If I climb above the second rung on a ladder I don’t feel at all secure. The only way to get this photo showing we need more gutter cleaning was for Deb to hold the ladder. I had phone in one outstretched hand while clinging to the roof with the other.

mbnov 25-Nov-19: secure

@Miraz From the looks of things, you have a decent dropoff just past the house, so I can see how that makes the ladder situation perilous :-( That’s unfortunate that the gutters still need more cleaning, too :-(

@Miraz We have one side of our house that is pretty far up and I always hated getting up on a (borrowed) ladder to reach it and clean it out. When we got our gutters replaced a few years ago (at the same time we had our roof replaced) I had them put on "gutter guards" (a mesh that keeps out leaves and other stuff, but lets water flow through just fine) to keep large particulate stuff (like leaves etc.) from getting in them. That doesnt' guarantee we'll never have to clean them again but it does seem to have worked very well for the past 3 years! You might look into whether there is something like that you could install on your gutters so you don't have to worry about this kind of thing again once they are clean!

@DrOct Thanks for the suggestion. We don’t need to worry at all about leaves (the odd pine needle, perhaps) but sand and bird poop are both big considerations. I don't think a mesh like that would help. 😒