# Rat in the toilet!



## slacker_mom (Mar 30, 2005)

Have you ever had a rat in your toilet?
If you've experienced this, what did you do?
Did the rat go away, or come back?

I have had this random uneasy feeling this week about the possibility of rats in toilets, so I have been making a point of checking before sitting; and then yesterday - there he was - brown, looked almost a foot long, without the tail! What a shocker! He looked back up at me, and I bolted, slamming the toilet seat lid and door behind me.









Fortunately, it was not at my home; it's my MIL's condo that we are helping her rent, and the tenant is supposed to move in next week.

The building management company sent an exterminator out this morning, and there was no rat when he got there. Now what? He thinks there may be faulty plumbing, and that we might want to remove the toilet and make sure everything is as it should be. He said that as long as he's been in the business, he's only had one other call about a rat in a toilet - about 5 years ago, in the neighborhood I live in.









My mother said we had a rat in our toilet when I was a kid, that we would occasionally hear splashing in the toilet, and then once my father actually saw him in there. I have no memory of this, but perhaps that explains my unease...


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## momto l&a (Jul 31, 2002)

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I'd flush the toilet with the lid closed.

Though I have heard about rats in toilets I have never had one thankfully.

I cant imagine ever experincing that nor would I ever be able to sit comfortably again on a porcilin seat.


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## srain (Nov 26, 2001)

OMG, I had nightmares about that after an X-Files episode, but didn't know it actually happened. I don't know what to tell you, but if the plumber's right, it's fairly easy to replace a toilet if that would solve the problem. (Though honestly, I don't know why it would.)


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## EmsMom (Dec 13, 2001)

OMG, this happened to me years ago when I was in college. I went to the bathroom in the night and did NOT turn on the light!!! I was just sitting down when I heard a splashing. I thought it was my kitten drowning so I turned on the light to rescue it and it was this HUGE rat with his keester stuck in the drain hole.







: HORRIBLE!!!!!!!! I to this day 20 years later NEVER go to the bathroom in the dark!!! REALLY!!!







When it happened we called the super and at first he just thought we were stoned!







: He humored us by coming to look and there it was -- a big ugly thing stuck in the toilet! He used some giant pole with a clamp at the end to haul it out of there.

Quote:

He thinks there may be faulty plumbing
Well, gee, that seems to be a bit of an understatement!


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## lilyka (Nov 20, 2001)

Actually this isn't uncommon. We had a problem about 10 years ago in our neighborhood (problem, what an understatement, my friend woke up to her 3 yo ds screaming bloody murder. there were 3 rats in his bed biting him all over. yeah he had to get counseling.) They were coming up through the old bathrooms in basements (some of them around 75+ years old - bad plumbing? certainly not up to code) and thropugh the basement floor drainswithout grates. the grateless drains were an easy fix. attatch a grate. for the toilets most people just poured cement in and let it harden. (we are talking about toilets in the middle of the basment. not part of a lovely little 2nd bathroom) It made them a pain in the butt to remove when we moved in but it did take care of the rat problem quickly. we pulled out the toilets and put a cap over the plumbing. none of the newer parts of town had this problem. So I would think if it is fairly new construction there is some sort of plumbing malfunction but I think it would be at the main sewage entrance and not your toilet.


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## mamadonna (Sep 22, 2004)

This happened to my family once. It was after I had moved out and gone away to college, but I remember the story.

One of our bathrooms always smelled terrible and no one could figure out where the awful smell was coming from. They thought for a while that it was the stink pipe outside the window, but it wasn't that. Well, long story short, one day someone opened the door just in time to see the rat jump into the toilet bowl and disappear. Eeeuw!

Apparently the rat lived in the septic tank and would come up the toilet to explore or whatever it is that rats do. Luckily the door to that bathroom was always kept closed because it smelled so bad, so he was always confined to that room.

If I remember correctly, traps were set, the rat was caught, and that was it.


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## GoodEats (Mar 14, 2005)

Okay, well, now I have the willies that may never go away. I'm calling a friend who just moved out of town (to the country outside of town, that is) and had a rat-infested chicken coop issue. Blech. Shudder.


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## ledzepplon (Jun 28, 2004)

This happened to a friend of mine who lives in Alameda, CA. It's an island in the Bay Area, and supposedly the rats can come up through the sewer because the water table is so high. They were told that it's fairly common in that area. (They did live an a house built in the 1920s, so it may have had to do with old plumbing, too.)

The worst part for them was that the rat hopped out of the toilet and into the house!! THey had to empty out the master bedroom and finally they found the rat hidden in a box and got it out of there. Ick!!!!!


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## Rebecca (Dec 4, 2002)

OMG, I always thought that was a myth! I really didnt' think rats could swim UP a sewer pipe without drowning. So can alligators do that too??


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## mirpnmama (Sep 27, 2004)

OMG!! i have never even heard of such a thing!! we did have a frog in our toilet when i was a kid and since i am TERRIFIED of frogs that was definitly NOT fun!!!


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## countrymom (Aug 27, 2002)

UGH!! Why did I have to read this thread?! Ekkkkkkk......I am shivering w/ goosebumps---rats terrify me--more than spiders. I have luckily only seen rats 2x, both late at night when I lived in Boston & was walking home late thru downtown crossing-----They scare me--and the idea of one in a toilet is so creepy to me---I'd flush it over & over---A mouse I can deal with--but a rat!!! No WAY.

So comes up into the toilet via it's home in the sewer--or someone, Mamadona, said septic tank??? We have a septic tank & when I think of rats , I think of city & sewers......not a septic tank out in the country.....I am going to have scary dreams tonight--

What on earth can you do to prevent this? There has to be a break in the pipe somewhere right....and that's where they get in?? so underground--a hole in the pipe--which means sewage would be seeping out too--where the rat sneaks in.....

In my Feng Shui book it stresses keeping toilet seats down for Feng Shui reasons--but now I have a really strong reason--to keep anything that may come up--out!!!


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