Lluvia, lluvia, fuera de aqui!

Bourgeois life in Ecuador today:

I'm doing a crossword in the family room, which is a former courtyard with a glass roof. It's raining and I hear an unfamiliar drip sound. That is, as opposed to the usual drip sounds. Because the glass roof overlaps older tile roofs, two now-interior walls have gutters & downspouts. There's lots of rain-noise, but no leaks since we re-glassed the roof last Spring. I look around- don't see any issues.

But the the rain gets heavier, and the unfamiliar drip changes to a gush- water is pouring into the room from an overflowing gutter. But one can't see into either gutter from inside the room. I run up to the stairwell so I can look through its window into the stopped gutter from the outside. 

Nominal view of virtually-inaccessible gutter though stairwell window.

I can barely see a plastic bag, which has gotten into the gutter; no small feat considering the roof layout, but obviously not impossible. But I can't access the gutter from the outside- that would mean creeping over a 40-year-old terra-cotta roof. I run back inside, grab a stepladder. I can just squeeze two fingers into the gutter from the inside, and by feel pull out the bag. A mess, but not a catastrophe. Thank God that we were in Ecuador; that we were in town; that I was in the house; and that I was in the room to hear the trouble.

Interior gutter & downspout. Pushing hard, I could get fingers into the gutter from this side.

My whole life as a homeowner has been a war against water- either it's where I don't want it; or it's not where I do want it.

Rain, rain, go away!