There Was a Rat in My Toilet, Says Neighbor

Last night, a neighbor heard a noise coming from his first floor bathroom. When he lifted the lid on the toilet, he discovered a live rat.

“We have never had rats in our home (to the best of our knowledge) and certainly never had an animal visit us via toilet,” wrote his wife. “I was wondering if others in the neighborhood have had any such incidents in recent days and specifically are curious whether this could have been storm related.”

Does anyone else have similar experiences to report?

The storms have certainly affected rats, but incidents like this happen more often than we’d like to think. Here’s a story of a toilet rat from the Bronx in 2010. Here’s a story from Prospect Heights in 2011. And now, ladies and gentleman, Ditmas Park in 2012. On top of that, it happens much, much more than reported in the press.

Seattle seems to have a bit of recurring problem with rats in toilets. Here’s their health department’s explanation for what’s usually happening:

Rats get up into toilets by following the scent of food washed down drains from your home to the sewer system. While searching for food they can climb your home’s stand pipe (the pipe that connects your home’s drainage to the sewer). Unable to reach the kitchen sink they can come up into the toilet bowl.

Eddie Marco from Brooklyn Pest Control told Gothamist he’s dealt with it many times. His solution? If you’re lucky and the toilet lid is down, simply flush. Squirting some liquid soap in the toilet “degreases the oils on the rat’s fur so it can not stay afloat in the water.” The more you know!

If the lid is up, the rat can get out. Deal with it like you would any similar pest — catch it yourself or, better yet, call pest control. If you’re extremely unlucky and you find out once you’re already using the toilet, then I’m so, so sorry. Let us never speak of this again. Let’s all adopt big cats.

Do you have experience with this? Have you heard of anything like it?

Photo: laughingtime.com