The Alligetter - For When You Gotta Get It!

This thing is great for poking around in the garbage disposal when necessary, but you wouldn't believe all the other uses I've found for it. I even take it on walks with my dog, especially after dark. Votes: +0

I recently received the Alligetter in the mail. I didn't really know what to expect from it. All I knew about it was that it was designed to retrieve things from tight spaces.

THE PRICE: How valuable is what you dropped down the drain? Can you afford to hire a plumber? Do your children enjoy dropping things down the drain? How dexterous are you? While the $19.99 price is too high for my own purposes, someone like my grandfather or a friend of mine with several children would get a lot of mileage out of this.


THE PACKAGING/DESIGN: The box it came with was plain. The single sheet of instructions was written in “plain English” and described how to use and care for my Alligetter. There was no excessive packaging.

The light weight, small size and slim design threw me off at first. It fits easily in my desk drawer, and the handle folds. The plastic is light but durable. The trigger loop is large, and it doesn't take much pressure to close the Alligetter's jaws. The front-mounted light is easy to turn on and off. The serrated jaws easily grasp small, slippery, thin objects. I feel that it is quite well designed.

As for the 'flap spreader' it came with – I couldn't get the ends of it to stay together even though I followed the directions. It just slipped into the garbage disposal. It may be more useful for other disposal designs, or I may have been using it wrong.


THE EXPERIENCE: I have used similar devices and was not impressed – they weren't very good at grasping things. I appreciate the Alligetter more. I was rough with it, but it didn't break. It's possible to break it, but harder than I thought it would be. It does not grip as well as pliers, and doesn't hold up well to gripping-and-twisting.

I had an immediate need for the Alligetter, since the downstairs drain was clogged. The drain is small, but thankfully the Alligetter fits easily into tight spaces. The LED light is also waterproof, and the body has drainage holes. After some fishing, I retrieved my prize: a wad of hair. I was impressed, because grasping and pulling hair is no mean feat. I then realized that my Alligetter needed to be cleaned. The LED light casing popped right out, and the plastic body was dunked in sudsy water and scrubbed. Very easy! The light is a nice touch - it doesn't require continuous pressure to stay on. It comes with a plastic button cover that prevents the light from being accidentally turned on during storage and draining the battery.

Since household members objected to me dropping things down the garbage disposal, I had to simulate a drain with a long piece of spare pipe. These are the things I managed to successfully retrieve from my “simulated drain”:

A pen

A receipt

A key

A dime

A hoop earring

Carrot peels

I discovered that the Alligetter is useful for other things, such as picking up change from flat surfaces without ruining my nails, locating, getting to and manipulating cables that are in tight spaces, and getting things that have fallen into tight spaces (such as between the fridge and wall).

CONCLUSION:

While I don't tend to drop things down drains often, this device is useful for pulling things out of the garbage disposal that I didn't intend to go there (such as chunks of celery). I would recommend it for someone with arthritis, since it has so many other uses (picking up change, for example). For many people, $19.99 might seem like too much, but if you have mischievous children or have had to repair your garbage disposal one too many times, you may want to invest in one of these.

Votes: +0

I found this device to be a very useful and ingenious tool. It's light-weight and convenient fold-away handle makes for easy storage in a drawer or a toolbox. The attached light is a great feature that helps in seeing exactly what's in the garbage disposal. It can be used in retrieving other items in tight spaces where hands can't go. Quite handy!

Overall, I found it to be a very practical, convenient, time-saving device for those times when unexpected items fall out of reach during a project or slip out of the way by accident.

Votes: -1