Quick answer
New York City tenants filed 30,262 cockroach complaints against their buildings between June 2025 and May 2026 — making roaches by far the most-reported household pest in the city, more than ten times bed bug complaints. The Bronx is NYC's roach capital with 9,908 complaints (32.7% of the city), ahead of Brooklyn, and holds 10 of the 20 worst ZIP codes. The single highest ZIP, though, is Flatbush (11226) in Brooklyn with 1,143 complaints (NYC Open Data, HPD).
New York City tenants filed 30,262 cockroach complaints against their buildings in the 12 months from June 2025 to May 2026 — more than ten times the number of bed bug complaints over the same period, making the roach the city’s most-reported household pest. We mapped every one of them by borough and ZIP code, using the City’s own public housing-complaint data, to answer a question every New Yorker has muttered at a kitchen light switch: which neighborhoods have the worst roach problem?
The roach capital: the Bronx
Cockroaches break the usual NYC pest pattern. Rats and bed bugs both peak in Brooklyn — but roaches put the Bronx on top, and it isn’t close in density: the borough files nearly a third of all the city’s roach complaints and dominates the worst-ZIP list.
| Rank | Borough | Roach complaints | Share of NYC |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | The Bronx | 9,908 | 32.7% |
| 2 | Brooklyn | 8,926 | 29.5% |
| 3 | Manhattan | 5,940 | 19.6% |
| 4 | Queens | 4,694 | 15.5% |
| 5 | Staten Island | 794 | 2.6% |
The 20 biggest roach ZIP codes in NYC
Zoom into ZIP codes and the Bronx’s grip tightens: it holds 10 of the top 20, including a near-unbroken run from rank 2 to rank 9 across Tremont, Morris Heights, Fordham, Highbridge and Norwood. The single worst ZIP, though, is in Brooklyn — Flatbush (11226) with 1,143 complaints, the same dense rental neighborhood that tops the bed bug list. Manhattan’s roach problem concentrates uptown, in Hamilton Heights, Washington Heights and East Harlem.
| Rank | Neighborhood | ZIP | Complaints |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Flatbush / East Flatbush (Brooklyn) | 11226 | 1,143 |
| 2 | Tremont / Belmont (Bronx) | 10457 | 978 |
| 3 | Morris Heights / University Heights (Bronx) | 10453 | 850 |
| 4 | Fordham / Belmont (Bronx) | 10458 | 842 |
| 5 | Highbridge / Concourse (Bronx) | 10452 | 821 |
| 6 | Norwood / Williamsbridge (Bronx) | 10467 | 781 |
| 7 | Morrisania / Claremont (Bronx) | 10456 | 684 |
| 8 | West Farms / East Tremont (Bronx) | 10460 | 630 |
| 9 | Kingsbridge Heights / Fordham (Bronx) | 10468 | 618 |
| 10 | East New York (Brooklyn) | 11207 | 601 |
| 11 | Longwood / Hunts Point (Bronx) | 10459 | 571 |
| 12 | Brownsville (Brooklyn) | 11212 | 503 |
| 13 | Hamilton Heights / West Harlem (Manhattan) | 10031 | 501 |
| 14 | Washington Heights (Manhattan) | 10032 | 441 |
| 15 | Mott Haven / Concourse (Bronx) | 10451 | 427 |
| 16 | Crown Heights / Prospect Lefferts Gardens (Brooklyn) | 11225 | 426 |
| 17 | Bedford-Stuyvesant / Ocean Hill (Brooklyn) | 11233 | 416 |
| 18 | Washington Heights / Inwood (Manhattan) | 10040 | 408 |
| 19 | Crown Heights (Brooklyn) | 11213 | 406 |
| 20 | East Harlem (Manhattan) | 10029 | 386 |
The single worst building: one apartment building in Astoria, Queens (ZIP 11106) generated 133 roach complaints on its own over the year — more than some entire ZIP codes — a reminder that a chronic, untreated infestation in one building can dwarf a whole neighborhood. Queens ranks only fourth borough-wide, but it owns the city’s single worst address.
Why these neighborhoods?
Cockroaches aren’t a cleanliness verdict — they’re a building-infrastructure story. The hotspots share a recipe:
- Dense, older multi-family rentals. Pre-war buildings across the west Bronx and Flatbush share plumbing chases, heating risers and wall voids that let German roaches travel between units — so one untreated apartment re-seeds the whole line.
- Warmth and moisture. Roaches need water more than food. Aging plumbing, steam heat and damp basements give them exactly the humid harborage they need to breed year-round indoors, even through a NYC winter.
- High renter density. This dataset counts tenant complaints to HPD, so heavily-rental neighborhoods naturally dominate — and they’re also where building-wide spread is fastest.
- Shared refuse and connected kitchens. Compactor rooms, shared trash storage and stacked kitchen lines give roaches food and a highway between apartments.
Methodology & honest caveat
We pulled every problem record with a problem code of ROACHES (minor category Pests) from the NYC Housing Maintenance Code Complaints and Problems dataset (HPD, via NYC Open Data), received June 1, 2025 – May 31, 2026, then aggregated by borough and by ZIP code. Each record is one distinct tenant-filed problem. Data pulled June 17, 2026.
Important: this ranks neighborhoods by reported roach activity in rental housing, not by verified infestation rates — those aren’t the same thing. A complaint count reflects how many tenants reported roaches to the City and how willing they are to escalate past their landlord; it excludes owner-occupied homes, co-ops, and the many infestations handled privately. Single buildings can also dominate a ZIP (see the Astoria building above). Read this as a map of where NYC renters are reporting roaches — a strong, current signal, but a proxy.
Use this data (free to cite, embed or download)
Journalists, researchers and bloggers are welcome to use this — it’s public data, openly presented. A link back is appreciated.
Download the full dataset (CSV): nyc-roach-complaints-2026.csv — boroughs + top-20 ZIPs.
Cite it as:
Expert Exterminating analysis of NYC Housing Maintenance Code Complaints and Problems (HPD, NYC Open Data), cockroach complaints, June 2025–May 2026. https://expertexterminating.com/guides/nyc-roach-complaints-neighborhoods/
Embed the chart (copy-paste — it links back to the full data):
<a href="https://expertexterminating.com/guides/nyc-roach-complaints-neighborhoods/">
<img src="https://expertexterminating.com/images/nyc-roach-boroughs-2026.svg"
alt="NYC cockroach complaints by borough, 2025–2026 — data by Expert Exterminating" width="700" style="max-width:100%;height:auto" />
</a>Living in a hotspot? Here’s what works
If your block is on this list, the fix is baiting, exclusion and building-wide treatment — not panic-bombing:
- Skip the fogger. Store-bought “bug bombs” scatter German roaches deeper into wall voids and almost never reach the harborage where they breed — they make professional treatment slower and dearer.
- Gel bait beats spray. Targeted gel baits placed at harborage points are the proven knockdown for German roaches; broadcast sprays mostly kill the few you can already see.
- Seal them out. Roaches enter through gaps around pipes, under cabinets and along baseboards. Exclusion — sealing those voids — is what stops re-infestation from neighboring units.
- Treat the whole line, and report it. Because roaches move between connected apartments, lasting results need whole-unit treatment plus the adjacent units. In NYC rentals, landlords are generally responsible for eradication — report it in writing. Expert Exterminating provides cockroach control — gel baiting, exclusion and the documentation tenants, landlords and co-op boards need — across all five boroughs.
Whether you’re in Flatbush, Fordham, Tremont or anywhere on this map, roaches only multiply when they’re left alone — but a baited, building-aware treatment plan clears them for good.