Photo courtesy of bhamsandwich at Flickr.com.
The term “out of sight, out of mind” certainly applies to all the junk that accumulates in your home’s rain gutters. It’s easy to forget that they require regular cleaning — right up to the point where the downspouts clog, and your overloaded gutter dumps a bucket of water on your head as you try to get in the front door during a downpour. More critical is the fact that a dirty, water-clogged gutter provides an ideal place for mosquitoes to breed. In the spirit of “an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure,” it’s easier to keep your gutters clean than to try to kill kamikaze mosquitoes after you’ve provided them with a ready-made breeding bed.
While you can always climb on a ladder and clean your gutters out by hand, we’ve got a better idea: why not use a gutter cleaner that lets you keep your feet planted firmly on the ground? We carry two handsome, eco-friendly gutter cleaning tools that make this task a lot easier. Both our Gutter Tongs and the Ultimate Rain Gutter Cleaner work on the tongs principle and come attached to a long, extendable pole, allowing you to feel around from below and scoop those leaves right out. You can use either gutter cleaner to lift a garden hose nozzle on high to flush out any of the small debris you’ve missed.
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While I always appreciate tools that truly make organic gardening possible to the masses, possessing too many “purchase items” that contribute to the waste stream sorta defeats the purpose of being environmentally friendly. Just get up there and dig out your gutters! Use some elbow grease!
You make a good point, Brian.
I don’t like ladders or climbing on the roof though, so I prefer a tool that reaches up rather than getting up there myself.
Ladders can be dangerous if you aren’t careful! http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/70010.php
You can also avoid needing a gutter tool if you install those gutter guards that help keep the leaves and dirt out in the first place. We have those installed on the back of our house, and they have been effective.