Historic rains have drenched Washington State this month. They’ve caused flooding that’s gotten so bad that it’s pushing rats out of the sewers and into homes. How exactly? Through the only access points they’ve got: your toilet.
NBC News reports the Seattle and King County Public Health Department issued warnings to residents that heavy rain and floodwaters may displace rats straight into their toilets. This is all thanks to their strong swimming abilities and fierce will to live, undoubtedly.
In all seriousness, it turns out that when sewer systems flood, rodents look for air pockets and dry exits. Sometimes, that exit is the place near your butthole. Pretty wild, right?
Yes, Heavy Rain Could Make Rats Come Up Through Toilets in Washington
Officials stressed that toilet rats swimming up the piping into your toilet is a rare but very real problem. Seattle receives about 50 “rat-in-the-toilet” complaints each year across a city with roughly 2.5 million toilets.
After storms that triggered evacuation orders for more than 100,000 people and caused widespread infrastructure damage, health officials expected that number to rise even if no immediate surge had been reported.
While this is rare in Washington State, dense cities like New York deal with this issue routinely. The New York Times spoke with Timothy Wong, the technical director of a pest control company in Queens. While Washington State sees about 50 of these rat-in-toilet issues a year overall, Wong says his team alone sees around 20.
In other words, for Washington State residents, it could be much worse. At least you aren’t under the year-round threat of having to emergency dial a pest control company when a rat emerges from your toilet mid-flush.
While the warning may raise panic in sum, it is intended to. Rather, it’s just intended to make people aware of a Bizarro side effect of the extreme weather the states been experiencing of late.
As climate change-driven storms intensify, infrastructure failures and the odd, sometimes funny ramifications of it all will become the norm, prompting us actually to try to address the issues.
Some massive global problems announce themselves loudly, like a hurricane or tornado. Others move in silence, like the rats sneaking up your toilet, trying to claw at your butt.
The warning isn’t meant to spark panic, but to acknowledge a strange side effect of extreme weather. As climate-driven storms intensify, infrastructure failures and unexpected encounters become part of daily life.
Most disasters announce themselves loudly. Some wait quietly in the plumbing, hoping you’ll sit down first.
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