All RVers Should Pick Up A Water Thief

Years ago I parked our RV in a state campground forgetting to fill the fresh water tank. I thought, "No problem, I'll just run a hose from the water faucet and fill it up." I unrolled the hose, put the fill nozzle on the male end, crammed it in the fill hole and marched off to the faucet with the female end. When I reached down to screw in the hose connector, the threads were missing. Apparently state and federal parks believe it's not a good idea to have threads on their campground water faucets. Not knowing what to do I just held the hose over the end of the faucet and forced water to trickle into my holding tank while half of it showered me in the process. Later I discovered a simple invention that would have saved me a lot of frustration, it's called the "Water Thief" and is available at your local RV parts store. When you need to use an unthreaded faucet you stick the Water Thief on the end of the faucet and tighten down the hose clamp to hold it in place. When I use high pressure I place a hose clamp on the male adapter end and at the faucet end to hold it tightly in place. Thread you hose onto the Water Thief and you're in business. If you're not using a lot of water pressure the Water Thief will usually stay snugly in place on the faucet without using the hose clamp.I've used my Water Thief many times in campgrounds and especially at dump stations where I want to attach a clean-out hose to my sewer flushing system. Many dump stations have water wash-out hoses with a brass tube at the business end making it impossible to attach a regular hose unless you have the Water Thief. You can pick these up for less than six bucks and at that price it's a steal! Jim Twamley, Professor of RVing.

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