7 Animals That Can Get Through to Your Toilet, and How to Stop Them

There is nothing worse than uninvited guests, and when you find them under the toilet lid, this meeting can hardly called pleasant. Mice, snakes and frogs can get into the house through pipes, and they can not only frighten you, but also cause serious damage to property.

At CHEERY, we found out how animals and insects can get into your house, and how to prevent this.

Frogs

Larvae (tadpoles) of frogs live in the water, and move to land after becoming adults. However, adult frogs still spend most of their lives near water. Therefore, they sometimes choose sewers for reproduction purposes and as their habitat. Frogs can get into the toilet either through a gap in the water supply, or through plumbing vent pipe.

To prevent them from getting into your house, you should inspect your pipes for holes regularly. You can also cover the ventilation holes with wire mesh and secure it with a clamp which you can easily remove when necessary.

Mice and rats

Mice are small rodents, they only need a tiny hole to get into the house. They can crawl into crevices around leaky drain pipes, under a sink, etc. Rats also use plumbing to enter the house.

It’s easy to prevent rodents from entering the toilet thanks to a one-way toilet flap. It opens toward the sewer, letting water and waste to go through it but preventing anything from coming the other way.

Snakes

A snake crawling out of a toilet is many people’s nightmare. Residents of Australia face this problem not only in their houses, but also in office buildings. This can be caused by a loose cover of the septic tank or a break in the sewer line.

If you find a snake in your home toilet, the first thing you should do is to close the toilet lid to prevent the snake from hiding in another room. To be on the safe side, it’s better to put something heavy on the lid, and then call a snake catcher. And to eliminate breaks in the sewer line, you should contact the plumbers.

Possums

Possums can get into the house searching for food. And they use ventilation for this. They go down the back wall of the house, and then get into the sewer. While trying to get out of there, they can end up in the toilet, surprising and frightening the tenants. This happened in 2008 and 2016.

You can protect your home by limiting access to ventilation. It’s not the best idea to block the vent, but wire mesh can protect you from unwanted visitors. If you already have a possum inside, close the door to the room and call a specialist.

Squirrels

Squirrels, like possums, can get into a house through the chimney on the roof looking for food. Once a squirrel ended up in the toilet of a student house. It was successfully rescued, and we advise students to close the ventilation holes and examine the branches of the trees growing nearby, from which the squirrel could get onto the roof.

Insects

Insects love moisture, so they often become regular guests in the bathroom. Drain flies, small bugs and cockroaches live and breed in sewers and drains. Most often their appearance in the toilet is associated with improperly installed plumbing.

First of all, you need to call a plumber to check if everything is in order in the bathroom, and then make sure that there are no cracks and crevices in other parts of the house from where insects could get into the bathroom. Regular cleaning and dehumidification with ceiling vents or a dehumidifier can also solve the problem. In other cases, call pest control.

Lizards

Another living creature that may end up in the toilet is a lizard. It uses sewer pipes to enter the house. How to prevent the appearance of this uninvited guest? To begin with, fix the leaking plumbing and seal possible entrances to the drains. After that it’s recommended to cut the trees and shrubs around the house. They can be a shelter for various animals which might want to get into your warm house from there.

Did you ever find unwanted guests in your toilet? What did you do when it happened?