Pest Control in Bensonhurst, Brooklyn
Bensonhurst spreads across southwestern Brooklyn between Dyker Heights and Gravesend, stretching from around 61st Street and Borough Park down toward Bath Beach and Gravesend Bay. Eighty-Sixth Street, running beneath the elevated D train, is the neighborhood's busiest shopping strip, while 18th Avenue, also called Cristoforo Colombo Boulevard, recalls its long Italian American history. The N train serves stops along its open-cut line through the area. Today Bensonhurst is one of the largest Chinese communities in the city, and it also has substantial Russian, Ukrainian, Uzbek and Georgian populations mixed with longtime Italian families. Blocks are lined with two-family houses, attached homes and mid-rise apartment buildings.
Also known as: Mapleton.
About Bensonhurst
The neighborhood is named for the Benson family, whose farms covered much of the land in the old town of New Utrecht. In the late 1880s developer James Lynch bought several farms and marketed the area as Bensonhurst-by-the-Sea, a suburban retreat near the bay. Elevated rail along 86th Street and New Utrecht Avenue in the early 20th century brought dense development, and Italian immigrants arrived in large numbers from the 1920s onward. Since the 1990s, Chinese and former Soviet immigrants have reshaped the area.
Common Pest Problems in Bensonhurst
Bensonhurst's commercial strips along 86th Street, 18th Avenue and Bay Parkway pack bakeries, groceries, fish markets and restaurants into ground floors beneath apartments. That food-rich environment supports German cockroaches and rats, which move into residential units through shared walls and basements. The steel structure of the elevated D train over 86th Street provides endless ledges for pigeons, whose droppings foul sidewalks, awnings and window air conditioners below. Fish markets and produce stands put out extra waste on weekends.
Away from the main streets, rows of two-family houses and attached homes with backyards, garden plots and connected basements give mice easy access from one home to the next in colder months. Many older frame houses and wood additions in the southern part of the neighborhood, closer to the damp soils near Gravesend Bay, are also vulnerable to subterranean termites, especially where wood porches or stairs touch the ground. Moisture keeps those termite colonies active for years.