Rodent Control in Sunset Park

Rodent Pressure in Sunset Park

Sunset Park runs from 15th Street to 65th Street between Fourth Avenue and the Upper New York Bay waterfront. The neighborhood's character is defined by its industrial waterfront heritage — the Brooklyn Army Terminal and Industry City (the former Bush Terminal) occupy the western edge of the neighborhood along the bay — and by its dense commercial 5th Avenue corridor, one of the most culturally and commercially active strips in Brooklyn.

5th Avenue from about 36th Street to 65th Street through Sunset Park is lined with Chinese and Latin American food markets, restaurants, bakeries, and specialty food stores. This density of food retail and service generates significant Norway rat pressure that affects the residential blocks east and west of the corridor. The blocks between 4th and 6th Avenues in the mid-40s and 50s — the residential core of the neighborhood — see the most consistent pressure from the 5th Avenue food corridor.

The waterfront industrial buildings of Industry City and the Brooklyn Army Terminal have extensive sub-grade infrastructure, loading dock access, and utility connections that create complex rodent environments. The transition between the industrial waterfront and the residential neighborhood to the east is an active pressure boundary where rats from the industrial area move into the adjacent residential blocks. The elevated Gowanus Expressway creates a noise and infrastructure corridor along the eastern edge of the neighborhood that affects the blocks directly beneath it.