Rodent Control in SoHo

Rodent Pressure in SoHo

SoHo occupies the blocks south of Houston Street and north of Canal Street between Sixth Avenue and Lafayette Street. Like Tribeca to its south, the neighborhood's building stock is dominated by cast iron buildings from the 1860s through 1880s — the SoHo Cast Iron Historic District is the largest concentration of cast iron architecture in the world. These buildings were originally commercial warehouses and manufacturing lofts that have been progressively converted to galleries, retail, and residential use over the past five decades.

Broadway runs north-south through SoHo as the main retail spine, with flagship retail stores occupying the ground floors of the cast iron buildings. The cross-streets — Spring Street, Prince Street, Houston Street — have a high density of restaurants that generates Norway rat pressure on the surrounding blocks. The concentration of food service on Spring Street between Broadway and Sixth Avenue and on West Houston Street creates sustained food availability for rat colonies in the area's underground infrastructure.

The cast iron buildings' original construction created large, open basement spaces with direct access to the street-level loading dock infrastructure. These basements, even in fully modernized buildings, have the original structural penetrations that provide entry points. Greene Street, Wooster Street, and Mercer Street — the cobblestone streets of SoHo's historic core — have original Belgian block paving over sewer infrastructure that is among the oldest remaining in lower Manhattan.

SoHo's residential population occupies the upper floors of buildings whose ground floors are almost entirely commercial retail and food service, creating a consistent vertical pressure pattern where Norway rats enter at the commercial basement level and house mice travel upward through the original structure.