Alan Oster

A Lehigh Acres man is an inventor and believe he has come up with a product that every household in the country would buy. But getting someone to help back him financially has become a problem.

“It takes money to produce the Seat Clean product and the larger companies that make cleaning products devices don’t want my product to appear on the market. I have written the large corporations and I get nothing but negative replies from them.

The Disposable Toilet Seat Cleaning Pad is patented under the name of Alan L. Oster, who filed for a patent back a few years back and has spent lot of money from savings to produce the product and to distribute it.

“It’s something that came into my mind and I went about designing it apply for the patent. I even had thousands of the items manufactured, but still have not been able to distribute them in any great supply,” Oster said.

He and his wife came to Lehigh several months ago to live, leaving Fargo, North Dakota. He thought he may find investors in Florida who would help him manufacture his product and distribute it.

Holding product: Alan Oster holds a box and the product that he has invented to clean toilet seats. Photo by Mel Toadvine

He says the product, called Seat Clean, is more than that.

“It is a hand cleaning device with cleaning agents in the pad that you can use on almost anything from the bathroom to the kitchen, to windows, to almost anything in your house.

“The best thing about it that you won’t get any germs while using this device and believe if produced and put on shelves with some national advertising, the produce could become successful,” Oster said.

He has a business plan albeit it very long and admits that he needs to shorten it because he has discovered most banks won’t take the time to even read all the way through it.

Oyster should know what it takes to clean things properly and without gathering up germs from surfaces that he comes in contact with. He has been in the cleaning business for most of his life and admits he has cleaned thousands of toilet seats.

Cleaning product and box

But much of the money he made in that business has been sunk into the product and he admits today that what’s left of those that were manufactured with his own money, have become dry and are no longer moist like they were when they were first made.

He designed his own box and on the front calls it “great for travelers, the easiest and best way to disinfect and clean toilet seats.”

It’s a one- time seat cleaning mitt which is disposable after use. There are six individual mitts per box. Oster claims it kills such germs as Tuberculocidal, Viurucide, Fungicide, HIV-1, Staphylococcusaureus, Pseudomonas Aeruginosa and Salmonella Cholerasuis.

Those names are foreign to most people, but Oster says they are germs that you don’t want your hands and body to come into contact with.

“I’ve cleaned thousands of toilets in my lifetime and remember how difficult it was to protect your hands so I dreamed up this product which is a great way to clean toilets and many other things.”

Oster says he has probably spent $350,000 of his own money and admits he has just about run out of funds to have more of the product made.

Just to get it patented, he said it cost $5,000. He said he hired a patent attorney to take it through the process.

Oster says he has been to trade shows, and other venues where new products are shown, but somehow he always ends up in the back of the room.

“The major companies have the best locations and I don’t think they want my product to see the light of day,” he said. “Yet I know what I have is an excellent product.”

The product is bio-gradable and includes a type of thin plastic that also will break down, he said.

His wife, Kim, vouches for the product.

“I have used them all over the house and they work great. It’s a good product, but he can’t seem to get the word out so he can really do something with the product,” she said.

Oster said the product is portable and can be folded up in a pocket for travelers. “You can take it anywhere and use it public rest rooms and it works,” he said.

So as it stands now, Oster says, I have the patent to the product, but I can’t do any more unless someone steps up to the plate and believes in the product and helps me to get it manufactured and on the shelves of stores all over this country.