News that sucks … automatically: Roomba on the way!
By Gina Spadafori
April 2, 2008
I don’t know what it is about me and appliances.
Christie loves shoes and make-up. Kim loves shoes and sports cars. Me? The washer-dryer big enough to clean dog beds. And (non-pet related), my espresso machine that’s more fun that most of the cars I’ve owned. Best 50th birthday gift ever.
But I get most excited about seeing pet hair sucked away by vacuum cleaners. Waaaaa-hoooooo.
Hot on the heels of my getting the handheld Dyson D16 to review — great little sucker! — I decided to follow up on all the suggestions here and get a Roomba to review. Talked to a great guy at iRobot (Hi, Dion!) who says his dog loves the Roomba. I’m personally hoping my pets do not … it’ll surely last longer if left alone.
So, not only will we (OK, we=me) be getting a Roomba 560 to try out on the dog and cat hair, but Dion says we may even be able to get Roombas for our monthly PetConnection.com e-newsletter giveaway. Gotta let all the lawyers talk, but … here’s hoping we get a couple to give away, too.
I can just see this: two sighthounds and a Roomba. YouTube here I come.
Comment by Christie Keith — April 2, 2008 @ 2:19 pm
I SO want one of those…I think. I’ll look forward to your review (two Griffs and a mini-Dachshund here).
Comment by Caveat — April 2, 2008 @ 2:46 pm
I can’t wait for the video, Christie, having 6 iggies, 2 DHSes and an occasional PWC house guest who thinks vacuums of any sort need to be guarded against! Hmmm…maybe a Roomba is a way to help him with some weight loss?
Wonder how it handles small wood chips? My winter life line is my wood stove, I have gone thru 3 cords this year, and the saw and splitter make chips just slightly bigger than sawdust. No matter how one bangs the logs before bringing them in, the house is still carpeted with them, and then there is the dust from cleaning the ashes. Does the Roomba do walls, picture frames and table tops?
Comment by Deb — April 2, 2008 @ 4:04 pm
I had a roomba. It worked great.
Once. After one trip though the house, it was never right again. It seized up and needed to be disassembled for hair removal everytime I used it.
Hope to hear they’ve solved their problems.
Comment by Schnauzer — April 2, 2008 @ 4:35 pm
I’ve had 2 & loved them. They do need cleaning to get all the hair out,but the big problem here was power surges. Both of them got fried while charging during storms. Its not really practical to have to unplug it every time you go out. In fairness,they did replace it the first time.And yes it was on a surge supresser.
Comment by Leslie k — April 2, 2008 @ 7:11 pm
I am with you Gina, better living through inventions. My buddy Dion sent me one for 20 days to try. I still haven’t let ‘er rip with the dogs in the room though. I don’t want it wrecked. I am not sure my collie wo n’t try to kill it…I mean herd it.
nancy
Comment by nancy freedman-smith — April 2, 2008 @ 7:17 pm
I love power tools and this one is no exception. I know someone who swears she’ll never spend another cent on cat toys as long as her Roomba keeps on ticking.
Comment by Dr. Patty Khuly — April 3, 2008 @ 6:50 am
We’ve had a roomba for over 2 years and 4 cats, it’s great. We both work so having the roomba to be able to run it every couple of days to keep down on the pet hair has been great. (We have a Bissell Pet Hair Eraser vaccuum that we use for cleaning upholstery and when we want to do a more heavy duty house cleaning). iRobot recently came up with an upgrade brush set that’s designed to work better with pet hair, we needed new brushes anyway so we bought it and it works great. When we first started using the roomba, we had one cat who followed it everywhere it went but i think the novelty finally wore off ‘cause now he only follows it sometimes. We do have one cat who will lay in the floor and watch the roomba until it actually bumps him then jump up and run off.
We liked our roomba so much that we bought a scooba (it cleans hard floors with water and a clorox solution) - my tile floors have never been so clean. The way the scooba cleans by going over the same areas multiple times really works - really keeps the pet tracks and hair down in the kitchen.
Comment by Deborah R — April 3, 2008 @ 10:09 am