Meadowbrook was once part of the farming district of Loganlea, worked from the 1860s by the Armstrong family on a property they named Riverdale, where they grew cotton, sugar, corn, millet and maize, and raised poultry, pigs and dairy cattle. Their produce was railed to the Kingston butter factory or to Brisbane's markets. The suburb wasn't formally separated and named until 1991, though the first housing estate had already been marketed (somewhat confusingly, under the similar name Meadowbank) from 1987. Development accelerated through the late 1980s and 1990s with the Loganlea TAFE campus opening in 1988, Logan Hospital in 1990, and Griffith University's Logan campus, which adjoins the Logan Motorway bisecting the suburb, in 1998.

Geography shapes Meadowbrook as much as this institutional growth does. The suburb's northern and eastern borders follow the Logan River and its tributary Slacks Creek, and much of the local golf course, along with Lake Elleslie at the university's entrance, sits within a defined flood zone. Flood-prone, low-lying ground like this holds moisture in the soil for far longer after rain than higher ground, which is exactly the condition subterranean termites thrive in, and it means termite pressure in Meadowbrook tracks closely with a property's position relative to the river, the creek and the flood zone rather than simply its age.

For pest control purposes, that means Meadowbrook needs a genuinely site-specific approach: flood-zone and river-adjacent properties need closer, more frequent attention, while the suburb's university, hospital and TAFE buildings need the kind of commercial hygiene program a large institutional site requires.