Years before the lead pencil was invented, Joseph Priestly found rubber could remove marks. For more than 200 years, man has found countless uses for these handy rubber erasers. They rub light rust away, remove spots and smudges on paint and wallpaper and take black heel marks off shiny, clean floors. Erasers can clean small electrical contacts, too, like those on doorbells or on the base and handsets of cordless phones. Think about it, and you will find lots of uses for the mild abrasive in erasers. For what it’s worth, the average pencil can draw a line 35 miles long, much farther than the mile or two its rubber eraser can erase. Another note, while erasers were invented in 1770 and lead pencils in 1795, it was nearly 100 years before the two were put together. The first pencil with an attached eraser was patented in 1858. And that's the On The House tip for today.