Tom Briggs noticed the stain on a Tuesday evening. A faint brown ring on the basement ceiling. It hadn't been there the week before. He pressed his thumb against it. Damp.

"I told myself it was a pipe," Tom said. "I actually hoped it was a pipe. Pipes you can fix for a few hundred bucks."

It wasn't a pipe.

The water damage technician spent 40 minutes crawling behind the walls. Then he came downstairs and handed Tom a clipboard.

$4,800.

The source? Clogged gutters. Dry leaves, pine needles, and shingle grit had packed the channels solid. When it rained, the water overflowed backward — behind the fascia, down the interior wall, into the foundation.

Tom is 58. Semi-retired accountant. He's owned his colonial in Richmond, Virginia for 24 years. He keeps a spreadsheet for every home maintenance task — HVAC filters, roof inspections, pest control.

But gutters? Gutters were the one line item he kept pushing back.

"I knew they needed cleaning," he told me. "I just couldn't bring myself to do it."