From Gizmodo, and also my personal nightmare files, a man was sent to the ICU after tangling with a rat he found in his toilet. A 76-year old Montreal resident was bitten on his finger, (not a more sensitive area), when he tried to remove the intrusive rodent from his toilet. Three weeks later he was hospitalized with a nasty case of the bacterial disease leptospirosis.
The disease can damage the liver, kidneys or brain and has a 15% mortality rate. But it's usually transmitted by urine, not saliva.
As best as the doctors can tell, the man's infection might have come from his furry aggressor having temporarily contaminated its own mouth with bacteria-soaked urine before biting him.
Despite his serious illness, the man responded well to the antibiotics and other treatments. He was discharged from the ICU after three days and completed his remaining course of oral antibiotics with no issue.
Gizmodo doesn't address the most important questions — how did the rat get there, and could it be doing the backstroke in my toilet? The unfortunate answer is, the toilet is like an unlocked door into your home for rats. So look before you sit, and maybe always leave the lid down.
