At 5'-9", I can reach the bathroom vent with no problems; it's just a matter of reaching up. However, DW is a little shorter than I am (5'-6") and she has to stand on tippy-toes to open and close the vent, and work the fan switch. We talked about the best way to deal with it. A step stool? No, said she. It would get in the way and she'd forget to use it. I told her about a product I heard about, the
Barker 29070 Vent Stick, but I balked at the price. But the I thought, why couldn't I modify the vent fan knob to do the same thing?
So here's what I did. I had some heavy duty wire sitting around, and I cut a section about 3" long and bent it to fit into the little notches on either side of the knob:
Then I found an old tent peg -- I literally found an old tent peg on a campsite during a trip many years ago, and being a bit of a pack rat, I kept it. You never know when you might need it for something. This was one of those occasions. I put some foam rubber on the end so the peg can be used to push the fan switch, and I wrapped the end in more foam rubber for a better grip:
Here's everything put together. It seems to work just fine, and the total cost was about a half-hour of my time:
The tent peg can be stored pretty much anywhere in the bathroom, probably in the medicine cabinet, since it takes up no space at all.
Way cool!
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