The gutters on our rental house (we’ve been here two years) have about a dozen little pine trees growing out of them. They were here when we moved in. I thought they would perish in the summer heat, but they are flourishing. Is there any reason on Frith’s green Earth these need to remain in the gutters?
remove the trees and clean out the gutters. Gutters need to be clear to serve their purpose of draining water from the roof and away from the house. At some point, you will have issues (i.e. leakage into the house) if you don’t.
No, and they need to be removed. Sediment from the roof collects in the gutters. Seeds from neighboring trees fall on the roof, get washed into the gutters and settle in this damp sediment. The sunlight and moisture make a great place for the seeds to take root and start growing.
They need to be removed so water can continue to flow away from the roof/house as designed.
When we clean out the gutters on our barn, we save the little saplings and plant them in the woods.
Probably won’t live long but easily long enough to wreck your gutters one way or another. Pull them out now and clean the gutters. Pine needles are the worst for gutters anyway. They clog up gutters and downspouts and promote corrosion in metal gutters. Very good gutter covers stop a lot of them but I don’t think anything will keep them out of gutters entirely
Notify the owner. Their problem. If you have to deal with it, you should be compensated by the owner.
We have this issue at our apartment complex every 3-4 years. The rain gutters aren’t cleaned until little “rooftop gardens” start appearing. Only then does management do anything about it. A policy of “benign neglect”, if you will.
Consequently what ends up happening over time is the gutters develop leaks at the seams and then we have little “waterfalls” cascading down at various places. They’ll eventually get bad enough so they’ll have to completely replace the gutters.
I like the cut of your jib.
Fantastic response time, folks; I thank you all for your comments. This is the first time I’ve encountered this and being in the South, where some things are very different (read: weird), it couldn’t hurt to ask if I was violating some backwoods voodoo tradition. Yeah, the trees are about a foot-and-a-half tall and show no signs of leaving town anytime soon. They will go shortly, before it gets into triple-digit heat (we hit 95 degrees a couple days ago).
Now that had not occurred to me and is a decent suggestion. Gutter cleaning had always been part of incidental rentee maintenance, like cleaning mold/algae off the facade and mowing the yard. Triffids in the gutters is a different matter and worth a mention to the landlord. Thanks.
I own 4 rental houses with gutters on the houses and garages at 2 of them. I consider gutter cleaning as a seasonal maintenance item I take care of. Last thing I would want is a tenant on a ladder (probably too short to begin with) trying to clean a gutter, fall, and sue me.
Mowing lawn, raking leaves, snow removal, yes. Cleaning gutters, trimming trees, no. Basically anything other than changing light bulbs that would require the tenant to stand on higher than a 2 step, stepstool.
Gutter Triffids should definitely be taken care of by your landlord. No point in risking blindness just so your gutters run free. Even if the oil is really good.
Hmm.
I’ve only ever rented one free-standing house, but none of those things were my = tenant responsibility. My responsibilities were to pay the rent and not trash the place. Anything else the rule was “Call the property manager”.
Opposite to the OP, it would never occur to me to try to address the problem myself.
As a homeowner I’ve certainly cleaned out my gutters. As a tenant? Not so much.
Clearly there are different experiences and expectations out there.
I had an ash seedling in one of my gutters one time - I figured it would just die up there and left it - the next year it was a small sapling so I got the ladder out and went up there - it had a root system that went along the gutter in both directions and into the downpipe, where it had formed a mat that was trapping sediment and stuff - I ended up having to disassemble the downpipe in order to push out a 50cm long solid plug of roots and soil.
Moral of the story - remove seedlings as soon as you can after seeing them - and yeah, replant them somewhere nice if appropriate.
(On a rented property, I’d probably call the landlord, although I suppose that would depend on the responsibilities in the contract)
I have been renting houses for 20+ years. The tenants run the gamut from expecting me to change the burnt out light bulbs, batteries in the electronic lock and smoke doctors (their responsibility per the contract) to those who have tried to “fix” HVAC system (please don’t, had to buy a new outdoor condenser unit).
The general responsibilities are spelled out in the paperwork. I tell them if there is any problem, no matter how seemingly small, please let me know. Small problems turn into big problems (like the trees in the gutter) if the landlord/property manager doesn’t know about it.
You know how you sometimes hear of an old building being “reclaimed by nature”? This is how it starts. Let it go long enough, and eventually roots will find some way to poke through the structure, and then as the roots grow, they’ll push the pieces of the building apart.
At the school I work at, there’s a very healthy-looking catalpa growing out of a tin roof, easily visible from one of the stairwells. Maintenance really needs to get on that.
I saw a YouTube clip last week of this guy clearing ivy off the brick facade of a house — two floors and attic. He clipped the ivy up near the roof peak and the entire wall of ivy came pouring off the house. Two thoughts at once: good thing he wasn’t standing underneath that mess as I would guess it could have weighed 200 lbs; and I wonder how much of the flashing(?) came off with the vegetation and would the bricks be following the ivy to the ground shortly?
A problem with clogged gutters is that overflowing water can get between the gutters and the fascia, which causes rotting. And the weight of full gutters can cause the gutters to fall off. If you eventually own your own house, make sure you keep the gutters clear or else you’ll end up with lots of problems.
Keeping the gutters clear can also mitigate fire risk. A fire will often throw up embers which travel a long way. A common way that houses end up catching on fire is that the embers land in gutters filled with debris and the debris catches on fire.
One thing that helps to keep gutters clear is to put up gutter guards. You don’t have to get expensive gutter guards. Even the cheapest and simplest gutter guards from the hardware store will keep a lot of debris out of the gutters.
Ivy can break down bricks and mortar if it gets into cracks. Some people like the look of the ivy on the walls, but it will need to be cleared from time to time and the bricks may need repointing (repairing the mortar). Repointing is needed over time anyway unless brick is well sealed and cleaned regularly. As @Chronos mentions, it is part of nature reclaiming a building and vegetation helps break down the hardest materials.
Now that hits close to home and I’m glad you brought it up. Our neighborhood is quite rural and people are burning stuff around here all the time (fireplaces, too). I’ll be upping my diligence.
It fascinates me how something as pliant as vegetation can basically muscle up to a structure and, without so much as a “pardon me,” push the sucker down. And then, cover it up completely over the next several years. You see that mentioned often in those “After People Are Gone” videos.
We have gutter guards on our house gutters, but not on our barn’s gutters.
Each year we spend a day working on the barn gutters. Every few years we spend a few hours on the house gutters.