroaches cluster around the busy Flatbush Avenue and Kings Highway corridors, where restaurants, groceries and bakeries generate waste, and spread into apartments above storefronts. Pavement ants are a common warm-weather complaint in kitchens. Blocks bordering Marine Park and the open lands to the south also see occasional raccoons exploring garbage cans and sheltering under decks or in sheds. Many of those raccoons return seasonally to the same yards year after year.