apartment therapy changing the world, one room at a time

Well, I don't know about its cleaning abilities, but I'm interested in it for the much-touted cat interaction hilarity factor.

Just google "cats and roomba"

Sorry for the long post... I initially resisted buying one of these for the last couple of years. The idea of vacuuming robot seemed completely silly at first.

I am now a convert. I love it, even though it is noisy. If you have small human or pet family members who shed much hair and/or crumbs, this really does the trick.

We have hardwood floors with those grooves that catch dust and food particles, and the Roomba does a much more effective job that our regular vacuum or even the mop (except for sticky spots). We usually walk barefoot or sock-foot in our place and can really tell the difference after the Roomba has been through.

The "random walk" the Roomba takes through the kitchen and living room seems to catch everything. (The first time we used it, I sprinkled baby powder on the floor to see if it missed any spots.) I also noticed it repeatedly circles back to especially dusty spots.

I also like the fact that the bugger automatically returns to its charging station and docks without my intervention. (We have a Roomba Discovery, bought at Costco).

And it really picks up hair! It even gets underneath the sofa and has not scratched any of the furniture.

Caveats: It has worked really well on wood floors and low carpets. It does not work well on plush, thick carpeting. Also, you do need to clean or replace the internal filter every 3 months, but those do not cost very much.

Sorry this sounds like an ad for Roomba, but I am still surprised at how well it continues to suck up the hair and crumbs from our family menagerie.

We tried one of those out and found that it did a great job on our hardwood floors, and a great job on our rugs, but could not successfully navigate between the two. It would get caught up on the "edge" and start spitting out the dirt that it had previously sucked up. If I had all hardwood, though, I would definitely have kept it. It did a great job on that.

ours works pretty well. Its nice to turn it on in the morning when we leave for work, and let it clean during the day. we come home to a much cleaner floor, although it does not substitute for a good vacuuming. the most dissapointing part was the fact that our THREE cats ALL ingnored it. they have no interest whatsoever.
we did decorate it with stickers, and name it, so that's fun.

Does anyone have experience with roombas and vacuum-phobic dogs? Our pooch can take the wheels off our regular vacuum if we let her, I fear the roomba would meet a messy fate if we left it alone with the dog.
Do dogs respond the same way to roombas as they do to other vacuums?

numinous, our two dogs also take the wheels off anything. vacuum cleaners, radio controlled toys, skate boards, inline skates. what is that about? some nasty killing instinct i fear. i have to give them time outs when i vacuum.

How does it work for long human hair? I'm concerned about it getting stuck and breaking the roomba. Does anyone have experience with this?

Like my Roomba so well that I've also purchased a Scooba (which I haven't used as yet). My roomba does an excellent job on the berber in my bedroom.

I love Roomba. We have two long-haired, 50 lb. dogs and one Roomba in a 1200 SQFT home with wood floors. We no longer have a "real vacuum," just the Roomba, a Shark hand-vac, and a dust mop. Sure, I have to move the furniture a few times a month to get those tough spots, but the same was true with the upright vac.

Our Roomba is named Spot and we love him. It's great to pop him in the bathroom in the morning to let him clean up all the scattered kitty litter and I love to leave the house with the washer, dryer, dishwasher and Roomba going - let them all clean while I'm gone. I covet the Scooba but it's still too expensive for me. One thing Spot doesn't do well is one thick area rug I have, but I don't mind hitting that with the regular vacuum cleaner once in a while. the rest of my floors are concrete.

The Roomba rocks! I'm going to upgrade my discovery with the pet option. I have two Shiba Inu's living with me at the moment and they just ignore the thing. It picks up all their hair on the hardwood floor and carpet.

It did make me tiddy up my surround sound system in the living room and office. The roomba will pull your cords! So make sure you have them secured using some type of 3m product.

Roomba works great on hardwood and decent on low-pile carpets. Not so great on shag.

It does get confused on light rugs with black borders (it sees them as a ledge or a stair) but that's the one complaint I have. It comes with a handy razor cleaning tool for the brush that takes care of the copious human and animal hair that eventually gets caught in it. I wash out the filters and they're good as new. I have the Red but would love a discovery or scheduler. It is much quieter than our upright and my cat seems to ignore it. The fact that it cleans under furniture alone makes it worth the money.

The roomba's usefulness depends on your ratio of floor area to furniture bases and legs. The more wide-open floor (bare or with thin rugs), the happier you'll be. But my fringe-ended persian rugs and shaker-y wooden chairs get the roomba pretty hung up.

Any other iScooba feedback? I've been coveting for a while and brookstone have a deal this week - its down to $300 and comes with a $100 Brookstone gift card. I'm very very tempted...its still up there with the $$s though....?

Ours does a pretty good job, but it still gets trapped in odd spaces, or caught up on rug edges or power cords. I'm too afraid to let it go and leave the room. Which basically means that I end up sitting and watching it go, which takes 4 times as long as vacuuming it up myself. Plus my cat totally ignored it. Where's the fun in that?

I have a small carpeted apartment and it does a pretty great job so far. The bathroom is tiled and the kitchen is linoleum and it has no problem switching from carpet for those rooms. However, it could not navigate the bathroom with the bathrugs on the ground as it would take up the corners, so I have to shake them out then put them out of reach so they don't get tangled.
As for long hair, mine does a good job of picking it up, but it does get wound up in the brushes and should be cleaned out regularly.
I haven't named mine yet, but we're leaning towards Webster since it is little and docks by a tall clock.

I love my Roomba! I have 3 cats and it does a good job on the hardwoods and the one lone rug. I would worry about it if there are many tassels on any rugs though. I live in a loft so I often just turn it on and let it go all over, it's great at picking up all the fur, scatter kitty litter, and other just junk on the floor. It manages to navaigate a strange floor plan with all kinds of obstacles in the way very well. I hardly ever pull out the 'real' vacuum anymore. I generally only need it for the rug if I have been so lazy as to not even run the roomba in a long time.

My cats don't seem to mind the Roomba too much, they'll just watch it until it's right on top of them and then saunter away. Though they do get confused when we chase them with the roomba using the remote (you can tell it exactly where to go).

Long story short, if you are thinking about a Roomba, get a Roomba! I also am interested in the iScooba and if it does a good job. Would that mean I wouldn't have to mop (ok, ok swiffer wet jet) anymore either? That'd be wonderful!

I should have a review of the Scooba by Tuesday. I just haven't got around to charging it.

OMG I want one!!! But I have a very "small-animal-curious" dog... She'll probably either (a) want to kill it; or (b) be absolutely terrified of it - and THEN want to kill it. She is absolutely petrified of the vaccuum. Which I gave away when I moved. Anyone here with largish dogs with a Roomba? Click on link to look at dog.

mindy-don't you have the electronic eyes that come with it - I'm not sure if all of them do? You turn them on whereever you don't want Roomba to go and it acts like a fence and keeps it out.

I loved my Roomba for a long time, but it started having some problems. The guidance was to thoroughly clean it out, which I did, and it still didn't work. So, either I didn't clean it out right or I need to call the company - the info that came with Roomba said to do that if cleaning didn't work - but instead I stowed it under the bed in frustration. I will pull it out at some point, but this is my least favorite type of thing to do.

My cat loved the Roomba and was not terrified of it, as with the big vacuum. She would be wary, but watch it with fascination, since it moves about so unpredictably. It was also shorter than her and its noises are cute, so she didn't regard it as that threatening.

I love love love my Roomba. I've had it for about two years, have changed the filters a number of times, and have had to wash the rollers some. Otherwise, I've done nothing about vacuuming beside hit "clean" and listen for the telltale "I've run into your loose electic cords and need to be rescued" noise that seems to happen every third or fourth time I vacuum.

My girlfriend & I bought one for her mother for this past XMas, and she's very happy about never having to bring the big vacuum upstairs again, and was a little disgusted when she saw how much dirt it picked up on its first run.

I was just wondering if anyone who has a roomba also has an a dog with a double coat, i.e. a Husky or Alaskan Malemute? The amount of shedding that happens twice a year is enough to drive one crazy and I was hoping this might combat the problem. Although I feel like it would get clogged to quickly to be effective... Anyone?

side note:

(ricky,

my parents have a shiba & my dad likes to say that max only sheds two times a year, for 6 mo at a time.

i'm impressed that you have 2. mine is fairly antisocial, alas! xx p)

On a slightly unrelated note, has everyone seen the SNL skit about the Woomba? You can find it online and it's worth a giggle.

My friend has a Roomba and swears by it; I can't shake the vacuum-it-myself habit yet, but someday I'll have to give in and get one.

We had a Roomba and it was great on the hard wood floors however the pet hair (Golden Retriever/Aussie) was not. It exploded one day.

erinorea,

for double-coated animals your best bet is to take them to the groomer or learn how to groom them out-of-doors. There is a tool specifically for grooming the undercoat and it will remove a TON of hair if you know what you're doing. That way, you can get a lot of the hair that would fall on your floors and be picked up by the roomba, out of the way before it's ever a problem. HTH.

I've been thinking of getting a Roomba for a while now, but I've read some reviews of users having problems after a couple of months. Anyone having trouble like this and if so, would you still recommend getting a Roomba?

For Double-coated animals, buy a Furminator.

Seriously. You will have enough fur to knit yourself an extra pet.

How do this vacuums sound, when running all day long on hardwood floors, to anybody who lives under you in an apartment building---I should think rather bad!