"It looked at me." Yes, rats can come out of your toilet. Here's what to do
While butt bites are unlikely, rats can swim up your sewer pipes and into your home. We talked to plumbers about how to stop them.
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Have you seen wet paw prints on your toilet seat at night? You might have rats visiting from your pipes.
"It looked at me," said the customer of Kevin J. Vander Hyde, vice president of Vander Hyde Services , a plumbing company in Michigan. "Apparently, the rat surfaced mid-flush, made eye contact, and then retreated like it forgot something in the sewer," Vander Hyde told Yahoo Local.
As with crocodiles in the New York sewer system, rats crawling from your toilet bowl may sound like an urban legend… until it happens to you. It's happened to us. While it's not among the most common toilet problems in the U.S., it does occur in homes all over the country.
Here's what to know if you've ever sat down on the toilet bowl to do your business in the middle of the night and felt something brush up against you — or whether you dread that experience like the plague.
How common are rats in toilets?
Vander Hyde called rats in the toilet "one of the rarest plumbing side quests." However, it does happen. There isn't a unified body that tracks rat incursions in toilets, so it's hard to quantify exactly how common this incidence is.
According to Kelly Russum, the owner of KC's 23 ½ Hour Plumbing & Air Conditioning in California, it is more common in cities with older plumbing infrastructure and cities with lots of rat activity. "In buildings that are old, especially if there's no backwater valve, rats in the city sewer can sometimes make their way up the line."
"We just had this complaint from a customer three weeks ago," said Travis Hargrave of Hargrave's Plumbing in Louisiana. "Our tech Ross handled it. The lady's son was actually sitting and scrolling when the rat popped out. They were absolutely freaking out."
According to a Facebook post from Seattle, King County Public Health , flooding can increase the likelihood of finding rats in toilets.
How do rats get into your toilet?
A clean bathroom doesn't guarantee that rats won't find their way up the pipes
Rats are wily creatures that can enter spaces that seem as though they should be secure. "Fun fact: rats are actually excellent swimmers," Vander Hyde told us. "They can tread water for days and hold their breath for a surprising amount of time. If there's an opening in the sewer line and the city main has rodent activity, they can explore upstream like tiny, uninvited plumbers."
Rats enter toilet bowls by following pipes up from municipal sewer systems and into your home. Yet not all homes and cities are as susceptible. "We have seen that older homes with clay or cast iron sewer lines are more vulnerable because cracks give rodents entry points," Vander Hyde said. Additionally, cities with significant rodent activity are more at risk of rat intrusions.
According to the Environmental Health Services of King County, Washington, rats often follow the scent of food that has been washed down sink drains or run through a sink disposal . The rats climb your home's standpipe. Then, when they cannot enter the sink, they go up the toilet pipe instead.
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What to do with rats in your bathroom
If you find a rat in your toilet, trust your knee-jerk reaction and close the lid. They will usually swim back out on their own
While you might be tempted to trap intruding rats in a bag and relocate them, this can be dangerous and lead to bites from threatened rodents. The CDC lists numerous diseases that can be caused by rat bites, including Rat-Bite Fever and Hantavirus.
"If a lost rat somehow makes its way to you, the first thing I would do is hit the panic button and close the lid immediately and then call animal control." Vander Hyde said. "We can fix pipes, but we don't negotiate with sewer wildlife."
Russum told us what you shouldn't do: "Pouring boiling water is one of those things people usually do but never should — even though boiling water might scare the rat, it also can crack porcelain."
Drano and other chemicals can also harm your pipes if overused, so we generally recommend against flushing them down after rats. Even if these chemicals or boiling water were wholly safe to use in this situation, it's better to scare intruding rats off than to end up with a dead rat stuck in your sewer line.
Instead, King County Environmental Health Services recommends spraying dish soap into the toilet bowl. This degreases the rat's coat, making it hard for them to float on the water in your toilet. In this tricky environment, they will often turn back around and swim down the pipe.
How to stop toilet rats for good
A plumber uses a sewer camera to investigate a toilet line for signs of rats
While scaring the rat off or transporting it away from your building are solutions in the midst of a rat incursion, they don't solve the root problem. If a rat's coming up your drain — especially repeatedly — then it's time to hire a plumber. You might consider a pest control specialist too.
A good plumber can diagnose the problem and can often find openings in your sewer line that let the rat in. Vander Hyde told us that "a sewer camera inspection is worth its weight in gold here. It will show us exactly where breaches are and will give you peace of mind that your toilet won't double as a wildlife portal."
A sewer camera will also spot any nests in your line, showing your plumber exactly what needs to be cleared away.
Additionally, King County Environmental Health Services recommends that you make your home's pipes less appealing to pests. Since rats often climb up pipes in search of food scraps from kitchen sinks, if you're getting incursions, mind the hygiene of your sink. King County recommends that you deep clean your sink and drain and "use garbage disposals as little as possible."
