Pest Control in SoHo, Manhattan
SoHo, named for its location south of Houston Street, stretches down to Canal Street between Sixth Avenue and Crosby Street. It holds the largest collection of cast-iron architecture in the world, with ornate facades lining Greene, Mercer and Broome Streets. Once a hub for galleries, SoHo today is one of the city's busiest shopping districts, with flagship stores along Broadway, Prince and Spring Streets drawing heavy foot traffic every day. Above the storefronts, residents live in spacious loft apartments, many originally zoned for working artists. The R and W at Prince Street, the 6 at Spring Street and the C and E on Sixth Avenue serve the neighborhood.
Also known as: South of Houston, Cast Iron District.
About SoHo
SoHo was a residential and entertainment district in the early 1800s before becoming a manufacturing and textile zone after the Civil War, when cast-iron fronts allowed large windows and quick construction. By the 1950s many factories had closed and the area was nicknamed Hell's Hundred Acres for its frequent fires. Artists moved into vacant lofts in the 1960s, successfully fought a proposed expressway, and the SoHo-Cast Iron Historic District was designated in 1973.
Common Pest Problems in SoHo
SoHo's retail boom has an unseen side: the constant turnover of stores, cafes and pop-ups means frequent build-outs, deliveries and trash pickups that keep rats and mice active in the vault spaces under the sidewalks. Many cast-iron buildings extend basements beneath the sidewalk, and those vaults connect to old utility runs that rodents use to move between buildings. Restaurant trash on Spring and Prince Streets draws Norway rats after dark. Sidewalk vault lights leak water too.
Cockroaches spread easily through shared plumbing chases in century-old loft buildings, particularly where ground-floor food businesses share walls with residential stairways. The ornate cast-iron cornices and window lintels offer ideal ledges for pigeons, so bird-control installations are common on facades. In the lofts themselves, clothes moths are a recurring problem in closets full of designer wool and cashmere, as well as in textile-heavy artist studios. Studio stockpiles of canvas and fabric deserve the same scrutiny.