Phil only passes for a rat because his buck teeth that cause him to gnaw on the cardboard pizza boxes toren leaves around the apartment.
Nah, rats are actually smart, clean and form social bonds both with other rats and even humans. They can be trained to do tricks, they exhibit altruism, they've been used in a variety of laboratory studies... they even trained giant rats to find landmines in Africa. Phil... exhibits none of those traits. He's dumb as a sack of rocks, he's absolutely filthy, and he's extremely selfish. He's never done anything that benefited anyone other than himself. Rat owners get quite affectionate about their pets, meanwhile Toren and Greta can't seem to get rid of Phil despite their best efforts.
Yes they do there is one in Portland Oregon who calls itself Isabel (despite his name being Phil)
Ironically, Washington does have a problem with invasive nutria. Of course given the choice, I suspect most Washington residents would prefer the nutrias over Phil, even his Antifa crowd. Hell ESPECIALLY the Antifa crowd. They've probably got a lot of hardcore tree huggers in that lot.