Pest Control in Fresh Meadows, Queens
Fresh Meadows is a planned residential community in east-central Queens, bounded roughly by Utopia Parkway, the Long Island Expressway, Francis Lewis Boulevard and 73rd Avenue. Its centerpiece is the Fresh Meadows development, a large complex of garden apartments and low-rise buildings set among lawns and walking paths, with its own shopping center around 188th Street. Surrounding blocks hold detached and semi-detached brick homes. Cunningham Park, a wooded expanse with trails and athletic fields, lies to the east. The population includes large Chinese, Korean and South Asian communities along with longtime Jewish, Italian and Irish families. Buses connect to Flushing and Jamaica, since there is no subway service.
Also known as: Utopia.
About Fresh Meadows
The area was once home to the Fresh Meadow Country Club, which hosted major golf tournaments in the 1920s and 1930s. After World War II, the New York Life Insurance Company bought the golf course and built the Fresh Meadows development between 1946 and 1949 as a model planned community, with garden apartments, a shopping center and green space. Surrounding farmland was soon developed with single-family homes, creating the suburban neighborhood seen today.
Common Pest Problems in Fresh Meadows
Fresh Meadows' garden apartment complexes and brick homes are ideal for mice, which move into buildings through gaps around pipes and utility lines as temperatures drop. In the larger apartment buildings, German cockroaches can spread through shared plumbing and trash areas. The shopping center and restaurants around 188th Street and along the Horace Harding Expressway service roads also attract rats, which can shelter in landscaped areas and shrub beds around the apartment complexes.
Cunningham Park's woods and the neighborhood's mature trees support abundant squirrels and occasional raccoons, which may enter attics and chimneys or raid garbage cans. Detached houses with wooden porches, decks and basement framing are also vulnerable to subterranean termites, particularly in damp areas or where soil contacts wood. Pavement ants commonly nest under sidewalks, patios and driveways and forage inside during warm weather. Homes bordering Cunningham Park generally see the most wildlife.