Rats in a toilet? It happens in Salem

When Southeast Salem resident Lee Rich made a trip to the bathroom last week and lifted the toilet lid, a rat leaped from the bowl and darted into an open cabinet.

"That thing just came screaming out of there," said Rich, 66, a retiree from a paper-products company.

The rat, dripping with sewage and about 10 inches long, hid in a closet where Rich and his wife, Linnie, store bath towels, Rich said. He trapped the animal in a plastic coffee can.

"Boy, they are strong," he said. "Because it was just a plastic lid, I had a hell of time trying to hold the edges down."

Rich sealed the can with tape and tossed the rat in his freezer to kill it.

The city of Salem takes 10 to 15 complaints per year from residents about rats in sewer pipes, Public Works spokesman Mike Gotterba said.

Those complaints include incidents in which a homeowner opened a clean-out plug and a rat ran out. The city doesn't have numbers for how often rats emerge from toilets.

"It really doesn't apply to a specific part of town," Gotterba said.

City workers placed rat poison in a manhole near Rich's home and promised to put more bait at the location if necessary.

The city doesn't kill rats on private property, so rats inside a house are the owner's problem, city officials said.

In most homes, it's an open pathway from the toilet to the public sewer. A rarely installed plumbing device, called a backwater valve, can provide a barrier against rats. But the valve isn't required by the plumbing code, said Homer Humelbaugh, the assistant chief plumbing inspector for Oregon.

Although the toilet rat rattled the Riches' nerves, they still feel lucky.

"Maybe, if this is in the paper, people will start keeping their lid closed," he said.

The Riches are going one better: they have placed a bucket of water on the lid for extra security.

mrose@StatesmanJournal.com or (503) 399-6657

Rats in the house

Health authorities offer these tips to prevent a situation similar to Rich's:

•Make sure floor drains are capped with secure drain covers.

•Keep sinks rinsed and clean and avoid dumping grease or fat down the drain.

•Clean out sewer lines once or twice a month by pouring 1 cup of baking soda and 1 cup of vinegar, then boiling water, down the drain.

•Keep toilet lids closed.