BROOKLINE – It’s the recipe for concocting a nightmare. We are talking about rats entering your homes through your toilet. It’s happened twice now to a Brookline resident.
“Two is more than I want. A few nights ago I went to the bathroom and I didn’t realize the rat was already with me at that moment, hiding behind the toilet,” said Betsy Childs, speaking of the second rat. that came to their toilet. “When I checked the bathroom, it was gone 15 minutes later. I guess it’s back to what it was.”
Childs first encountered the problem when her partner went to the bathroom around 3 a.m. He opened the lid and saw the rat stick its head out and then dive back into the toilet. They quickly asked their landlord for help.
Numerous calls for rats in toilets
They, in turn, called the city looking for answers. The Brookline Health Department and the city’s rat reporting unit say they have received numerous calls about the issue, but all but one are from single-family homes. Meanwhile, Betsy has left a full clothes basket on the toilet lid to make sure it stays closed.
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“We do a precautionary flush, move the basket, close the lid and flush again, which is what’s going on now,” Childs laughs. “Right now, this is the rat’s house. We should charge him rent.”
The Greater Boston Plumbers Contractors Association (GBPCA) says rats can live in drain pipes under the street with nothing stopping them from accessing your home’s pipes. They can crawl into the smallest spaces and are not bothered by water. They say older homes may have features to prevent rat entry, but most newer homes do not. They may also be attracted to the smell of your garbage disposal, which, according to the GBPCA, eventually ends up in the same pipes as your toilet.
Rats can swim and are excellent climbers
Joe Dingwall, president of Catseye Pest Control, says rats can swim over large bodies of water and are excellent vertical climbers. He says the sewer system in Brookline is one of the oldest in the country, and heavy rains can cause rats to gain access to some of the newer parts of the system and find their way into your home.
“They’re resilient things. When the nuclear fallout happens, it’s going to be cockroaches, them and Twinkies,” Childs said.
Betsy took to social media for help with the problem. It turns out other Brookline residents have also been creative to fix it. One person made a ramp to an open window hoping the rat would walk up and jump out. Another person started pouring bleach down the toilet. Childs is in the process of having a plumber install a one-way valve. The device allows water to flow downwards, but blocks the rat from coming up through the pipe.
“I mean, we also have some bleach that we sometimes top up a little bit in our bowl,” Childs said.
