This One Weird Trick for Draining Liquid ...

... from a more highly positioned container to a container at a lower level. Which is to say, siphoning it.

I had this idea, did some web searching to see if it was viable, and didn't find anything on it at all, so I decided to try it, and it worked.

1. Place a rolled up chamois ("shammy" if you prefer MURICAN) in the liquid in the more highly placed container;
2. Let it soak up plenty of liquid;
3. Pick up one end of the chamois, while leaving the other end in the liquid, and place the end you picked up in the lower container;
4. Squeeze the lower end of the chamois to start liquid draining into the lower container;
5. Go away.

Seems to be a winner. I have a portable AC / dehumidifier / heater that leaks but otherwise works just fine, so it lives in a large plastic drawer (recycled from one of those cheap plastic dresser drawer units) atop a box.

Until recently, every day or so I had to physically lift the heavy unit out of the tray, go dump the tray, then replace the unit. Inconvenient and messy.

Now I just keep an eye on a bucket on the floor with the low end of the chamois in it, and empty that bucket if it's getting full (which takes a couple of days). The bottom of the container in which the unit sits remains dry, except for a little dampness right around the end of the chamois that's soaking up the leaking water.

I might have just used a spare piece of hose, either as a siphon or inserted in a hole I'd drill in the bottom of the holding tray, but I thought a chamois would be less unwieldy, less subject to a cat walking by and deciding to knock it loose, etc., and, most of all, wanted to see if an idea I had but didn't see recommended on the Intertubes worked. It did. You're welcome.