Posted on 06/12/2013 12:23:51 AM PDT by nickcarraway
It is the only animal in the world that Sir David Attenborough does not like, and one that has left a couple in south London terrified of using their own bathroom.
A rat has apparently taken residence in the toilet of the home where Margaret, 59, and Keith Woods, 67, have lived for the last 27 years.
A horrifying video filmed by the couple, from Sutton, shows the rat – which they have nicknamed Roland – poking its head into the toilet bowl from the U-bend.
‘I went to the loo and I could hear scratching. I jumped up and thought – this time I’m going to watch. I flushed the toilet straight away and went back, leaving the light on,’ Mrs Woods told the Sutton Guardian.
‘It was rearing its ugly head.’
The couple has now resorted to repeatedly flushing the toilet and running the taps for several minutes before using the bathroom.
Responding to reports Thames Water had been slow to respond to an initial complaint, a company spokesperson said: ‘A CCTV investigation of the sewer was done last week and the network is working as it should. We have also carried out a thorough clean of the sewer pipes around the property and will putting down some poison to help the customer get rid of the problem.’
David Cross, head of technical training at Rentokil, commented: ‘Thankfully, this is still a very rare occurrence, but we have seen more of these cases in recent years. Rats are an ingenious species, and they will do anything within their power to access new sources of food. After navigating a U-bend for the first time, the rodents become more confident and will often make repeat visits to the same property. Use of one-way valves in the manhole chamber can provide (amongst other things) an additional barrier for rats by denying them access to the soil pipe.’
How would a water moccasin get into the toilet? Yipes!
I had a neighbor who was stung by a wasp when she used the toilet.
When I was a little girl, I used to worry about spiders biting me — even though I was not afraid of spiders. That, and I worried about falling in.
Awww...that’s nothin’. Having your dog chase the rat around on your bed in the middle of the night, one yapping and one squeaking, now that is terror. ;) No, the rat was not a pet.
> How would a water moccasin get into the toilet? Yipes!
We lived out in the country. We had a septic tank system and the snake came in through the plumbing. I have no other explanation.
We have had a rat problem in the attic but never considered one in the toilet. YIKES!
The rat was thirsty.
Are people in the UK allowed to defend themselves against rat invasions, or is running to a “safe room” the only option?
Otherwise.... here's a potential solution...
http://ecojohn.com/ecojohn_sr.html
Has the whole of the UK population been reduced to a bunch of “small kitty cats”?
How that revenue agent got into the bowl is beyond me.
PULL THE CHAIN!
Oh great. You have not helped my phobia not one little bit.
“Honey, what’s this rat doing in our toilet?”
“It appears to be the backstroke, dear.”
I once had a mouse in the bathtub. I complained to management and they told me to get a cat.
Wow! I am not afraid of snakes, but a snake in the toilet would definitely freak me out.
Toilet ring:
“One ring to rule them all, on ring to find them...”
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