Sewer rat sparks toilet horror

A rat is not something you want to see in your toilet first thing in the morning, but that’s exactly how Esther Rush started her day.

When the 50-year-old slipped to the loo for some early-morning relief she was greeted with the horror of a sewer rat’s tail poking out from the S-bend of her toilet yesterday.

Rush said the shock of seeing the intruder in the bowl at her Palmerston North home had scarred her.

‘‘It’s awful. I was pretty surprised. It was moving around and looking pretty scary.

‘‘Apparently they can come up in the sewers and there’s air pockets.’’

Rush was quick to act, closing the lid, trapping the rodent inside the bowl, stacking whatever she could on top and heading to another bathroom, leaving her husband to remove their unwanted guest.

When a plumber was called he told them they’d have to scoop it out to get rid of the pest.

Another plumber from All Sorted Plumbing and Gasfitting suggested they should have flushed it away.

Plumber Brent Churchouse has been on the job since he was 16.

He has only seen the furry creatures once in his 33-year career.

‘‘One rat came out of the sewer and that was about a year ago. I had removed the toilet and he came out of the hole,’’ he said.

The rat quickly headed back down the drain before Churchouse could react.

Even though he’d not seen many he knew they were there and it’s not uncommon for rodents to peek above land, said Churchouse.

‘‘There are rats, but most people don’t know about them. That’s what that trap on the toilet is for, the water seal is to stop things coming up. If the rat really wants to come up it it will climb out through the water trap... Normally I don’t see them because vibrations scare them off.’’

The city’s water operations staff had never heard of a rat coming up a toilet before, Palmerston North City Council’s water operations manager Mike Monaghan said.

‘‘If this happens again we would urge residents to call us.’’