Roomba Vacuum

We had one several years ago. Con, it misses spots and gets stuck if any little thing is left on the floor in its way (barbie shoes, chunks of playdoh...). Pro, it was really fun to watch the cat chase it.

Long story short, I have a Dyson ball and a Dyson canister now, one for upstairs and one for downstairs. And I have 7 and 9 year olds to operate them. Better than a Roomba, except that the Roomba never complained about having to vacuum...

I think it is the coolest idea ever. But my children are slobs and I tend to humanize objects that can move on their own. So pretty much I would be sad every day when I come home from work and find the poor thing choking in some corner on something my kids forgot to throw away. :(

I do have a similar object for my pool but I can protect him from the kids. He swims all day, picking up debris while I am at work. He makes me happy. :)

Pros
at the end of the day it helps you keep up on your floors
does not take energy on your part to vacuum a room

Cons
You really have to pick up and prep a room
it won't vacuum your whole house without you. You still have to set it up and do one room at a time. Looses charge after about three rooms.
takes about 20 min. per room. Will over vacuum expensive handmade rugs.

Mine broke and I took it back to costco for a full refund. I do miss it. Its great to keep up on hard surface floors. I don't think they are great on carpet and go through lot of parts if you do use it on carpet. I do miss mine, but did not opt to purchase another one which says a lot.

I've had ours for a LONG time. It certainly helps the massive job of "sweeping" but around our home (with dogs) it can't begin to keep up. I think it's meant to help with task but not to eliminate the need to vacuum and sweep.

I've had one for probably a year, and it really hasn't been worth the money for me. It always seems to conk out before it really does anything. Either it loses battery or the brush gets too clogged with hair (we have cats and I have long hair) or the container is too full or it gets stuck somewhere it can't get out. Also, I'm pretty noise sensitive, so I don't like having this thing running all the time when I'm at home and then I often forget to run it at all in my mad rushes to get out of the house. I should try to remember to run it again now that we've replaced most of our carpet with hardwood. Maybe it will do better now.

We have no carpeting, and bought a roomba. It worked wonderfully, never got stuck, and had this genius side sweep spin brush that got things out of crevices you wouldn't imagine, i.e. it picked the dust bunnies that were stuck to the felt pads of our table and chairs). We swapped it out though for a mint and a neato. We live in an apartment building, and the roomba does random patterns on the floor until it has covered a room three times. We thought that was too long for our downstairs neighbors to have to endure.

Pros- Roomba does the job for you. It can be set to operate while you are out, it gets under furniture, and is really good with dust bunnies.

Cons- It takes a while to vaccum. It requires you to pick up (I don't regard this as a con as we pick up anyway). You will need to vaccum every so often anyway, to get the baseboards, etc.

I say go for it, buy one from a place with a solid return policy. You've got little to loose in giving it a try.

Good luck to you and yours,
F. B.