I've a small invasion of rats and am terrified

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.

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?

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.

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?

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,

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.

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.