Pest Control in Williamsburg, Brooklyn
Williamsburg stretches along the East River from the Brooklyn Navy Yard area north to McCarren Park and Greenpoint, with Bushwick Avenue and the BQE roughly marking its eastern side. It is really several neighborhoods in one: the busy Northside around Bedford Avenue and the L train, the Southside with its long-standing Puerto Rican and Dominican community, and South Williamsburg, home to one of the largest Hasidic communities in the world along Lee and Bedford Avenues. The waterfront now holds rows of high-rise rentals and Domino Park, while inland blocks still mix tenements, small factories and bars. The L, J, M, Z and G trains all serve the area, and the Williamsburg Bridge links it directly to the Lower East Side.
Also known as: South Williamsburg, Northside, Southside.
About Williamsburg
Williamsburg began as a small village in the early 1800s and was incorporated as its own city before merging with Brooklyn in 1855. The opening of the Williamsburg Bridge in 1903 brought waves of immigrants from the Lower East Side, who filled newly built tenements. Sugar refineries, breweries and shipyards lined the river for generations. After industry faded, artists moved into empty lofts in the 1990s, and a 2005 rezoning opened the waterfront to the residential towers seen today.
Common Pest Problems in Williamsburg
Rats are the headline problem here. Williamsburg packs restaurants, bars and late-night food spots into dense blocks along Bedford, Grand Street and Metropolitan Avenue, and the curbside trash bags they generate feed large Norway rat colonies. Years of waterfront construction have also disturbed burrows and pushed rodents into nearby buildings. Older tenements with cracked foundations and gaps around basement pipes give those rats, along with house mice, easy ways inside, especially once cold weather sets in.
German cockroaches travel easily through the shared walls, plumbing chases and trash rooms of Williamsburg's walk-ups and converted lofts, so one neighbor's infestation often becomes the whole building's problem. Pigeons roost under the elevated J/M/Z tracks on Broadway and on the ledges of old factory buildings, leaving droppings on fire escapes and air conditioners. Pavement ants show up each spring in ground-floor apartments and storefronts, trailing in from sidewalk cracks and tree pits along the side streets.