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Tell me about your Roomba.
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Posted by sheilajoyce (My Page) on Sat, Nov 7, 09 at 2:02
| I am thinking of buying DD a Roomba for Christmas to try to make it easier to keep her floors clean. They have an old house with old wood or parquet floors on the first floor and only a couple of area rugs. The floors seem to forever need sweeping. She has a soon to be 3 year old son and a new baby but no pets.
The people who rave about these Roombas seem to have furry, shedding pets. She has Cheerios, Kix, and dried leaves or grass tromped in from the yard.
So is a Roomba worth the investment? Does it work? Does it get stuck and quit? What is your experience? |
Follow-Up Postings:
RE: Tell me about your Roomba.
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| I love my basic Roomba. It was a Christmas gift last year from my daughter Terri and her husband. Mine picks up a lot of stuff, just have to remember to empty it out each time for me. Leaves get blown or carried in and it picks those up too. I loaned it for a couple of months to other daughter Amber while she was sick and she also loved it. We bought her one recently for her birthday. Hers came with a thing to keep it from going into a room. We bought it at Menards. I think it was $139 regular price was ten dollars more. It also does carpets. Now I am thinking I might like to have a Scooba. My upstairs is all hardwood with Pergo in entry and main bath. Downstairs is all old floor tile. I really don't like mopping as it hurts my back so much anymore. Anyway, I think your daughter would really like the Roomba, just pick up toys and things and do areas at a time before the battery needs to be charged again. I do my family room at one time, just don't let it go from room to room as it won't get each room done at once. Hope this helps. Sue |
RE: Tell me about your Roomba.
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| Two of my three dogs shed a lot, even with a healthy diet and fairly regular brushing. I had a Roomba. It did a good job, but it got too full of dog hair too often. Because of having to empty it so much I decided it was more trouble than I wanted to fool with. I donated it for a rummage sale for a charity event. If I hadn't had all that excessive dog hair I would have kept it. Here's one of the dogs checking it out.
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RE: Tell me about your Roomba.
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| Here's what I like and don't like about mine: 1. Cleans under beds, tables, the sofa
2. Saves my back
3. Carpet always looks like I just vacuumed Don't like: 1. The cup the dirt goes in is very small so you have to empty often--and clean the brushes, too
2. It doesn't clean every inch back and forth like we would do when vacuuming, but randomly roams wherever it wants. So you get some missed spots.
3. It will get stuck. Mine got caught in a throw rug in the bathroom and I had to rescue it. Now I close the door. Would I buy another--in a NY minute. If you decide to, go where Sue suggested. That's about $100 cheaper than I've seen them. |
RE: Tell me about your Roomba.
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| Waaaaaaa, I want one. I am not supposed to vacuum at all after my back surgery. but if i don't do it, it doesn't get done. I so often think I wish I had a Roomba. Dottie |
RE: Tell me about your Roomba.
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| It's in the basement closet, broke...been there for a couple of years. |
RE: Tell me about your Roomba.
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| I sold mine at a yard sale last year. I had bought it on Woot. It was a novelty at first, and did Ok, but the problem was as above - the darned dirt cup is so small that I either had to follow the thing around and change it often or it just scooted around not picking up anything. Now, mind you, I have pets. Since your daughter doesn't, perhaps it'd be fine for her. |
RE: Tell me about your Roomba.
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LUV my roomba and other I-Robot home cleaning robots. ! thought the old Scheduler was fabulous and it got used everyday for 3 years. It still works I just got a new battery for it and let a friend who just had back surgery use it. I got one of the packages they had last year. It included a 610 roomba vacuum, a 380 scooba floor washing robot and a garage/shop sweeper. All three are so awesome! I haven't had a problem that the nice people at customer service haven't been able to take care of. I haven't noticed any of them missing parts of the floor weather carpeted or hard floor. The scheduler did not go on the throw rugs well but the 610 just zips over like they are part of the same floor. LUV LUV LUV my I-Robots. The Dirt Dog actually gets up the broken shards of glass and ceramics from my mosaic projects. I tend to smash with gusto and pieces hit the floor in my shop all the time. The girl I talked with at I-Robot said hers picked up the shards in her crafting room. I really had my doubts but it works great. I would recommend getting one of the better ones they do more floor space than the cheapest ones. The bins are small but keeping it empty is so easy. Not like a nasty dirt bag or big ole plastic cup and filter where the crap gets stuck in the crevasses. Just pull off the bin empty it in the trash and put it back on. After I had used it for a few months it wasn't filling up as fast because it had gotten all the deep in dirt that the reg vacuum hadn't gotten out in years. My carpets are old but look much better since I started using the roomba vacuum.
There is a 30 day return policy if you don't like it they do give you your money back. I got a gutter cleaning robot for my DH and he had already gotten special gutters that don't get stuff in them, I just called up the company and they refunded my money with no problem. Try it, you'll like it, or get your money back.
I only use the big push vacuum during Spring clean and Fall overhaul to get weight marks out of the carpet when I change all the furniture around for the seasons. LIL
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RE: Tell Me about your Roomba.
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| I only have to clean mine after it stops, it does a really great job for me and I have Izzi a Pomeranian with fluffy fur. With a bad back it is really great for me. Mine is cleaning my dining room right now. I can hear it working away. Has a little tone if it should get stuck, so far it hasn't. Sue |
RE: Tell me about your Roomba.
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| ours is several yrs old (was $275) and we still use it to keep the floors touched up. i have bamboo flooring (office & craft rms), one carpeted room (masterbdrm) and tile everywhere else. i vacuum w/ my wonderful dyson once a week and run roomba in different areas during the week. we have 2 big dogs and now just 1 cat (from 3). BTW if you are on FB get on black fridays ads, someone had a roomba in their ad over the last 2 wks for only $99. it's the one in the pic above which i think is the same model i have w/ 2 virtual walls. ~ liz |
RE: Tell me about your Roomba.
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| We returned ours twice when it stopped working. After it quite the third time I gave up on it. Fun little gadget, but it doesn't really replace honest to goodness vacuuming in my opinion. Cleaning it out several times takes as much time as running a vacuum cleaner through the house. |
RE: Tell me about your Roomba.
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| I loved mine but it broke about a year ago (after the warranty was over). It is sitting in a closet waiting for it to magically heal itself. ha ha. Too expensive to replace often. I was hoping it would last several years. |
RE: Tell me about your Roomba.
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| Love mine. I had a rotti and a sheltie when I got my first one. Right now I have 2 cats. My floors are a combination of carpet and laminate. Roombas have improved over the years. Based on my experience, the first ones that came out were more prone to breaking than the newer ones. The newer ones have much larger dirt bins than the original. I dump the dirt bin every time I run it. That takes about a minute to remove, dump and replace. Every 3 or 4 times I run it, I clean the brushes. Roomba gave me a nifty tool that makes that chore fairly easy - takes no more than 5 minutes. I use it daily for a light vaccuming. It doesn't cover every square inch every day, but over several days, it gets every spot. I do use a real vaccum about once every week or two. I love my roomba, One of my cats loves it too - he rides around the house on top of it. |
RE: Tell me about your Roomba.
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| Oh, I forgot to add that DD has long hair too. So is there any difference between the various Roomba models? |
RE: Tell me about your Roomba.
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I have the Roomba 530 and I LOVE it. I have a lot of area rugs and for me it means I don't have to lug out a vacuum cleaner and a floor mop. I have tried running my magic blue mop across the floor as a test to see how the machine did, and I am never disappointed. It seems to do a great job, corners too!
I don't like the virtual walls too much. They seem to emit a cone-shaped beam where I would prefer more of a flat line that would cross the doorway. My DH cut me a long stick and I use that to keep it from stairs and doorways.
Just watch it do a room for the first time and see what obstacles get in the way and work around it. I've seen mine lift up one of my runners, but I just remove it before Roomba starts.
Go for it Sheilajoyce. It's one of those things that not many people would buy for themselves but when they get one, they love it as I'm sure your DD will. |
RE: Tell me about your Roomba.
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| Yes, yes, yes. We love our Roomba and have had it several years. It does a great job. Can't think of a thing we don't like about it. I've seen them on sale at Target and maybe Kohl's. It's a wonderful gift! |
RE: Tell me about your Roomba.
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| I love mine, have had it for three years or so. We have two cats, and the Roomba picks up enough cat hair to build another cat. I empty the cup after every cleaning, which is very easy, just pour it out and snap it back on...no biggie. I also clean out the brushes every couple of uses, which is much easier than actually doing the vacuuming myself, so I don't mind that. It works great on wood floors and on carpet. I pick certain objects up before I turn the Roomba loose...I pick up a small throw rug, the cats' water dishes and food dishes. It fits underneath my kitchen cabinets. Oh, it did get caught underneath a small folding table once, so I move that out of the way now. I know it doesn't really have a personality, but it seems that it does, as it works so hard and makes funny little beeping noises once in a while. It just seems happy to vacuum, which is fine with me. :) |
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