Roomba love

MrBinkynator's first Roomba had serious behavioral problems (10-second video of Roomba psychosis) and had to go back to iRobot corp for re-education or mine-sweeping duty or something, but he just love love loves his new Roomba. Yes, in some ways it's just a glorified carpet sweeper with an anemic, battery-operated vacuum cleaner in its tail, but as a friend and fellow Roomba enthusiast put it, "Say what you will, but my floors have never been cleaner since I got my Roomba." When the vacuum does the vacuuming by itself, the vacuuming gets done a lot more often.

While the deluxe 1.5 horsepower Kenmore sleeps peacefully in the broom closet, Roomba regularly makes the rounds of the entire apartment. (Yes, the big vaccum does a better job, but I never seem to find the time or inclination to haul it out and push it around.)

With the Roomba, you push one button, run around the place making straight the way of the robot, picking up obstacles and flicking cords out of the way, then just go have a latte or something. When you get home the whole place is vacuumed and all that's left to do is to empty the Roomba's dust collector and clean the filter (which takes about a minute), then plug it in for a recharge. Psycho Roomba, a top-of-the-line-model, would actually navigate back to his recharging station on his own, which was pretty cool, but after a while the entertainment aspect of having a housecleaning robot wears off (though it takes longer than you'd think--they're pretty cool) and it's just another member of the family to ignore.

So now I've got Roomba, and the Scrubbing Bubbles Automatic Shower Cleaner (which is fantastic! Never scrub the tub or shower curtain again! The only downside is that the refills are expensive, but so is my time...), I'm thinking about the Scooba floor-washing robot, but my kitchen floor is so small that it hardly seems worth it--except I could definitely go a long time without ever scrubbing the floor again...