Pest Control in Homecrest, Brooklyn
Homecrest is a residential neighborhood in southern Brooklyn, generally described as lying between Kings Highway to the north and Avenue Z to the south, with Ocean Parkway to the west and roughly Ocean Avenue to the east. It sits between Gravesend, Midwood and Sheepshead Bay, and the B and Q trains stop at Kings Highway and Avenue U on the Brighton line. Avenue U has become one of Brooklyn's busiest Chinese commercial strips, and Kings Highway is lined with shops and restaurants. The community includes large Chinese, Russian-speaking and Syrian Jewish populations along with Pakistani and Turkish families. Housing leans toward apartment buildings, with blocks of two-family homes in between.
About Homecrest
Homecrest was part of the old town of Gravesend and remained farmland until the early 20th century, when the Brighton Beach rail line was elevated and later incorporated into the subway system, making the area attractive for development. A developer marketed the tract under the Homecrest name, and houses followed in the 1900s and 1910s. Apartment buildings rose along the main avenues in the 1920s and again after World War II, giving the neighborhood its mixed housing stock.
Common Pest Problems in Homecrest
Homecrest's many six-story apartment buildings, some dating to the 1920s and 1930s, share plumbing and ventilation shafts that allow German cockroaches and mice to travel between apartments. The dense food businesses along Avenue U, including groceries, noodle shops, bakeries and seafood markets, generate waste that supports rats and roaches in rear yards and basements, and those pests often spread into the apartments above the storefronts. Buildings with ground-floor restaurants are hit hardest.
In the older apartment buildings and two-family houses, humid bathrooms, damp basements and stored paper goods make silverfish a common sight. Along the Brighton line embankment and around small backyards, pavement ants and rats find cover and food, especially in summer. Homecrest's steady redevelopment, with older houses replaced by new condo buildings, also disturbs soil and can push rodents into neighboring properties. Older courtyards and air shafts filled with plants can also hide rodents close to living spaces, well away from where tenants usually look.