Learned the hard way that my gutters were clogged for 3 years after a bird built a nest in one of them

I was up on a ladder last Saturday morning trying to figure out why water was pouring off the side of my roof during a storm. When I finally got the leaf guard off, I found a massive bird nest blocking the downspout plus about 20 pounds of wet leaves packed solid. Now I set a reminder on my phone to check all 4 corners of the house every October and April. Has anyone else found something weird hiding in their gutters?

2 comments

2 Comments

benflores10d ago

You said "set a reminder on my phone to check all 4 corners" and that's probably the smartest thing anyone can do with gutters. I had the same problem but worse. Found a whole family of squirrels living in mine once. They chewed through the downspout screen and made a nest out of dry leaves and insulation they pulled from my attic vent. Took me two hours just to clean it all out and patch the hole. Now I check every three months because if you let it go too long the water backs up under the shingles and rots the fascia board. That repair is way more expensive than just buying a cheap ladder.

dylanh9710d ago

Last fall I found a full set of socket wrenches in my gutter. Still not sure if I threw them up there in a fit of bad decision making or if a raccoon stole them from my truck and started a hardware collection. The weirdest part is they were all 10mm sockets which are famously cursed to disappear forever so finding eight of them in one place felt like a graveyard of lost tools.