Leafbusters: the New Gutter Protection From Down Under by Dan Seitz
Australians have always been an inventive people, especially when it comes to their pest problems. As well they should be; if you think you’ve got pest problems, Australia has you beat. Their pests are either enormous, venomous, highly intelligent, or all three. This is a country where even a tiny five-inch octopus can kill you. — and those are just the pests that are natives! The ones the British brought over when colonizing Australia are even worse.
The wildlife in Australia is pretty feisty, and it’s a major problem over there when animals decide to get underneath your roof and act like…well…animals. They can destroy roofs, start fires by gnawing electrical wiring, and cause serious structural problems which you may not notice until it’s far too late. Even seemingly-harmless insects can cause real problems: Australia is home to some of the most poisonous spiders in the world.
Enter Leafbusters
It should come as no surprise that Australian Thea Groom has put together Leafbusters, a flexible plastic mesh designed to keep critters and leaves off your gutters. We’ve got to tip our hat to Thea; it’s a fairly creative approach to a difficult problem that solves not just gutter problems, but pest problems, too.
Leafbusters’ technique mixes the classic “mesh screen” approach of traditional gutter guards with a newer idea or two. First, the screens are flexible plastic, unlike many mesh screens which are metal, usually layers of mesh, held in plastic frames and either clipped to the gutter or screwed into the side of the house. Instead, Leafbusters is riveted, both to the roof and to the gutter, with the mesh pulled tight.
Do We Need It in America?
It’s worth noting that Australia has different rainfall issues than America does. Although its climate varies widely across the country, most of it is extremely dry, and Australia has been facing several years of droughts. This isn’t true of the whole country: the North Queensland coast averages (and this is just an average, mind you) of 160 inches a year. Just as a contrast, Alabama, one of the rainiest states, gets “only” 56 inches per year. So, buck up, Alabamans, it could be a heck of a lot worse.
Still, Australia’s gutter problems usually tend towards “large nasty creatures living in them” rather than “leaves clogging the downspout” (and aren’t you suddenly happy to only have to clean out leaves?)
Will this be available in the US? While we’d welcome the competition, right now it’s only available in Australia and New Zealand. But it fills a need, and we’ll be keeping an eye on our neighbors from Down Under.
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