I get the ads on email almost every day. On tv too I see them a lot.

I once considered putting on a type of gutter guard to keep the leaves out of the gutters. But when I started really considering how much good they would do, I realized they sure wouldn't keep pine needles out and we have tons of pine needles falling in the fall. Decided that the mesh would make it extra hard to clean the pine needles out of the gutters. That put an end to any thought about installing the guards.

A few times a year as I request it, my gardener hops on my roof with his industrial strength leaf blower and cleans off the roof and gutters. I hand him a hose and he gets what remains in the gutter and cleans the downspouts.

I have large roof and it takes him less than an hour. I don't live in a forested area, a structure with more nearby trees or a more steeply pitched roof might have different needs.

Our house is newer (2014) so trees are young and below the gutters. In a few years I'll have K-Guard gutter system installed.

We had Leaf Filter installed on our previous house for more than 10 years and performance was excellent. We didn't, and don't have pines because we consider pines an ugly tree that's messy and hard to maintain.

We don’t have gutters. Lots of trees, both pine, oak and maple. I should say there is one gutter, on the garage that we park cars in. Not on the other garage.

Usually you see ads for things that you have searched for or been looking at. And not everyone always sees the same thing. I have not seen any ads for those.

I have been seeing a lot of ads for a clothes company I looked up on trustpilot. As I suspected they were not a good company.

We have had gutter guards on for, oh, almost 15 years. Ever since our neighbor Sandy behind us came running through the woods and across the lawn, waving a business card from his roofer, telling me to get my husband down off the second-story roof right now and CALL this guy already for gutter guards before he fell and broke a bone. So we did.

DH used to go up there twice in the fall and twice in the spring. Now he goes up, maybe once a year just to inspect. He seems a little disappointed not to have to clear any clogs.

We have two slight trouble areas now.

One is a valley where the water rushes down and overshoots the gutter at the corner, so we removed the gutter guard in the corner and cut and bent a piece of downspout to be a backsplash and bounce the water back down into the gutter. Problem solved. By the way, that was a problem even before the gutter guards, and surprisingly the gutter guards did not seem to make it worse.

The other slight trouble is this:

The front first floor of our house is slightly U-shaped, with a second floor over the middle portion.

The house faces north.

The prevailing winds are from the west. So, the front first floor U is slightly protected.

The two big trees in front are locusts, with small leaves.

The design of these particular gutter guards is that there is a tiny lip on the outside edge.

So, whereas in all other areas of the roof a breeze will blow off any leaves on top of the gutter guards, in the U the wind doesn’t quite reach.

So, with those factors combined, those tiny leaves can collect there unless we have a dry spell and more of a northerly wind.

Fortunately, it’s an easy fix with either a stepstool and a leaf blower (we have an attachment with a bend for the purpose) or just reaching out an upper-story window with the blower or a broom in the fall.

We definitely recommend them if you have trees.

Edit to address your other question about what grows in the darkness: we looked a couple of times, and did not see a mold issue, and there was a little grit as you might expect, but not much.

Edit to say, I think our brand was Leaf Relief, but I could be mistaken. Got them from the roofer. They have small holes, but I wouldn’t call it micro mesh.

Ravencajun, where we live we encounter the ads all the time on TV, radio, and print.

Michael, believe me, those pine trees aren't in my yard, but a nextdoor neighbor has 4 in his yard. The prevailing wind blows them into my yard and the neighbor's yard on the other side of me. We have both asked the neighbor with the pines about getting rid of them, but he likes them.

Raven, thank you about mentioning trustpilot in your post above. I just went to that site and am going to join.

Our house came with them. DH took them off.....they clog, then the water runs over them.

I was referring to the ads we see pop up online.

There have been a lot of new companies popping up that have great looking clothing and shoes. However when their reviews are checked it's apparent that they are not legit. Often times people received nothing and no response from the company.

Trustpilot is an easy way to quickly check the reputation of a company before you make a purchase.

My husband had the actual Gutter Guards type installed on this house. If you live in an area of snow and ice something that is not mentioned is that you NEED the electrical heating system for roofs. As the ice/snow melts and hits the metal it will start forming a layer at the edge where the water should go in. Much too soon ice will form enough that the water will start forming icicles cascading off the edge.

Second problem that I had was my husband's fault and lack of planning by the company. He and the installer did not think this house needed the bigger sized gutters. They have started separating where there is a corner next to the front door and form ice in the entryway. When I called about seeing what could be done they sent someone out. Their fix was to replace that corner section. Except they no longer make that size. I was assured that if there was damage or the color faded they stood behind the lifetime warrantee. I had to laugh because if they did not have the size of the gutter how would they be able to "fix" anything.

Yes, I'm 'seeing' these ads on TV, not online.

We have a 10/12 pitch roof. The builder didn't put big enough gutters on the house, but so far we have only replaced the ones on the east side -- and removed a center downspout that was undermining a brussels block patio.

Now we need to tackle an area between our home and that of our only close neighbor (to our west). The city should never have permitted a 10-foot basement there, AND a 10-foot pool, AND, just recently, a fifth bedroom suite under the 3-car garage. (This house replaced a small 1950's ranch.) The displaced water is collecting between the houses. I 'suspect', but cannot verify, that new owners have a sump that empties owards our property. The city suggests digging a swale to channel this water to the street, where it can go down the storm sewer. Something must be done. The water is undermining the fence between our properties and drowning plantings. Maybe the neighbors will help pay for this??? They would have to replace this fence due to the pool.

We priced them out two years ago. At our age climbing on the roof is counter indicated..but the price was in our opinion INSANE. They are guaranteed so I like the idea of calling them to come fix if they clog. Some issues have no easy solutions, it would seem this is one of those.

Here in the desert, no one has gutters, as we get only 4.8" of rain a year. Rainfall of 1/4" in one day is considered a major storm, however, and may cause flooding because of the surrounding mountains, which channel all the rain into the arroyos, which are normally dry.

In Los Angeles, we have gutters but no gutter guards, as there are no trees near the house that are higher than the gutters. Our street is lined with tall sweet gum trees, which do lose their leaves in the winter, and we have an apple tree in the back in the back yard that loses its leaves usually around February. Our tallest tree is a white sapote in the back yard, but it does not lose leaves all at once and is pretty far from the house. We probably need to have someone trim it so that it will be shorter. Also, this year it is putting out tons of fruit. Our banana tree is finally blooming, but of course banana leaves never get into gutters. We get 14.5 inches of rain where we live in L.A., but never very much in one day. I have never known our gutters to get clogged.

What is odd is that here in the desert we get lots of TV ads for gutter guards, and yet no one here has gutters!