Shower and bath storage devices, often referred to as shower or bath caddies, are commonly used to hold and/or store items such as soap, shampoo, and other bath items in shower and bath enclosures. Because of the weight of the stored items, and because it is generally not practical to mount such items in shower or bath enclosures using mechanical fasteners, such as nails and screws, such devices are typically hung from the shower nozzle fixture. Such devices are known in the prior art. U.S. Pat. No. 4,969,580 (Mikhail Essatt), U.S. Pat. No. 4,108,314 (Racca), U.S. Pat. No. 5,255,401 (Sambrookes et al.), and U.S. Pat. No. 6,520,351 (Zadro), for example, disclose such devices. It is also known to mount such devices using suction cups as disclosed in, for example, U.S. Pat. No. 5,289,927 (Emery).
Such devices, however, suffer from certain drawbacks and shortcomings. Devices that hang from the shower nozzle fixture, for example, tend to be large and cumbersome, and because such devices must hang down from the shower nozzle fixture below the shower head so the items in the caddy can be accessed by a user, they are unstable and tend to swing sideways or slide off of the shower nozzle fixture. In addition, the mounting location is limited by the location of the shower nozzle fixture such that they cannot be moved, and, because they must be mounted immediately below the shower head, they tend to interfere with the use of the shower. Devices mounted with suction cups, on the other hand, have limited holding capacity and tend to lose their holding ability over time. As a result, devices mounted with suction cups frequently fail, thereby causing the device and its contents to fall off the wall.
The need therefore exists for a storage device that can be adhesively mounted to the wall surface of a shower or bath enclosure that is inexpensive, easy to install, and holds strongly enough to support items commonly stored in such devices.
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