1
general::
Phrase(s): *in the gutter
Fig. [of a person] in a low state; poor and homeless. (*Typically: be ~; fall [into] ~; put someone [into] ~.) • You had better straighten out your life, or you’ll end in the gutter. • His bad habits put him into the gutter.
McGrawhill's American Idioms And Phrasal Verbs
2
general::
Appropriate to or from a squalid, degraded condition. For example, The language in that book belongs in the gutter. An antonym, out of the gutter, means "away from vulgarity or sordidness," as in That joke was quite innocent; get your mind out of the gutter. This idiom uses gutter in the sense of "a conduit for filthy waste." [Mid-1800s]
American Heritage Idioms