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December 6, 2008
Roomba ownership: Day 1
The purpose of a Roomba is that it vacuums your floors while you do something else. I'm sure the new will wear off, but for now, I spend the hour it takes to vacuum watching it instead of the 20 minutes I would normally spend vacuuming the same area. Kinda counterproductive - but entertaining.
And it's a good thing my help is robotic rather than human because the control freak in me couldn't help but verbally tell it that it had already gotten that spot about 3 times & how 'bout catching the area in front of the TV already.
For all my watching & staring, I'm just not sure it got every inch. It's a strange path this machine takes - it seems to wander aimlessly until its batteries give out; although the owners manual assure me it has a plan. I need to give it more time before saying definitively, but I think it does a better job in smaller rooms & maybe a little less well in large open spaces.
I read quite a few Amazon reviews before purchasing it and there were a couple of reservations. Several people stated they had to stop it & empty every 20 minutes. The dirt bin is quite large & I'm just guessing these people let things pile up a bit too much. Several more commenters said the pet hair would wrap around the brush so tightly that they had to cut it out. Again, thinking they let things pile up a bit. And some didn't like the way it bumped into things. I let it run into my foot several times & found it to be very gentle. In fact, neither Mandy nor the dog seemed to mind when it hit them either. So I don't see how it could hurt furniture. The last negative concern - that the side brushes broke too easily, can't really be commented on after only one day.
I'm very pleased with how gentle it is - I only have to worry about Mandy hurting it - not the other way around. And both Mandy and the dog are much happier with this than they were the conventional vacuum. Mandy would sometimes cry to the point that I was holding her with one arm & vacuuming with the other. Not fun. And the dog was just as irritating as he was scared of the vacuum, but instead of finding a quiet place to ride it out, he stayed within inches of me, constantly in the way. So it was worth it just to have a way to clean the floors that didn't upset those two.
It's too early to think about now, but they make a Scoomba too - a floor mopper. Maybe next year...
| By Wifeepoo | 9:45 PM
Comments
chris just said they make one for mowing your lawn too!
Posted by: erin at December 6, 2008 10:13 PM
