Pest Control in Clifton, Staten Island
Clifton lies between Stapleton and Rosebank on the island's eastern shore, running from the Bay Street waterfront up toward Vanderbilt Avenue and the slopes below Grymes Hill. The Clifton station on the Staten Island Railway and the train yard nearby give the neighborhood a working, transit-oriented feel. Tompkins Avenue and Bay Street carry local shops, and the Park Hill section inland is home to large apartment complexes with a sizable West African community, particularly Liberian families. Closer to the water, older frame houses and a few surviving Victorians line quiet side streets with views across the Narrows toward Brooklyn.
Also known as: Park Hill.
About Clifton
In the nineteenth century Clifton was a fashionable waterfront village with hotels and summer homes for wealthy New Yorkers, and developers promoted it for its sea breezes and harbor views. Its shoreline became industrial as piers, rail lines and warehouses expanded in the later 1800s. Twentieth-century growth brought denser housing, and the Park Hill apartment complexes built in the mid-1900s changed the neighborhood's scale and made it one of the more diverse corners of the North Shore.
Common Pest Problems in Clifton
Clifton's large garden apartment complexes and multifamily buildings share the pest pressures of denser parts of the city. German cockroaches and mice move easily between units that share plumbing lines, and trash areas that serve hundreds of households can attract Norway rats when lids are left open or bags pile up. The rail yard and the embankments along the Staten Island Railway provide undisturbed cover where rats burrow and breed, then forage into nearby blocks at night.
Down toward the water, the older frame houses have their own issues. Basements close to the harbor stay cool and damp through much of the year, which suits house centipedes that hunt other insects along foundation walls. Wood porches, sills and additions on century-old houses give subterranean termites a way in, especially where downspouts dump water beside the foundation. Homeowners should treat termite swarms in spring as a warning sign rather than a nuisance.