Roomba update

I'm completely delighted with our robot. I just finished cooking dinner -- while I was working in the kitchen, Roomba cleaned our family room, and did part of the bedroom. (He tried to eat the phone & electrical extension cords that run under our bed, which meant I had to keep stopping and redirecting him. I need to get one of those plastic coil wrap thingys for the cords so he can really clean under the bed...) Roomba's definitely a "he" in my mind. Why, I couldn't really say. (Except maybe for my concerns about the exploitation of women as domestic workers. Which is another reason I'm much happier to have a robot.) And I'm beginning to think he needs a stuffy butler-ish kind of name: Cecil, or Roberts, or Carruthers. Because he's so damn thorough!

I set him to work in the family room, curious to see what he'd do, since I'd had him working in there on Monday. (Although I stopped him before the full cleaning cycle was done, wanting to see what he could do elsewhere.) Obviously I had no idea just how thorough Roomba was. He cleaned and cleaned and cleaned. And the floor in there is now far cleaner than it ever has been.

We live in a small older house that has been a rental property for a number of years. Old wooden floors, except in the kitchen & bath, where there's old vinyl with crumbling grout. The last tenant before us was not especially clean -- and she shared the house with two enormous long-haired dogs. When we moved in, we found dog hair clinging to the walls, in the drawers in the kitchen, & clogging the furnace vents. I vacuumed, scrubbed, mopped, etc., and have been doing so in the years we've lived here, although my consistency is sometimes lacking.

We also have two dogs, one of whom goes in and out all the time. So there's frequently a fine coating of dust/dirt on the floor from the dogs -- the throw rugs in the bedroom are mostly to wipe their feet off to try and keep our bedspread sort of clean.

So I never walk barefoot in our house. It's usually too icky.

The Roomba advertising claimed it'd make your floors barefoot-friendly. And, astonishingly enough, when I let Roomba do a full cleaning cycle in our family room -- our ancient cruddy wood floor, with old cracks and crevices full of dirt, is now so incredibly clean. It's smooth. It feels like a new floor. I'm dancing around barefoot. I love our robot.

So not only was I able to prepare dinner while my floor was getting cleaned, it's cleaner than I have ever gotten it -- with the vaccum, with the dry mop, with a wet mop even.

Yay robots!