Real life 'Flushed Away!' in Arizona

Associated Press

January 17, 2007 12:06 pm

— TUCSON, Ariz. — Residents of a neighborhood next to the University of Arizona say small white rats have been swimming through sewer pipes and into their toilets.
Laura Hagen Fairbanks, spokeswoman for the county’s Wastewater Management Department, said she doesn’t know where the rodents come from, though they are the kind researchers use in labs.
University representatives note that the same type of rats are sold in pet stores as food for snakes and other animals.
George Humphrey, spokesman for the Arizona Health Sciences Center, said university researchers follow strict guidelines for their lab specimens. Lab rats are euthanized, then double-bagged in biowaste plastic bags before they are taken to Phoenix and cremated.
“There would be no evidence that these are connected to us, and I wouldn’t want that to become an urban myth,” Humphrey said.
Hagen Fairbanks said no one knows why the rats are found in only one small area of town or why they show their faces only once or twice a year.
Making it from the sewer up the lines into someone’s toilet is a difficult trip, she said.
A four-inch wide pipe called the house connection sewer runs from the house to a sewer main. There’s no “trap door” or other barrier in place, she said.
If the lines are running, the rats have to hold their breath and swim uphill in the pipes against the water current.
“If the rat makes it through your HCS, that’s a determined rat,” she said.
When calls come in, the department can dispose of the rat if the homeowner hasn’t done so already. County workers then flush the sewer line as a precaution to keep any others from making their way up.