Which NYC Neighborhoods Have the Most Pest Complaints?

Port Richmond on Staten Island's north shore carries the highest pest complaint rate of any New York City neighborhood we measure, at 98.4 HPD pest complaints per 1,000 apartments against a citywide 25.0. The metric on this page is pest complaints filed to 311 per 1,000 apartments in buildings with three or more units, and the four Bronx neighborhoods behind Port Richmond all sit at 65 per 1,000 or higher.

Port Richmond earns first place on 312 complaints over 3,170 apartments, a small base for a citywide ranking. Hunts Point at 69.6 and Belmont at 66.9 rest on 1,656 and 5,688 complaints, so the Bronx figures carry more weight than the top line suggests.

How We Count Pest Complaints

Every rate here comes from our own NYC housing data, and you can reproduce the filter. We query the 311 service request dataset, dataset identifier erm2-nwe9, for agency HPD, complaint type UNSANITARY CONDITION and descriptor PESTS. That combination returned 71,687 complaints for the 12 months from September 22, 2025 to September 22, 2026, filtered on the created date. We ran it on September 26, 2026 in six borough chunks, because a citywide grouped query on this dataset times out.

The denominator is apartments, not buildings. We take the apartment count from MapPLUTO, pulled live on September 26, 2026, for every tax lot holding three or more apartments, which totals 2,868,881 apartments across 172,485 lots, and we assign complaints to neighborhoods by the ZIP codes each area covers. Building age and size come from our own location file, generated on September 22, 2026 for 128 areas.

Two limits shape everything below. The PESTS descriptor lumps roaches in with mice, bed bugs and other insects, so no 311 filter isolates cockroaches, and rodent sightings reported to the health department land in a different complaint type, which is why mouse and rat complaints for a building need their own lookup. A complaint also records a tenant picking up the phone, so an area where nobody calls reads clean whatever sits behind the baseboards.

Neighborhoods With the Most Pest Complaints

Ten footprints lead the list. Five sit in the Bronx, two in Brooklyn and two on the Staten Island north shore, with Hamilton Heights the only Manhattan entry. Queens places nothing in the top twenty.

Seven of those ten names also appear in the top ten by all HPD housing complaints per 1,000 apartments, and eight of them sit in our top twelve by HPD violations per 100 apartments. Three measures built on three different numerators agree far more than they differ, so read the ordering above as confirmation rather than as news. The seasonality and the per-building concentration further down are where pest records say something the other two measures cannot.

The movement inside that agreement is small. Highbridge leads the all-complaint ranking and comes fifth on pests. Port Richmond already ranked thirteenth of 106 there at 631.2 complaints per 1,000 and East Flatbush fifteenth at 613.7, so neither arrived from the bottom of the list. St. George made the one long climb, from twenty-ninth at 439.5 to ninth, while University Heights, Fordham and Flatbush dropped out of the top ten.

The median footprint runs 18.9 pest complaints per 1,000 apartments, and 44 of the 106 we measure sit above the citywide 25.0. At the bottom, the Financial District and Battery Park City record 1.6 and Bayside 3.4. Hunts Point, the highest of the large Bronx areas, runs 43 times the Financial District rate.

Borough Pest Complaint Rates

The Bronx leads on rate and on raw count at the same time, which is unusual. Staten Island sitting second comes from a small measured universe of 38,114 apartments in lots with three or more units, so a few hundred complaints move it a long way.

Manhattan holds the most apartments of any borough and the lowest pest rate, at roughly a third of the Bronx figure.

Pest Complaints Month by Month

We ran the same pest filter monthly across 36 whole months, September 1, 2023 to September 1, 2026, again on the created date, so each calendar month appears exactly three times. That gives 194,789 complaints over 1,096 days, an average of 177.7 a day. The index column below sets that average at 100, and the per-day column matters because February is three days shorter than March.

August runs 1.46 times March, the calendar high against the calendar low. June through October carries 47.6% of the year's pest complaints in 41.9% of its days, at 202.2 a day against 156.6 from December through March. Winter therefore runs 23% below summer, and it never empties the queue.

The three-year trend runs the other way. Pest complaints totaled 63,234 in the 12 months to August 2024, 60,946 to August 2025 and 70,609 to August 2026, up 15.9% on the prior year. August 2026 recorded 7,920 complaints, the highest single month in the series and 36.5% above August 2025.

The seasonal swing also tells you something the ranking does not. In the 21 ZIP codes covering our twelve highest-rate neighborhoods, summer runs 1.24 times winter, and February still carries 48.8 complaints a day against August's 68.1, which is 28% below the peak. In the 24 ZIP codes covering the twelve lowest-rate neighborhoods the same ratio is 1.59, February runs 3.5 a day against August's 6.4, and August reaches 1.85 times the December floor. Pest complaints remain substantial in the high-rate ZIP group through winter, while the lower-rate group has a larger seasonal drop.

Viewing Season and Complaint Timing

View an apartment in July or August and you are looking at it during the pest peak, which works in your favor. A building with a problem is more likely to be showing it then. A February or March viewing sits at the calendar floor, where a clean kitchen tells you less than the building's record does.

The record is also the part a landlord cannot stage. Before re-letting a vacant unit, Housing Maintenance Code section 27-2017.5 requires the owner to remediate visible mold and pest infestations along with the underlying defects, and to certify that in writing to you on a department form. Ask for that certification, then check whether the address has a pest complaint history behind it.

Timing matters on the other side too. Cockroaches, mice or rats in any room of an apartment in a multiple dwelling are an immediately hazardous violation under section 27-2017.4, giving the owner 21 days from service to correct, with up to 14 more if HPD grants a postponement inside that window. HPD has 30 days from your complaint to inspect and 10 more to serve any notice of violation. Between October 1 and May 31 the department may extend that inspection window if its resources require, which is the one calendar rule written into the code, so a pest complaint made in winter can take longer to reach an inspector. For cockroach-specific steps, see how to report a roach infestation.

Building Age and Building Size

Building age tracks the pest rate loosely at neighborhood level. Across the 106 footprints, the pest rate correlates with the pre-war share of apartments at plus 0.20, with the walk-up share at plus 0.30 and with median year built at plus 0.21, on tie-corrected rank correlations where 1.0 would be a perfect match. Apartments per building runs at minus 0.21.

Sort the footprints into quartiles and a weak pattern appears. The most pre-war quarter pools at 30.2 pest complaints per 1,000 apartments against 19.4 in the least pre-war quarter. By walk-up share the gap widens: the quarter with the fewest walk-ups, under 21% of apartments, pools at 11.1 against 25.6 in the quarter that is mostly walk-up.

The two ends of the construction date invert the order you would expect. The West Village holds the oldest median year built we measure, 1889, with 75.3% pre-war apartments and a pest rate of 10.3. Far Rockaway and Bayswater hold the newest, 2002, with 11.1% pre-war and a rate of 40.3. Park Slope is 77.8% pre-war and records 11.4.

Size behaves oddly too. The middle quartile by apartments per building, 17.6 to 32.9 apartments each, pools at 36.5 per 1,000, the highest of the four, while the top quartile, starting at 34.9 apartments per building, pools at 13.3. Co-op City averages 928.4 apartments per building and records 7.1, and the Financial District and Battery Park City average 157.5 and record 1.6. The largest buildings in the city sit at the bottom of the pest ranking.

Split the city by borough and the age signal sharpens. Within the Bronx the pre-war share correlates with the pest rate at plus 0.63 across 19 footprints, and within Manhattan at plus 0.60 across 24. Hamilton Heights and Sugar Hill is 88.1% pre-war and records 53.7 per 1,000, while East Midtown and Turtle Bay is 32.1% pre-war and records 3.5. Brooklyn breaks the pattern at minus 0.03: Bensonhurst is 82.5% pre-war with a rate of 17.6, and Sunset Park's west side is 80.9% pre-war with 12.6.

The figure that tracks the pest rate closest is the neighborhood's overall HPD violation rate, at plus 0.84, though the two measures share content rather than standing apart: HPD writes pest violations under section 27-2017.4 into that same violation count. Tremont shows what the rest of the relationship is doing. Its median year built is 1994 and 44.6% of its apartments are pre-war, both on the newer side for the Bronx, and it still carries the fourth highest pest rate in the city at 66.2. That association cannot isolate maintenance as a cause because pest violations are included in the overall violation measure.

Complaint Concentration by Building

Of those 71,687 complaints, the 71,518 that carry a tax lot identifier came from 19,354 distinct buildings, an average of 3.7 each. The distribution inside that average is what separates a building problem from a housekeeping one.

Of buildings with a recorded pest complaint, those with one all year make up 39.0% and account for 10.6% of the complaints. Buildings with ten or more complaints make up 7.2% of buildings with a recorded pest complaint and account for 37.2%. Roughly one in fourteen buildings with a recorded pest complaint generates more than a third of the linked complaints, and 285 complaints came from the single worst address in the file.

If your building sits in that tail, your own kitchen is not the variable. The owner's duty under section 27-2017.1 is to keep the premises free from pests and to fix the underlying defect, and each complaint a neighbor files starts its own 30-day inspection window. Ask the owner which pest control provider treated the building and what follow-up work is scheduled. Tenants who file together get further: Housing Court Answers describes a group HP action as one case covering each apartment and the public areas, which a judge takes more seriously than a single complaint. Your rights when an apartment has roaches run through that route rather than through the exterminator's invoice.

Limits of a Neighborhood Rate

Neighborhood footprints here follow ZIP codes, and neighboring areas share them. Flatbush and East Flatbush both draw on 11210 and 11226, so the Flatbush group appears twice in the ranking at almost the same rate, 52.0 for each. Read the top ten as a region rather than a league table.

Small areas move the most. Port Richmond's 98.4 rests on 312 complaints over 3,170 apartments, so twelve calls from one address would move its rate by nearly four points. The Bronx entries, built on thousands of complaints across tens of thousands of apartments, are steadier.

None of these averages describes an address. Two buildings on one block can sit on opposite sides of every number above. Put the address into the free building lookup and you get that building's own 311 complaints, HPD violations by class and status, registration and legal actions, DOB violations, complaints and permits, executed evictions, rodent inspections, bed bug reports and rent stabilization status. No login, and no charge.

Frequently Asked Questions

These are the questions people search alongside the head term, answered on the same window and the same measure as the tables.

Which NYC borough has the most pest complaints?

The Bronx leads on both measures. It recorded 23,125 HPD pest complaints in the 12 months to September 22, 2026, more than any other borough, and 45.5 per 1,000 apartments against a citywide 25.0. Staten Island comes second on rate at 41.8, though its measured universe is only 38,114 apartments. Manhattan sits lowest at 16.4 per 1,000.

When do NYC pest complaints peak?

In this complaint series, the peak is in late summer. Across 36 months to August 2026, August averaged 216.0 pest complaints a day citywide and March 148.4, a ratio of 1.46. June through October carried 47.6% of the year's complaints in 41.9% of its days. December through March runs 23% below the summer rate rather than going quiet.

Do older buildings have more pest complaints?

Somewhat, and borough averages hide the effect. Across 106 neighborhood footprints the pre-war share of apartments correlates with the pest rate at plus 0.20. Inside the Bronx that rises to plus 0.63 and inside Manhattan to plus 0.60, while Brooklyn shows nothing at minus 0.03. The West Village, with the oldest median year built in our file at 1889, records 10.3 per 1,000 against a citywide 25.0.

Do pest complaints occur in every type of NYC building?

Records cannot answer that, because they count complaints rather than insects. The concentration is the useful part: 19,354 buildings drew a pest complaint in the year, and 7.2% of those produced 37.2% of the complaints. High-end elevator stock records the lowest rates in the city, with the Financial District and Battery Park City at 1.6 per 1,000 apartments.

How do I check pest complaints for a specific NYC address?

Look up the address rather than the neighborhood. Read two things: how many pest complaints the building drew in the last 12 months, and whether the same condition keeps coming back. One complaint in a year is what 39.0% of buildings with a recorded pest complaint show. Ten or more puts the building among the 7.2% that generated 37.2% of linked pest complaints.

Does a high-complaint neighborhood mean the apartment I am viewing has pests?

No. Port Richmond's rate of 98.4 per 1,000 apartments rests on 312 complaints spread across a small area, and it does not describe each building in that area. A neighborhood figure tells you how hard to look and which questions to ask the managing agent. The building's own complaint and violation record answers the question you care about.