Miscellany: A Salute to the Stinger Wet/Dry Vac

When it comes to maintaining a household, my Mom and Dad like to get their hands dirty. And we're not just talking about weeding or lawn mowing, but heavy duty maintenance. Chop off branches from a 50 foot sabal palm? Pff, why hire someone when you can do it yourself?

That kind of gung-ho attitude even extends to pressure cleaning the back porch, a twice-a-year ritual that involves several hours of backbreaking labor. We remove all the plants and pots, wash everything with the pressure cleaner, suck up all the dirt and grime that's just been knocked off, and then put everything back. Considering my Mom's passion for gardening, it's a lot of work.

The pressure cleaner is important, of course, but the whole production would be twice as hard if it weren't for the Stinger Wet/Dry Vac, an electric vacuum cleaner once produced by Emerson Tool Company. While one person scrapes all the muck off of the concrete, the other sucks up said muck with the Stinger. Without the vacuum, we'd have to find some way to get all the dirty water and bits of solid matter out of the screened-in porch - not fun.

What prompts the blog post is simple: the Stinger is a marvel of durability. We keep the machine outside, and only use it twice a year, but for hours at a time - a nightmare usage schedule if there ever was one. For many, many years now, the Stinger has just kept on ticking, happily digesting all the rotted leaves, pebbles, and bits of moss that get thrown its way. I see that Emerson is making newer wet/dry vacs, and these may well be worth a look...but we won't be needing a new one any time soon.