Our farm is listed for sale, and we’ve been getting it into shape.
The gutters are clogged on the main part of the three story house, on both sides.
I’m afraid of heights. I used to like heights. I’d climb trees, rock climbing, all over roofs. I even worked construction briefly (I filled water jugs.)
Then one day all that changed. I was painting the barn roof, about 75 feet up. I was on the middle of the roof, not near the edge, and everything was going fine.
All of a sudden I got a bad case of Vertigo, or, as Mel Brooks puts it “High Anxiety.”
I knew I was going to fall and die.
I dropped a $40.00 bucket of roofing paint, dropped the brush, laid down flat on the freshly painted roof, sunk my fingers into the tin, and hyperventilated for about ten minutes.
I exagerate not at all when I tell you that a staccato "bang! bang! bang! bang!’ was heard slamming into the roof like a drumroll at that time. I was shaking so hard with terror.
It took me ten thousand years to inch my way to the ladder, climb down and pull myself back together.
The roof remained 2/3 painted for the rest of that year, while I got up the nerve to try again.
I never did. I paid a neighbor to finish the job.
I have nightmares of falling now. I don’t like balconies, and if I see somebody up really high, even on TV I get nervous.
So, the gutters need cleaning.
They’ve needed cleaning for a few years. Now they’re completely clogged.
For my first attempt, I placed a ladder and climbed up onto the one story roof, of the addition, cleaning the gutter without incident.
With that success in mind, I pulled the ladder up, extended it to the top of the house and climbed up.
I made it to the peak without incident, and sat there with a leg on each side attempting to get acclimated.
Every time I even thought about moving down to the edge though, I started to feel sick. Instead of getting acclimated, I started to feel worse. I climbed down in a hurry.
Yesterday I drove up to my parents house and borrowed the big extension ladder. I drove home, and before it got dark, I grabbed the pellet gun and shot down the wasps nests hanging under the eaves.
Today I set up the ladder, grabbed a hose and climbed up to just underneath the gutter.
Now, this is a 25 foot extension ladder, but I was at least 40 feet in the air. Don’t ask me how this works, just take my word for it, ok?
So, I was up there, and very unhappy. The ladder was vibrating from my knees, as I tried to reach up and remove gunk.
I’d do this, move the ladder and do it again.
When I used the hose to wash the rest of it out, it was still stopped up.
There was a lot of gunk up there, and truth be told, it’s hard to clean a gutter that way.
I thought about using the pressure washer to clear it out, but that would need two hands, and there is no way I’m standing at the top of that ladder and holding a torquing pressure washer over my head.
As a failure, I climbed down, and put everything away.
I don’t want to die up there.
I’m such a pussy. Anybody got any good ideas?
However, I can improve upon it: You can rent scaffolding by the day from most equipment rental places (like the place where you’d get a cement mixer or a paint sprayer). And it’s not that difficult to assemble–if the Better can do it, so can Scylla. 