Over the past two days, I have been told of two separate stories of creatures finding their way into toilets.  Obviously, this sounds very alarming, but fear not, this is anything but ordinary.  The most common trespassers of the sacred throne are frogs and squirrels.  There have been isolated incidents of other creatures (sorry, but this does include snakes) finding their way up (or down) your plumbing system. Luckily those are about as likely to happen to you as a lightening strike, on Tuesday, in May.  As far as the frogs and squirrels go, unfortunately, those are not nearly as rare.  To determine a plan of attack, or better yet, a plan of defense, you need to identify what it is exactly that you found.  Fortunately, most of us can distinguish between a frog, squirrel, and snake.  Not so obvious, would be the classification of tree frog or ordinary frog.  Your roof, or more specifically, your plumbing roof vent will be the entry point of choice for the tree frogs and squirrels.  They will either fall in, investigate out of curiosity, or will go in search of a cooler place to hang out during a hot summer day.  Invading from the other side of your home will be the regular frogs and snakes.  Their M.O. is your sewer system.  The two main entry points for these pests would be a break in your sewer line, from deterioration or from roots, or from a clean-out that you have outside your home that may be missing a cap.  If you are on a septic system, there is a good chance you have a clean-out outside of your home.  The clean-out is the entry point to your plumbing system to put the snake(not alive kind) or rooter in case of a blockage.  If you have ever seen a frog, or you regularly see them, simply pour some rock salt into your toilet and flush.  Do this a couple of times to get a nice layer in the pipe.  This will make for an undesirable environment for the frogs and will be safe for your plumbing system.  You may also want to have a plumber put a camera down your drain line to see if you do in fact have a broken pipe that should be repaired.  This will be a double benefit, since a break point WILL be an entry point for roots, it is only a matter of time.   If it is tree frogs or squirrels, you will want to stop them from entering with some screen or mesh over your roof vents.  If you are in a cold weather climate, you may need a special fitting to put on your vent after you put the mesh on to prevent snow from accumulating and closing off the airflow.  Remember, none of this is very common, but……………….it does happen.

Happy thoughts on your next trip to the zoo, I mean bathroom.