WJTV – CLINTON, MS (WJTV) – Now, we all hear stories about unwanted visitors showing up in homes; anything from spiders to rats, even snakes!
One critter made it into a Clinton, Mississippi family's home, causing quite the scare and it's causing quite the buzz on social media.
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"Make sure to look before you sit down," said homeowner Ronald Morris.
That's the new routine in the Morris household, after an early morning trip to the bathroom resulted in this a creature sitting inside the toilet.
"Big brown mass, and beside this had ears and whiskers on it…it was very shocking," exclaimed Morris.
The couple posted the picture to social media hoping to find out exactly what it is. It has lots of shares and likes but still no one's quite sure what it could be.
Some say maybe a squirrel, others believe it may be a rat.
Either way local plumbers say it's not unusual for rodents to creep inside your home.
"I mean I've camera drained lines, I've seen rats in there, but I've never actually seen one live in someone's house," said plumber Wesley Brisendine with Brad Rodgers Plumbing and Gas.
Plumber Richard Parker with Skeen Plumbing and Gas said, "I've seen it with squirrels before falling down the air vent stacks on the roof top and getting down into the bottom of the plumbing of the slab."
Several theories surround how the visitor got to the bowl. Experts say the animal may have gotten in through the sewer.
"It's going to have to have traveled all through the sewer in your house, came up into your actual line for your house all the way through your front yard," said Brisendine.
Plumbers also say the animal may have been in the home and got trapped inside the bowl and poisoned when it was searching for clean water.
"Where they get wet is where the P-trap is inside the toilet that keeps the methane gases out…so all they have to do is a little bitty 2 second swim and their in the bowl…," Parker explained.
"It sparks a nerve inside of you as what can actually come up the drains," said Morris.
Now there is something called a check valve – a disc that allows anything to leave the house from the sewer but nothing can come back into it. Plumbers tell us this is the best solution to keeping pests out.