Hear from Our Customers
Most Bensonhurst homeowners don’t find out they have termites until something gives a soft floor, a door that won’t close right, or a contractor pulling back drywall during a renovation. By that point, the colony has usually been active for years. Eastern Subterranean Termites don’t announce themselves. They work quietly through the wood framing, sill plates, and floor joists hidden behind the brick facades that line every block from Bay Ridge Parkway to 86th Street.
What makes Bensonhurst specifically vulnerable isn’t just the age of the housing stock it’s the combination of that age and where the neighborhood sits. This part of southwestern Brooklyn was originally developed as a seaside community along Gravesend Bay, and the soil here holds moisture the way inland neighborhoods like Midwood or Borough Park simply don’t. Eastern Subterranean Termites need moisture to survive. They nest underground, travel through damp soil, and enter your home through foundation gaps and wood-to-soil contact points that are common in homes built between 1910 and 1945 which describes most of Bensonhurst.
Getting ahead of this means knowing what’s actually there. A professional termite inspection tells you whether you have an active infestation, where the entry points are, and what treatment approach makes sense for your specific home. It also gives you the documentation you need if you’re buying, selling, or refinancing lenders requiring WDO reports don’t wait for convenient timing.
We’ve been headquartered in Brooklyn since 1971 not a franchise, not a regional chain, a family business started by Richard Kourbage Sr. and still run by his sons Richard Jr. and Charles today. That’s more than 50 years of treating homes in this borough, including the attached row houses and two-family homes that make up most of Bensonhurst’s residential streets. Our staff brings over 100 years of combined pest control experience to every job a number no local competitor comes close to matching.
When you call us, you’re reaching a Brooklyn-based team that knows the 11214 and 11204 ZIP codes, understands the construction patterns of homes near New Utrecht Avenue and 18th Avenue in Bensonhurst, and has been doing this work in communities like yours long enough to know what actually works. We’ve been BBB-accredited since 1989 with an A+ rating, and every material we apply is registered with the NYS Department of Environmental Conservation. That’s not a marketing line it’s what licensed, accountable pest control looks like.
It starts with an inspection. One of our technicians comes to your Bensonhurst property, examines the foundation, basement, crawl spaces, and any wood-to-soil contact points the exact areas where Eastern Subterranean Termites enter homes like yours. We’re looking for mud tubes along foundation walls, hollow-sounding wood, frass near baseboards, and any signs of swarmer activity. In homes built in the early 1900s, which is most of Bensonhurst, there are specific structural patterns that experienced inspectors know to check that a newer technician might miss entirely.
Once the inspection is complete, you get a clear picture of what’s there and what needs to happen. If treatment is needed, we use targeted methods based on the severity and location of the infestation including termite baiting systems that work at the colony level, not just the surface. Bait stations are installed around the perimeter of your property, attracting foraging workers who carry the active ingredient back underground and into the colony itself. This is a fundamentally different approach than surface-only treatments, and it matters when a colony has been established for years beneath a Bensonhurst foundation.
Because Bensonhurst is a neighborhood of attached homes, we also handle the notification requirements that NYC mandates before treatment in connected buildings. You won’t have to navigate that paperwork alone. After treatment, monitoring and follow-up are built into the process termite control isn’t a one-visit fix, and any company that tells you otherwise isn’t being straight with you.
Ready to get started?
Our termite services cover the full range of what Bensonhurst property owners actually need. That includes termite identification and inspection, subterranean termite eradication, termite baiting system installation and monitoring, WDO inspections for real estate transactions, and treatment for related wood-destroying organisms like carpenter ants and powder post beetles. If you’re managing a multi-unit building along 86th Street or a commercial property on 18th Avenue and you’ve received a NYC Department of Health pest-related code violation, we handle that too it’s a specific service most exterminators don’t advertise, but it matters in a neighborhood with Bensonhurst’s density of attached residential and mixed-use buildings.
For homeowners in the middle of a property transaction, the WDO inspection report we provide meets the requirements for FHA and VA loan approvals. With median home sale prices in Bensonhurst sitting around $960,000, the cost of a professional inspection and treatment if needed is a straightforward investment relative to what’s at stake. Termite damage runs $800 to $3,000 for standard treatment, and structural repairs from ignored infestations can reach $10,000 or more. Most homeowner insurance policies don’t cover termite damage, which means the financial exposure is entirely yours if you wait.
We offer free estimates. Our phones are answered 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, and appointments are guaranteed within two business days with same-day inspections frequently available for urgent situations.
Termites are very much a Bensonhurst problem. The dominant species in New York City is the Eastern Subterranean Termite, and it thrives in exactly the conditions Bensonhurst offers older wood-frame construction hidden inside brick exteriors, soil that retains moisture due to the neighborhood’s proximity to Gravesend Bay, and a housing stock built primarily between 1910 and 1945 when lumber was untreated and often placed in or near direct soil contact at the foundation.
The misconception that termites are only a suburban or southern problem costs Brooklyn homeowners real money every year. Colonies can take five or more years to grow large enough to cause visible damage, meaning by the time you notice something wrong, the infestation has likely been active for a long time. If your home in the 11214 or 11204 ZIP code has never been inspected, that’s worth addressing sooner rather than later.
The most common signs in Bensonhurst row houses are mud tubes running along foundation walls or basement framing, wood that sounds hollow when you knock on it, small piles of what looks like sawdust or sand near baseboards or window sills (that’s termite frass), and winged termites called swarmers emerging from floors, walls, or foundation cracks, typically in spring when temperatures climb above 60 degrees.
In Bensonhurst’s attached brick homes, the challenge is that most of the vulnerable wood is hidden from plain sight. The brick exterior gives no indication of what’s happening to the interior framing, floor joists, or sill plates. Many homeowners only discover damage during a renovation when a wall comes down or a floor gets pulled up. If you’re seeing any of those signs or if you just haven’t had an inspection in years it’s worth having a professional take a look before the problem compounds.
In almost every case, no. Standard homeowner’s insurance policies in New York exclude termite damage because it’s considered a maintenance issue, not a sudden or accidental loss. That’s true whether you’re insured through a major carrier or a smaller policy. The logic insurers use is that termite infestations develop gradually over time and are considered preventable with proper inspection and maintenance so the financial exposure sits entirely with the homeowner.
This matters especially in Bensonhurst, where many families have owned their homes for decades and may not have thought about termite coverage as a gap in their policy. With median home values near $960,000 in this neighborhood, a significant termite infestation can result in structural repair costs of $10,000 or more none of which your insurance will cover. The practical takeaway is that prevention and early detection are the only real financial protection you have. A professional inspection costs a fraction of what remediation does once damage is extensive.
If the buyer is financing with an FHA or VA loan, yes a WDO (Wood Destroying Organism) inspection report is required before the lender will approve the mortgage. This is a federal requirement tied to those loan programs, not a local rule, but it comes up constantly in Bensonhurst’s active real estate market where buyers often use these financing options. Even in conventional sales, buyers and their agents increasingly request termite inspections as part of due diligence, particularly for older homes.
If you’re selling a property and a termite issue surfaces during the inspection, you’ll either need to remediate it before closing or negotiate a credit with the buyer both of which are easier to handle when you’ve already had your own inspection done ahead of listing. We provide the official WDO inspection documentation that lenders and real estate attorneys require, and with same-day inspections frequently available, a scheduling delay won’t hold up your transaction.
It depends on the treatment method. Liquid barrier treatments using products like Termidor are typically effective for five to ten years when properly applied. Termite baiting systems work differently the bait stations remain in place around your property’s perimeter and require annual monitoring to stay effective and to catch any new colony activity before it reaches your structure.
For Bensonhurst homes, where the combination of older construction and moisture-retentive coastal soil creates ongoing termite pressure, annual monitoring is genuinely worth it not as an upsell, but because the environmental conditions that attracted termites to your property in the first place don’t go away after treatment. A one-time treatment addresses the current infestation. Ongoing monitoring is what keeps a new colony from establishing itself in the same vulnerable areas a few years down the road. We’ll walk you through which approach makes the most sense for your specific home and situation.
For most Bensonhurst homes, standard termite treatment runs between $800 and $3,000 depending on the size of the structure, the extent of the infestation, and the treatment method used. Termite baiting system installation typically falls between $1,500 and $3,000, with annual monitoring fees of $200 to $400 after that. These are real numbers based on what treatment actually costs in this market not lowball estimates designed to get you on the phone.
The more useful way to think about cost is in comparison to what you’re protecting. In a neighborhood where the average home sells for close to $960,000, and where termite damage can reduce property value by roughly 20 percent, early treatment is straightforwardly the less expensive option. Structural repairs from a long-established infestation can easily reach $10,000 or more and as covered above, your insurance won’t cover it. We offer free estimates so you know exactly what you’re looking at before committing to anything.
Local Resources
Useful Links
Other Services we provide in Bensonhurst
