Writer Nicole Cliffe gave many a phobia they didn’t realize they had after detailing the story of how one of her children found a rat inside their family toilet on Twitter.
“Half an hour after the kids went to bed, one of them came to Steve in the kitchen and said they couldn’t poop bc there was a rat in their toilet,” Cliffe wrote. “Reader, there was a rat in their toilet.”
https://twitter.com/Nicole_Cliffe/status/1154196137005314049
Some readers will now forever check their toilet bowls before sitting down to do the business.
“No. NO. I HAVE LITERAL NIGHTMARES ABOUT THIS AND SOMETIMES HAVE TO GET OFF THE TOILET MID-PEE JUST TO CHECK IF I FORGOT TO LOOK BEFORE I SAT DOWN,” one user wrote.
https://twitter.com/LouisatheLast/status/1154197290476822529
No thank you, I shan't have any more of the internets this evening.
— The Disaster Ballet (@disasterballet) July 25, 2019
I instantly regret scrolling through Twitter on the toilet right now.
— Kate (@goonerkate) July 25, 2019
As it turns out, rats making their way into toilet bowls isn’t an anomaly. Rats apparently can swim up sewer lines, landing right into your toilet, especially if the sewage system is old.
Twitter users began sharing their own rat-in-toilet horror stories.
“We had a BABY rat in ours! Still alive! Swimming his best! Squealing pitifully for help! My mom rescued him, set him up in a little recovery room & warned off would-be disturbers with this sign,” Miranda Robinson wrote on Twitter.
We had a rat in our toilet when I was a kid! After that incident, my mom kept her sewing machine on the toilet lid so that any other rats that came up wouldn’t be able to get out. I had to ask her to move it every time I used to the bathroom.
— Anne Thériault (@anne_theriault) July 25, 2019
https://twitter.com/TheSpartanLives/status/1154196894270099457
https://twitter.com/mbrowntrigg/status/1154389915104399360
We had a BABY rat in ours! Still alive! Swimming his best! Squealing pitifully for help! My mom rescued him, set him up in a little recovery room & warned off would-be disturbers with this sign pic.twitter.com/uUt0oR0LtK
— Miranda Robinson (@MirRobinson) July 25, 2019
It happened to me at 5 AM one morning. My wife and I were jumping up-and-down screaming. She didn't know that there was a rat in the toilet; she thought there was a man in the bathroom. LOL by the time the exterminator got there, the rat was dead/drowned.
— Carol duBois (@theCdB) July 25, 2019
When I lived in Nicaragua, a friend’s wife got bit on the ass by a rat as she went to the bathroom in the middle of the night. Total long-needle-rabies protocol in the abdomen.
— Snuffy (@saintsnuffy) July 25, 2019
Others started sharing their own animal-toilet encounters, more or less horrifying depending on your phobia.
This is also good: pic.twitter.com/2drDAOaiUM
— Jarin (@Jarin50926789) July 25, 2019
https://twitter.com/mlmohr/status/1154201589210583041
I once stayed at a friends house in Georgia & I went to pee & there was a SCORPION *IN* the toilet bowl & I was like, oh good i didn’t know i needed to be worried about such a thing but now i will never not look for a scorpion before i sit down
— Sarah Kay (@kaysarahsera) July 25, 2019
Yup. Once in Turks and Caicos, mice would come up through the pipes but couldn't make it out of the toilet so I would build them little rafts so they wouldn't drown before maintenance could fish them out. Pretty sure everyone there thought I was bonkers.
— Love, Lola (@LoveLolaHeart) July 25, 2019
https://twitter.com/jenwells/status/1154201996443783169
https://twitter.com/thenikkibus/status/1154199371426275330
Oh my god, burn the house down and move. (This happened to my mom with a frog once; there was hopping involved. I still can’t think about it without laughing hysterically.)
— Ali Trotta (@alwayscoffee) July 25, 2019
One hilarious false alarm turned out to be a used tampon, not a bloody rat.
My son once ran into the room screaming about a bloody rat in our toilet.
— Michelle Mabelle (@s0ntdesm0tsqui) July 25, 2019
Nicole, it wasn't a rat. It was an improperly flushed tampon.
And that is how my 7 year old learned about menstruation.
A debate over what the worst animal to find in your toilet kicked off.
we had snakes and frogs but never a rat. a rat is a bridge too far.
— internet jew (@tashakaminsky) July 25, 2019
i know what to do w a snake. idk what to do w a rat. scream at my own ass i guess.
— internet jew (@tashakaminsky) July 25, 2019
Nah that’s a possum pic.twitter.com/vhdQZmNUEO
— patron saint of lost possums (@krisis86) July 25, 2019
A snake! I feel like a snake would be worse than a rat
— hot pockets heiress (@ungatomalo) July 25, 2019
*is from rural Texas* At least it wasn’t a snake, and at least it was dead!
— Gerald Dudley (@Professor_D) July 25, 2019
A snake is the most horrifying, obviously.
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