Pest Control in Fort Hamilton, Brooklyn
Fort Hamilton covers the southern tip of the Bay Ridge peninsula, where Brooklyn meets the Narrows beneath the Verrazzano-Narrows Bridge. It is anchored by the U.S. Army Garrison Fort Hamilton, one of the oldest continuously operating military posts in the country, and the Harbor Defense Museum on its grounds. The neighborhood's residential blocks, roughly south of 86th Street, mix brick apartment buildings with rowhouses and two-family homes. The R train terminates at Bay Ridge-95th Street on Fourth Avenue, and Shore Road Park and the waterfront promenade run along the western edge. John Paul Jones Park, known locally as Cannonball Park, sits near the bridge approach.
Also known as: Fort Hamilton Army Base.
About Fort Hamilton
Fort Hamilton was built between about 1825 and 1831 to guard the Narrows, the entrance to New York Harbor, and was named for Alexander Hamilton. Robert E. Lee and Thomas 'Stonewall' Jackson both served here as young officers before the Civil War. The surrounding area developed alongside Bay Ridge after subway service arrived in the early 20th century, filling with apartments and rowhouses. The Verrazzano-Narrows Bridge, completed in 1964, required clearing blocks near the fort and reshaped the neighborhood's southern edge.
Common Pest Problems in Fort Hamilton
Fort Hamilton's apartment buildings and rowhouses sit close to the waterfront and the heavily planted approaches to the Verrazzano-Narrows Bridge, where shrubs, retaining walls and highway embankments give rats and mice ample hiding places. Brick buildings from the early 1900s often have gaps around old steam pipes and basement windows that let mice slip indoors in fall. German cockroaches are a recurring issue in multi-unit buildings with shared trash rooms.
The mature trees along Shore Road and around the Army base and Cannonball Park support a healthy gray squirrel population, which can move into attics and wall cavities of nearby houses. Spiders are also noticeable here, particularly in homes near the damp, breezy waterfront, where insects drawn to exterior lighting provide a steady food supply for orb weavers and house spiders on porches, windows and basement corners. Dampness from the Narrows keeps those spiders active well into fall.