Uh, I married the right guy?
Lol, my guy married the right woman?
We were having tons of rain just spill over the side of our gutter, and we both really thought it must be clogged near the downspout.
Water was getting in our basement from it. I really did not want to shell out $$ to get this fixed, but also was slightly concerned about having either me or my husband do it, as it is a good 19-20 feet up on our two story home. But we did! It was a team effort.
I spent a long time researching different gutter cleaning devices before deciding to try the ladder. I wasn't confident it would be enough, but when a friend offered to lend us an extension ladder, I thought we had to at least try. I researched ladder safety online. DH and I set up the ladder to my researched specs. I did not want him up on the ladder, but was willing to go up myself, so long as he was at the bottom of the ladder for moral support and physical ladder support. Given our statures, I thought it made sense for the smaller, lighter person (4'11", 95 lbs) to go up and the bigger, heavier person (5'11", 190 lbs) to stay down. We put the ladder against the house. We did not have a ladder support bracket and I was hesitant to put the ladder against the gutter, because that could be potentially slide-y or it could potentially damage the gutters. (But if we had to put it against the gutters, DH could do a better job than I making sure the ladder didn't go anywhere, and I would be about 1/2 his weight on the gutter.) Anyway, the ladder set about a foot below the gutter against the house got me high enough to reach into the gutter, feel around for the problem clump of pine needles and gunk, grab it and drop it to the ground. I think I had another rung or two before the "don't climb past this one" rung, and I could have climbed to get a better look, but it wasn't necessary, and I was at the right position just under the gutter where I was. Going up another rung or two would put me closer to the side of the house and I would have had to lean away from the house and the ladder to see the gutter. I was not about to lean away from that ladder. It all went well enough that I went back up with a little wrench in my back pocket and took apart some of the downspout to confirm we fixed the issue.
Last time it rained heavily our basement stayed nice and dry. Well, that side of it, at least. We have another non-gutter related issue on the opposite side of the house. But I believe we've identified the issue, which is half the battle, IMO.