Susan Espinoza, who lives on Pine Avenue, has had it with rats. It was one thing when her family watched from inside the house as the critters ran across the backyard fence. But it became an entirely different story when they started crawling around inside the toilet.

"I'm totally freaked," she said. "Can you imagine what kind of diseases they carry?"

Her husband heard the first rat crawling in the toilet and saw it clinging inside the bowl rim in July. He killed it. Then a second rat appeared at the end of August, which he saw also crawling up from inside the toilet. The vermin showed up in the back bathroom toilet. The bathroom in the front of their home has not been affected.

"How come they are not coming up the other one?" she said. "It's the weirdest thing I've ever seen."

Espinoza is also concerned because her 17-year-old son Marcus has a weak heart from Noonan's syndrome, and she worries that a sudden scare could trigger a heart attack.

After the second incident, Espinoza immediately contacted Santa Clara County Vector Control District but was informed that they could not look into the problem for a year because they were busy dealing locally with the West Nile virus problem. That's when she contacted District 6 Councilman Ken Yeager's office, who referred her to Santa Clara County Supervisor Blanca Alvarado. Her office contacted vector control, and on Sept. 1 Santa Clara County Vector Control District technician Mario Ramirez came to the home. He went underneath the house and found no water damage to the house's pipes—the pipes are a common way rats enter. He did, however, find one broken screen leading into the crawlspace, but that didn't explain how rats entered the plumbing, Espinoza said.

"He has no idea how they're getting in," she said.

Espinoza said Ramirez returned on Sept. 3 to check with the builder of a construction site on Dale Avenue to see if any sewer lines were open. But everything appeared to be in order. And Ramirez also needs to determine where the Espinozas' pipes hook up to the county-owned sewer system.

Santa Clara County Vector Control District Community Resource Specialist Kriss Costa said that if the lateral sewer line leading into the Espinozas' home is broken, then the homeowners are responsible for repairs.

But to date after Ramirez's examining the home, Costa said that Ramirez is not convinced the rats came from the sewer.

"He did find possible entrances into the house, and we have had some pretty hot days, so the rats could have been looking for water," Costa said. But going by the description of the rats, Ramirez believed the rats were roof rats and not Norway rats, which are ground dwellers, Costa added.

Costa also said that the vector control district has not had any other calls from the area since 2002, which reduces the plausibility that the cause is from a county sewer leak. Ramirez recommended that Espinoza call a plumber to scope the pipes or put in a device called a "baffle" that prevents anything from coming up the toilet.

Espinoza has asked other Willow Glen residents if they have had similar rodent problems.

Willow Glen resident Mary McCuistion, who lives near Curtner and Cherry avenues, said she had rat problems a few years ago, which she believes were caused by a remodeling job in her home. The rats entered from below the house, crawling under the sink where they headed for the garbage.

When the problem reared its ugly head at the McCuistion home, vector control recommended that the family trim back ivy on the fence, place traps and stuff holes with tin foil, which they did. But none of those solutions solved the problem until the McCuistions got another cat and moved the kitchen garbage out from under the sink.

"Our cats catch rodents on a regular basis," McCuistion said.

But that is no consolation for Espinoza, who has a dog, not a cat.

Troy Arnett, owner of Orion Pest Control, said the only time he has come across a rat in the toilet was in Palo Alto. It was a roof rat that had fallen through the vent pipe, which goes into the plumbing, he said.