Rats! Seattle Residents Find Rodents In Their Toilets

Seattle residents aren’t taking the discovery of rats in their toilets sitting down.

They’re calling the Seattle-King County Health Department, which has received 15 rat-in-toilet complaints this month.

The department averages 113 such complaints a year.

When the complaints roll in, the county’s environmental health inspectors take over, baiting sewers with rat poison and counseling panicked people.

Rats follow their noses in search of food throughout the city’s 6,000 miles of underground sewer lines. Especially attractive is greasy food sent down kitchen disposals. But the rodents can’t squeeze through 1-1/2-inch disposal pipes, so they head for the 4-inch pipes leading to toilets.

The rodents can crawl up pipes to ground-floor bathrooms, but the second floor is harder for them to reach. When rats do appear in the toilet, people should put down the lid and flush.