Whether he’s driving around town (only in the flats) or parked in your neighborhood, it’s hard to miss Stanley Searles' trademark blue truck. I met Stanley several years ago when he came to my home to repair a leaky toilet. When he later sent my daughter a birthday card, I knew I had encountered a different kind of plumber.

I was fortunate enough to be invited into Stanley’s lovely Sycamore Park home a while back. Surrounded by his wife Sharon's beautiful paintings, and with his two friendly dogs at my feet, Stanley told me a bit about his life, his neighborhood, and his passion for plumbing.

Mill Valley Patch: When and where did you get that truck?
Stanley: I got the truck in 1975. I had a low truck at first and I was always crouched down inside so I wanted something I could stand up in. I went to a used truck lot up by the Liquor Barn (now BevMo) and it was in the lot. As time went on, other trucks like that dropped away so it started to become unusual. Now it’s become my trademark. My original logo was the P-trap under the sink, but so many people recognized the truck that I turned that into my logo. 

MVP: Do you think you get a lot of your business from the truck?
Stanley: My biggest source of business is word of mouth. People frequently say they’ve seen the truck.

MVP: Is it hard to drive?
Stanley: Yes, there are a lot of people that don’t know I have to stop 100 percent to shift into gear. At the bottom of Gomez (Way), people beep at me because I’m stopped. It’s very heavy. It’s old, and it doesn’t have power steering. If I have a heavy day, I feel it in my shoulders at the end of the day. That’s why I have a list of all the addresses in Mill Valley and I only stay in the flats. I get eight miles per gallon.

MVP: Do people ever ask for rides?
Stanley: They don’t. But it is enjoyable to have a ride in it. Sharon likes to ride.

MVP: How long have you lived in Mill Valley?
Stanley: My parents brought five children to Mill Valley in 1956. I graduated from Tam High. The Tam connection gave me a good start to feeling like a Mill Vallian.

MVP: What was it like then?
Stanley: Bohemians hadn’t even come in yet. They came in first and then it went on to hippies.

MVP: What neighborhood did you live in then?
Stanley: My family moved around a lot. I’ve lived in at least three houses in Blithedale Canyon. Sharon and I bought our house in Sycamore Park when we got married.

MVP: How long have you been a plumber?
Stanley: Actually I am a social worker. I was a social worker for 10 years. This was a mid-life career change. I’ve been officially a plumber, with my license, etc. since the middle of 1973.

MVP: Did you just decide you wanted to do something different?
Stanley: It was that we had a baby and bought a house in Mill Valley. You can’t quite meet your mortgage on a social worker’s salary. So I went to the local hardware store and asked if people came in needing things done. I told them I could do electrical work or plumbing. Well they had plenty of people who could do electric work, so they kept sending me on these plumbing jobs. After a while, I got hooked on it. I was doing plumbing after work just to make up the balance of our mortgage payments and I found that I was enjoying the plumbing more than the social work.

MVP: I guess plumbing can be a form of social work.
Stanley: There is a difference between my social work and my plumbing. With social work usually I would get a case when I went into an agency and I’d still have that case when I left the agency years later. With plumbing I get a problem and solve the problem that same day. It is very satisfying.

MVP: How many clients do you see in a day?
Stanley: It depends and it varies wildly. I think 11 or 12 is the max that I’ve done. On a very busy day in a busy season, usually not more than eight. On a regular day, probably one or two. 

MVP: You have a busy season? When is it?
Stanley: Sometime after Labor Day it kicks in and it goes strong until about two days before Christmas. I think there’s deferred maintenance from the summer and then once it gets close to Christmas no one has time to deal with plumbing issues.

MVP: What is the most common plumbing problem in Mill Valley?
Stanley: Toilet runs. And the most common toilet running problem is that it will run for a few seconds and stop.

MVP: Is that hard to fix?
Stanley: No, usually it’s just the flapper. Flappers wear out. But if it’s not fixed, you’re going to have a big water bill.

MVP: Sometimes calling a plumber is embarrassing. We might have an unpleasant problem with our toilet and we’re scared that the plumber is going to judge us. Do you judge us?
Stanley: No, I do not judge. People do a good enough job of judging themselves. When someone’s toilet has been a real mess, I clean it up so they can’t even tell that there was a problem. It feels good to me to be able to make that big contrast.

MVP: I assume that since you are also a social worker, you probably have some kind of code of confidentiality, so your customers don’t need to worry about you going around town talking about the state of their plumbing.
Stanley: Yes, without writing it down, that’s just part of my unspoken way of doing things. That’s why I haven’t told you whose bathtub I once pulled Superman out of.
It's true I pulled that figurine out of a tub drain once. Superman has saved a lot of people but I saved Superman.

MVP: Is there anything you would say “no” to? Have you ever encountered something that was just too gross?
Stanley: No. Generally I would not go under a house if there were raccoons there. A cornered raccoon can kill a person. But I have had people send me under their house with spiders.

MVP: What about Drano? Someone told me once to never use Drano.
Stanley: Oh, it’s very good for the stockholders of Drano. Drano doesn’t do anything. If you’ve got hair in your drain it will clean the hair so water will flow more smoothly, but it won’t remove the hair. To really clean a drain you need a snake.  Drano is a waste of money.

MVP: Is there anything you wish people knew about plumbing? Any advice for our Mill Valley readers?
Stanley: I have a standard speech about what not to put down the toilet. Only toilet paper. Even Kleenex can cause trouble that toilet paper won’t. It doesn’t disintegrate in the same way. Also, there is a part of a feminine product that does not decompose and it’s not going anywhere if it gets caught. And if I walk into a house and there’s a lot of clutter on the back of the toilet seat I get nervous.  Sooner or later something’s going to be knocked off and go into the toilet. Toothbrushes, pencils, Popsicle sticks are murder.

MVP: That toothbrush is going to stay in your pipes?
Stanley: No, it’s not getting out of the toilet! Typically I have to pull the toilet out of the floor and get it from the bottom.

MVP: Do you love Mill Valley?
Stanley: Oh yes. My parents brought us here and everyone moved away but I stuck. Somebody told me there’s a book that says you can hike on a different trail around Mount Tam every day for a year.

MVP: So you like to hike. What else do you do for fun?
Stanley: I cross-country ski and kayak. My wife and I started a book group with another couple and that’s been going on for more than 25 years.  Every year we take two trips, skiing and kayaking.

MVP: You’ve lived in this neighborhood for a long time.
Stanley: Oh yes. Our New Year's Eve was spent with the neighbors across the street and with the next-door neighbors for dinner. This is the kind of thing that happens.