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See How Easily a Rat Can Wriggle Up Your Toilet | National Geographic https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0t2VPBF6Kp4 - Also as the owner of three pet rats, can confirm they can get through the most ridiculously small holes.

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I've found rats living inside the CNC machines at my work. Under the rail covers at the very front just past the sensor that stops the machine from travelling further. There's a tiny hole underneath the rails that would have been the only way in. I also found them living inside another machine at work. The only way to access where they were living in that one would have been to crawl up the drain pipe and squeeze under the tiny gap between the cover. I also found one dead between two slabs of stone. No idea how it got there

My house however lacks rats. We've had an ongoing competition between the two cats. They're pretty evenly matched at this point for rats and mice caught.

I believe that rats have come up toilets non-zero times in history, but it’s never happened to me, nor did anyone I told about our rat problem mention it having happened to them.

Rats can definitely squeeze into very small spaces. However, they cannot squeeze through packed copper wool impregnated with silicone caulk.

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