Pest Control in Kensington, Brooklyn
Kensington is a densely populated, highly diverse neighborhood south of Prospect Park and Windsor Terrace, bounded roughly by Coney Island Avenue on the east, McDonald Avenue on the west and Foster Avenue on the south. Ocean Parkway, the landmarked boulevard with a bike path and benches, runs through its center. Kensington is known for its remarkable mix of residents, including Bangladeshi, Pakistani, Orthodox Jewish, Polish, Mexican and Chinese communities, with Church Avenue and Coney Island Avenue hosting restaurants and grocery stores from around the world. Housing includes large prewar apartment buildings, row houses and some detached homes. The F and G trains run along McDonald Avenue, and B and Q stations are a short walk to the east.
About Kensington
Kensington was part of the old town of Flatbush and developed in the late 1800s after Ocean Parkway was completed in 1880 as a route from Prospect Park to Coney Island. Developers named the area after Kensington in London. Row houses and detached homes appeared in the early 1900s, and many six-story apartment buildings were built in the 1920s and 1930s after the subway arrived. The neighborhood has since absorbed wave after wave of new immigrants, keeping its older buildings full.
Common Pest Problems in Kensington
Kensington's six-story prewar buildings, with shared plumbing, dumbwaiters and trash rooms, are a constant battleground against German cockroaches and mice. The many restaurants, bakeries and grocery stores along Church Avenue and Coney Island Avenue generate food waste that feeds rats in alleys and along curbs. Older row houses also have small foundation gaps and wooden floors where mice make their way inside. Dumbwaiter shafts in particular can act as highways between floors.
Proximity to Prospect Park and the mature trees along Ocean Parkway support a healthy squirrel population, and some find their way into row house attics and cornices. Pavement ants are common each spring and summer in ground-floor apartments and homes with small yards. Mice also travel through the tunnels of old steam heat systems in these apartment buildings. Busy restaurants on Church Avenue and Coney Island Avenue often see heavy rat activity at closing time, and residents on the blocks just behind these corridors may see rats in backyards and trash areas as well.