Rats in toilets! True stories! Caught on video!

Every time I write about toilets, it elicits extremely heavy reader response.

Since we all have vast amounts of experience with these handy appliances, we naturally develop strong feelings for them.

Apparently the second-most emotional subject to write about is rats. Combine the two as I did last week in a discussion of sewer rats swimming up into toilets, and well, it's like hitting the mother lode. Here's a sample of reader responses:

• "In about 1956, I owned a house in North Seattle. There were no sewers at that time. The sewer district notified me that sewers would be installed in six months. About two months later, my drainfield plugged up. As a temporary solution, I vented the end of the drainfield 5 feet away into a ditch. About a week later, my wife was using the bathroom and all hell broke loose. I rushed in to see a rat floundering in the toilet. He had started in the drainage ditch, came through 130 feet of drain tile, the septic tank, and up another 50 feet of pipe into the toilet! I slammed the lid down and started flushing. Because there was only one bathroom in the house, we went through several days of nervous anticipation, but he never came back. The day after, I covered the end of the pipe with wire mesh."

• "I had rats in the toilet twice. Rats won't flush. I had to spear it with a ski pole and haul it outside."

• "I think it is an urban myth. Maybe these people getting rats in their toilet are just getting a 'message' from the Mafia."

• "I am a nice middle-aged Lutheran lady and on Jan. 25 it happened. I was bit on the finger while using the toilet. My doctor even has records of it."

• "Does it happen? I even have a video of it!"

• "Back in the late '70s or early '80s (we called) the Everett Police Department to apprehend a particularly large rat one night. They were very confused about us calling them, so some of the watch commanders even came to verify the responding officer's report. While the group of officers considered the drowned rats in the toilet, several more (rats) came up to show them exactly how they had entered."

• "A rat came up out of the toilet and disappeared down the heating vents. We eventually caught it with a trap loaded with peanut butter. Our 4 year-old daughter seemed relatively unfazed by it, but we're not sure that the baby-sitter who was here at the time ever totally recovered."

• "I lived in a basement apartment and had a mattress on the floor. I woke to the pitter-patter of little feet on a newspaper that I had been reading the night before. As I woke and made noise, it went past and I heard a splash. I looked around and didn't see anything. I turned off the light again, dozed, and heard the noises again. This time, I decided to ambush the culprit. I sat up on my mattress holding my table lamp. I switched on the light and saw it full on (in my memory I see red glowing eyes) on the bathroom floor. Not for long, because it jumped back into the privy and swam out of sight. I put the lid down on the toilet, and didn't get a wink of sleep."

• "I was checking our guest room and bathroom before some houseguests were due to arrive, and found two small dead rats floating in the loo. (The next thing I remember is sitting on top of a desk on the far side of the room.) Didn't think to flush them away, and was going to try to fish them out with a kitchen strainer but couldn't do it. So I called a friend whose brother came over and did the fishing-out and disposing-of for me. Serious hero stuff."

• "I discovered a rat one morning in the second-floor toilet. I quickly kicked the lid shut and flushed just as you directed. I called the Health Department, and they treated the sewers in the area. Since then I have had a closed-lid policy. I'll never forget seeing the head of that creature peering out — he could have easily made it into the house. He was a very good climber."

OK, now here's some official wisdom on the subject:

Hilary Karasz-Dominguez, a spokeswoman for Public Health — Seattle and King County, says her department receives two to four reports of vermin in toilets each month. The health department can only bait for rats in the city of Seattle's public sewers, but they're interested in hearing complaints from throughout the county.

She suggests calling a pest-control operator if you don't have the tools (or nerve) to handle the rat. Despite the thinking (my own and that of some readers) that boiling water may crack a toilet, or a dead rat may plug up a toilet, few of my correspondents reported these problems.

Bleach, dish soap, boiling water and the flush handle remain the weapons of choice.

Karasz-Dominguez doesn't know (or wouldn't fess up) where the largest concentrations of rats are, but in my highly unscientific sampling, the largest concentration of toilet rats seemed to congregate in the Sand Point area.

Help prevent rats in the sewer by using plenty of water when you use the disposal. And help keep rats out of your bathroom, and peace between the sexes, by keeping the lid closed.

Darrell Hay answers readers' questions. Call 206-464-8514 to record your question,