Rodent Control in Forest Hills

Rodent Pressure in Forest Hills

Forest Hills is in central Queens, bounded by Rego Park to the north, Kew Gardens to the east, Forest Park to the south, and the Long Island Railroad right-of-way to the west. The neighborhood encompasses one of the most architecturally distinctive areas in Queens — Forest Hills Gardens, the planned garden suburb of 1909 with its Tudor Revival architecture and private streets — alongside the denser attached housing and apartment buildings of the surrounding neighborhood.

Austin Street from Queens Boulevard to Continental Avenue is the main commercial strip, with a concentration of restaurants and food retail that generates Norway rat pressure on the surrounding residential blocks. The LIRR elevated tracks along the western edge of the neighborhood create infrastructure corridor pressure. Forest Park to the south, at 538 acres, provides substantial harborage for Norway rat colonies that forage into the adjacent residential streets on Metropolitan Avenue and the cross-streets north of the park.

Forest Hills Gardens' private streets and distinctive Tudor construction create a unique building environment — the houses have basements with original construction from 1910-1920, and the green spaces of the private park within the Gardens provide some local harborage. The apartment buildings along Queens Boulevard from the LIRR viaduct north to Yellowstone Boulevard have basement utility areas typical of postwar construction.