I’m having the house exterior painted in preparation for renting it out. We once had a healthy crop of English ivy on it, and after removing it, it left many old tendrils in the stucco that I’ve always found impossible to remove, so persistent are the roots. I’ve tried power washing, to little avail, and thought that it would be a long and tedious job with a wire brush, perhaps combined with some sort of acid. I even asked on a home repair newsgroup, but no one had any obvious easy solution.

But I’m sitting here watching the painters prep the house, and they’re doing what’s obvious in retrospect. They fired up a little propane torch, and simply burn them off, followed by brushing off the ashes. Why didn’t I think of that?