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You usually don’t want to encounter anything aside from clear water when you lift up the lid to a toilet. However, some residents in Washington state were advised to keep an eye out for rats that could potentially be pushed out of the sewer system over torrential downpours that sparked widespread flooding.
Most Americans take indoor plumbing for granted, and it’s kind of hard to believe that a good chunk of people in the United States were relying on chamberpots and making the trek to an outhouse to do their business less than a century ago.
Indoor toilets didn’t start to become the norm until the middle of the 20th century, and you’d be hard-pressed to find many homes that aren’t equipped with at least one porcelain throne nowadays.
Those conveyances are designed to be a one-way street, and you’re probably going to have a crappy day in a literal and figurative sense if things start coming from the wrong direction. However, I’m willing to bet many people would rather deal with some bodily waste than the rats that were the subject of a warning that was recently issued in the Pacific Northwest.
Officials in Washington state warned people to keep an eye out for rats in their toilets due to heavy flooding
Around 25% of homes in the United States are hooked up to septic tanks where sewage is stored. Most of those dwellings are located in relatively rural areas, as people who reside in places with a more concentrated population tend to rely on a sewer system that ferries what’s flushed to a central facility.
Those pipes can end up serving as a home for a variety of animals who are able to infiltrate homes by way of a toilet, a reality that’s reflected in way too many stories about people encountering a snake that managed to slither into their residence.
Flooding can also force animals in and out of those sewers, and last week, officials in Washington State warned people in King County (which includes Seattle) to be on the lookout for rats that had the increased potential to end up in toilets due to a storm system that blanketed the region with heavy rain.
You may be surprised to discover the advised course of action is repeatedly flushing the toilet in the hopes it takes care of your rat problem and using dish soap to increase the odds of the rodent slipping back down into the pipe if it decides to put up a fight.
According to The New York Times, the King County public health department said it had not fielded any toilet rat-related calls in the immediate wake of a system that dumped close to a foot of rain on some areas, but it noted Seattle alone is responsible for around 50 of them on a yearly basis.