I've a small invasion of rats and am terrified

When we found rats in the garden I bought something from Amazon called something like “blue cheese”
It came with a box with holes on the end.
You carefully, wearing gloves , put the substance in the box and placed it where you thought the rats entered , in our case under decking although in the house this could take time.
You then checked periodically to see if the substance had been taken, within a week or so it was untouched, presumably they had died from the poison.
I sympathise with you, I don’t think I could stay until I thought that the problem was solved.

Hello Bohminan, I think anyone would be horrified to find a rat in the lavatory pan like that! You have taken all the steps you can to get rid of your unwanted visitors. Perhaps some talking therapy might help, a counsellor or similar that helps people overcome phobias? Not that I think yours is a phobia, it’s a perfectly understandable reaction.

I’m sure most of us would feel the way you do bohemian. What a horrible couple of experiences. I’m glad you called in the experts, they know what they’re doing after all. I would suggest you leave the loo seat down all the time (except when using it obvs!) as I’ve heard about rats climbing up into the lavatory itself. I hope you feel a bit better now that you’ve called someone in,

I am with you bohemenan. I also have a pathological and probably irrational horror of rats. Don't like mice either but can and have dealt with those.
I'm fine with spiders🕷

You did the right thing in calling pest control but as for the reawakening of horrors, I don't know what to advise.

Remove any accessible food inside or out.

Do you have a friend who isn't horrified who could stay with you for a while?

Oh, Boheminian, what a terrifying experience. I think you have dealt with it in a quite heroic way. I would have been having the screaming abdabs.

Oh Boheminan Good heavens how frightful! I had no idea rats really could climb up inside pipes to the first floor - thought that was the stuff of horror movies. Can they turn round and slither back down?

Thank you all for your support, it means a lot to me. I don't like telling anyone as I fear response will be 'unclean, unclean' (though hygiene has nothing to do with it). I'm tempted to paint a cross on the front door, such is the stigma.

The toilet seat is now always put down after use, with a weight on it - this will become a future everyday occurrence, although the dread of lifting the toilet lid remains day and night.

All food - even crumbs are being whisked away routinely. The pest control traps have been down three days, and nothing caught as yet.

I read that to prevent rats climbing up through the toilet you should squirt a little dish soap in the toilet bowl and they will then slither back down when the toilet is flushed. Some people recommend putting something like a brick on top of the closed seat so that they cannot push the lid up.

winterwhite they don't go back down the pipe, they jump out of the toilet bowl...

I had this too recently and blamed myself for putting out too much bird seed on the ground during cold weather.
My rat catcher had a great little dog who sniffed out where the nests were ; the man explained you don't find dead rats because they have gone back to their nests to die.

I too have a rat phobia.

A building where I once worked in London had a restaurant underneath, in a basement, next to my office window was a set of outside stairs leading to their kitchen, with half barrels on every other step, filled with beautiful flowering plants.

One day I noticed something out of the corner of my eye and when I looked it was a baby rat popping up from the earth in one of the pots. We had three generations of rats running around outside my windows. It was horrific!

I rang environmental health, who found a loose sewer cap where rats where running backwards and forwards.

It was over 30 years ago, and I still am filled with horror!

We live near fields so rats come and go .
I wouldn’t want to find one in a toilet that is for sure !
There is a lot of guidance online how to discourage rats . Please don’t put poison down as other animals can eat it or the rat takes the poison and someone’s pet gets it or a hawk . It’s a big no no .

I think most people would freak out at such a horrible situation, Bohemianan, you poor thing.

I don’t really know of the effectiveness of this but would flushing the loo before you lift the lid be worth doing?

They hate the smell of peppermint don’t they? Maybe put peppermint oil in the loo? They hate light, too, so maybe leave a bright light on in the loo? I have to admit, though, that I think an experience like that would leave me scared to go to the toilet. Could you put cling film over the toilet so you know that, if you left the lid and there’s one there it can’t get out (obviously having, in the middle of the night, to remember that you’ve done so).

Yes, SueDonim, I've started flushing the loo before using it and also squeezing washing up liquid down. It's amazing how resilient these creatures are. I read raw garlic and onion will deter them, so left some around on the kitchen floor. They must have thought all their Christmases had come at once, they just ate the lot.

Poor you that’s awful. There was a Mumsnet thread about someone’s daughter who had seen a “ black snake” in the toilet. She had drawn a picture and everyone said it would have been a rat’s tail she had seen.

Sadly they seem to be everywhere now. We got rats in the garden probably due to me feeding the birds. Had to stop feeding birds which was heartbreaking. The rats seem to cut through our garden and our dogs will indicate where they have been.

Fortunately none in the house but recently at least one got in the garage and ate part of an Easter egg! We moved any food sources from there and I cut peppermint oil capsules and squeezed the oil under the garage door. It smelled really strong. Ants don’t like that either.
Not seen any for days now. Hope you get it all sorted soon.

Find someone who has two rat-catching cats, or a cat and dog team that go ratting, or a terrier of one of the renowned rat-catching breeds and invite the animals, with or without their owners to stay.

Make sure, naturally, that there is no rat poison out!

Oh crikey boheminan how truly awful for you, really hope the Pest Controllers get this sorted for you...

(rushes off to close toilet lids)

I've always had a fear of seeing a rat in the downstairs loo if we've had particularly heavy rain and localised flooding and keep the lid down. But one could still be there.

As we all feed birds round here, we've seen one or two over the years in the gardens. Once I found a desiccated one on the lawn (we hadn't poisoned it, a neighbour must have done). They like to nest in compost heaps where it's warm.

I wouldn't use a humane trap for a rat, what would you do with it if caught? Yes, you do need someone professional to deal with this problem, well done, and your neighbours should be aware too.

What a dreadful experience. Hopefully, this was just a stray rat. I hope the vermin hunters found where they were getting in. Have you, or your neighbours, had any work done which involved knocking through walls etc as this can open a pathway for them? Perhaps block off entry to the kitchen under the appliance you saw them disappear through. Good luck.

Boheminan this is very much an ad hoc, homemade thing to try and has worked with mouse infestations but it's cheap and very doable if you can tolerate the smell of bleach for a short while.
Every year my daughter had a nightmare keeping the rodents at bay and tried traps & poison - no pets & within the house so no danger to wildlife - but it was so disgusting to deal with it on a daily basis and took so long to really eradicate them, this year I thought drastic action was the only way and literally soaked all possible access points with thick, domestic bleach. To be fair, the most likely places were accessible by pulling back the kickboards in the kitchen and liberally squeezing the bleach bottle around the plumbing sites. (In your case, I'd be inclined to put bleach in the loo after every flush too.) It only needs to be done for a short while until activity/sightings stop & I don't know if it was good luck or good judgment but not seen a trace of the minging little critters this year.

I live on a small development, a bit rural, but most of the other residents are ‘townies’. Having kennels, everyone assumed DH knew all about animals (he did) and explained the difference between the cock pheasant and the peacock a neighbour thought she had in her garden! Someone’s escaped ferret was a source of amusement too.
Anyway, a game keeper friend gave DH proper rat boxes (4) and I keep them primed and around the outer walls of the house all year round. The construction means only rats can access the poison, (nibbling it) which then can’t be carried away. Often, rats are itinerant, moving from one area to another.

Inside the house is another matter and for professionals.

My house is on the banks of a canal, so water rats are a regular sight. I don`t mind them, as long as they`re outside, but definitely wouldn`t like them in the house. We had several mouse invasions, but only during periods when we didn`t have a cat. I know it sounds stupid, but I don`t really mind mice, find them quite cute. Saw a rat in a pet shop window once, I wanted to buy it, but hubby said a very firm NO!

Bohemian, I’m feeling queasy just reading what happened to you. I’m absolutely hopeless with rats. I stopped feeding the birds because I saw a fat brown rat waddling around the bird table. The council rat man was great £40, it’s free now but the wai is 3 months not a week.
Don’t worry about the poison your pest control people use. I have a spaniel and a lab, both can sniff out anything edible. The pest control guy used boxes with bait the rat had to crawl into the box to eat.

I’d be like you- weighting the toilet lid down but - those nightly trips most older women have to make 🙈🙏🏽