Seventy-year-old kitchens in a 1950s city
Census estimates count about 6,100 Monterey Park homes built between 1950 and 1959, roughly 27% of the city's housing, and the median home dates to 1963. Detached single-family houses make up most of the city's housing, about 12,900 of them.
In houses of that age, the openings where water and gas lines pass through cabinets and walls have often been widened by decades of repairs and remodels. German cockroaches can squeeze into a crack about 1/16 inch wide, so those gaps around the sink, the water heater and the range give them warm shelter right next to food and water. We look there first and point out which openings to seal once the population is under control.
Sources: [1][6]
Fifty-unit buildings need a building plan
Monterey Park is split almost evenly between owners and renters, with about 10,000 rented homes. Roughly 5,300 housing units sit in buildings of five or more apartments, and about 1,500 of those are in buildings of 50 units or more.
In a large building, German cockroaches travel along plumbing stacks, trash rooms and shared utility spaces, so treating a single apartment rarely ends the problem. We work with the manager or homeowners' association to inspect connected units, the trash and utility areas and the ground floor, then follow up with monitors so the building has a record of where activity remains.
Sources: [1][6]
What the Garvey Avenue and Lincoln Avenue closures show
Between May and late July 2024, LA County Environmental Health closed four Monterey Park food businesses for vermin infestation, as tallied by the Colorado Boulevard newspaper from county records: two at addresses on Garvey Ave and two on N. Lincoln Ave. The two on Garvey reopened within four days, one on Lincoln stayed closed for three weeks, and the list gave no reopening date for the other. In April 2025, a news report listed vermin infestation among the violations that led county inspectors to order a restaurant on S. Garfield Ave to stop operating.
The county's closure lists say vermin without naming the pest, so they cannot be read as cockroach cases. For a kitchen, the lesson is that a closure can cost days or weeks of business. That is why our Monterey Park restaurant clients get scheduled service rather than a one-off: we come in outside trading hours, pay as much attention to storerooms stacked with sacks and cartons as to the kitchen, keep to products labeled for use where food is handled, and leave a dated report after each visit.
Sources: [2][3][4]
Who to call besides an exterminator
LA County Environmental Health inspects Monterey Park restaurants and looks into rental-housing complaints, since the city does not run its own health department. Residents sometimes call the San Gabriel Valley Mosquito and Vector Control District first; it covers Monterey Park for mosquitoes, but its own website says roach problems belong with a private pest control company.
About 42% of Monterey Park residents age 5 and older speak Chinese at home, according to census estimates. Our field team works in English and Spanish, prep steps are left on paper so other family members can follow them, and PesPro publishes Chinese-language pages on its website.
Sources: [4][5][1]
