Quick answer
Based on 2,929 bed bug complaints filed by NYC tenants between June 2025 and May 2026, Brooklyn has the most bed bug complaints of any borough (904, 31% of the city), followed by Manhattan. The single highest ZIP is 10011 (Chelsea) with 148 complaints — though 120 of those came from one building — and the densest hotspot region is the west Bronx, which holds 7 of the top 20 ZIP codes. Flatbush (11226) and Bushwick/Bed-Stuy (11221) lead Brooklyn.
New York City tenants filed 2,929 bed bug complaints against their buildings in the 12 months from June 2025 to May 2026. We mapped every one of them by borough and ZIP code, using the City’s own public housing-complaint data, to answer the question every renter googles at 2am after finding a bite: which NYC neighborhoods have the most bed bugs?
The buggiest borough: Brooklyn
Brooklyn leads the city in bed bug complaints — just ahead of Manhattan — with the Bronx and Queens close behind and Staten Island barely registering.
| Rank | Borough | Bed bug complaints | Share of NYC |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Brooklyn | 904 | 30.9% |
| 2 | Manhattan | 825 | 28.2% |
| 3 | The Bronx | 599 | 20.5% |
| 4 | Queens | 547 | 18.7% |
| 5 | Staten Island | 54 | 1.8% |
The 20 biggest bed bug ZIP codes in NYC
Zoom in and the borough table gets more interesting. The single highest ZIP is 10011 (Chelsea) — but with an asterisk: 120 of its 148 complaints came from one building (more on that below). Strip out single-building spikes and the real story is a dense band of hotspots across Flatbush, Bushwick/Bed-Stuy, and the west Bronx — Morrisania, Morris Heights, Highbridge and the Fordham corridor fill 7 of the top 20 ZIPs. Queens, despite 547 complaints borough-wide, doesn’t place a single ZIP in the top 20 — its complaints are spread thin (its highest, Jackson Heights’ 11372 with 36, lands at #21).
| Rank | Neighborhood | ZIP | Complaints |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Chelsea (Manhattan)* | 10011 | 148 |
| 2 | Flatbush / East Flatbush (Brooklyn) | 11226 | 94 |
| 3 | Bushwick / Bed-Stuy (Brooklyn) | 11221 | 83 |
| 4 | Morrisania / Claremont (Bronx) | 10456 | 76 |
| 5 | Morris Heights / University Heights (Bronx) | 10453 | 57 |
| 6 | Highbridge / Concourse (Bronx) | 10452 | 55 |
| 7 | Fordham / Bedford Park / Belmont (Bronx) | 10458 | 54 |
| 8 | Fordham / Kingsbridge Heights (Bronx) | 10468 | 52 |
| 9 | Kensington / Ditmas Park (Brooklyn) | 11218 | 51 |
| 10 | Norwood / Allerton (Bronx) | 10467 | 50 |
| 11 | Brighton Beach / Sheepshead Bay (Brooklyn) | 11235 | 47 |
| 12 | Lower East Side / Chinatown (Manhattan) | 10002 | 46 |
| 13 | Upper West Side / Manhattan Valley (Manhattan) | 10025 | 45 |
| 14 | Midwood (Brooklyn) | 11230 | 43 |
| 15 | Hamilton Heights / Sugar Hill (Manhattan) | 10031 | 40 |
| 16 | North Harlem / East Harlem (Manhattan) | 10037 | 40 |
| 17 | Crown Heights / Prospect Lefferts Gardens (Brooklyn) | 11225 | 39 |
| 18 | Tremont / Mount Eden (Bronx) | 10457 | 38 |
| 19 | East New York (Brooklyn) | 11207 | 38 |
| 20 | Bedford-Stuyvesant (Brooklyn) | 11216 | 37 |
* The Chelsea asterisk: 120 of ZIP 10011’s 148 complaints were filed against a single building. That’s a genuine finding — one heavily-infested building can generate more complaints than an entire neighborhood — but it means 10011’s #1 spot reflects one address, not a Chelsea-wide problem. The most representative hotspot is Flatbush’s 11226, where 94 complaints were spread across 59 different buildings.
Why these neighborhoods?
Bed bugs don’t care about income or cleanliness — they travel with people. The hotspots share a recipe:
- Dense, older multi-family rentals. Pre-war apartment blocks across Flatbush, Bushwick and the west Bronx share walls, floors, and pipe chases that let bed bugs move between units — which is why one untreated apartment re-seeds a whole line of the building.
- High renter density. This dataset counts tenant complaints to HPD, so heavily rental neighborhoods naturally dominate — and they’re also exactly where building-to-building spread is fastest.
- Transit and turnover. High-churn rental corridors with frequent move-ins and move-outs (and the second-hand furniture that comes with them) give bed bugs constant new rides.
- Single-building clusters. As Chelsea’s 10011 shows, one building with a chronic, untreated infestation can out-complain entire neighborhoods. Bed bug problems compound fast when they’re not dealt with building-wide.
Methodology & honest caveat
We pulled every problem record with a problem code of BED BUGS (major category Unsanitary Condition, 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 corresponds to one distinct tenant complaint (we verified there were no duplicate-flagged records and complaint IDs were 1:1 with problem records). Data pulled June 10, 2026. Note: NYC’s general 311 dataset does not carry a bed bug complaint type — bed bug reports in rental housing route to HPD, which is why this is the right dataset.
Important: this ranks neighborhoods by reported bed bug activity in rental housing, not by verified infestation rates — those aren’t the same thing. A complaint count reflects how many tenants reported bed bugs to the City and how willing they are to escalate past their landlord; it excludes owner-occupied homes, hotels, and the many infestations handled privately without an HPD complaint. Single buildings can also dominate a ZIP (see the Chelsea asterisk). Read this as a map of where NYC renters are reporting bed bugs — a strong, current signal, but a proxy. The City’s Bedbug Reporting dataset (landlords’ annual infestation filings under Local Law 69) is the complementary, owner-reported view.
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-bed-bug-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), bed bug complaints, June 2025–May 2026. https://expertexterminating.com/guides/nyc-bed-bug-hotspot-neighborhoods/
Embed the chart (copy-paste — it links back to the full data):
<a href="https://expertexterminating.com/guides/nyc-bed-bug-hotspot-neighborhoods/">
<img src="https://expertexterminating.com/images/nyc-bed-bug-boroughs-2026.svg"
alt="NYC bed bug 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 confirmation, containment and professional treatment — not panic-spraying:
- Confirm before you treat. Bites alone aren’t proof. Check mattress seams, box-spring corners and bed-frame joints for live bugs, shed skins and the tell-tale rust-coloured spots.
- Don’t DIY-spray. Store-bought foggers and sprays scatter bed bugs deeper into walls and into your neighbours’ units, making professional treatment slower and dearer.
- Report it in writing. If you rent, NYC landlords are generally responsible for eradicating bed bugs — and your building’s history must be disclosed annually. Know your rights under NYC’s bed bug disclosure law.
- Treat the unit properly — and check the neighbours. Because bed bugs move between connected apartments, lasting results need whole-unit treatment and inspection of adjacent units. Expert Exterminating provides bed bug treatment — heat and chemical, with the documentation tenants, landlords and co-op boards need — across all five boroughs.
Whether you’re in Flatbush, Fordham, Bushwick or anywhere on this map, bed bugs only ever get worse on their own — but a confirmed, building-aware treatment plan clears them.