iRobot Roomba 980 – My New OCD – Destin FL
My life has changed. I have a new obsession, a new pet, a new OCD. It’s the iRobot Roomba 980. I’ve named it “Shuttlecraft” (Star Trek fan). How did this come about and what does it mean? A few weeks ago a friend and I were chatting at my house and I apologized that it was a mess with cat hair everywhere. I have three cats. It was neat, but there was cat dander and dust on everything! My friend immediately grabbed his phone and told me he had a solution for that. He brought up an App and said, “Roomba 980”! He raved that it cleaned his house, mapped where it has been and he can program it on his phone. Having two dogs and three kids, he said you can now walk around barefoot with no worries in his house! Pricey? Yes. But I had to have one. I got the iRobot Roomba 980 at Bed Bath & Beyond with a 20% off coupon. They cost about $899. Not kidding.
Was it worth it? Yes!
Now, each morning I have the Roomba 980 clean my house at 8:30 a.m. Monday through Friday and at 10:15 Saturday and Sunday (I know that’s so weird!). It goes over my wood and tile floors and low throw rugs with ease. It does have trouble on high plush carpet, transitioning from a flat surface. Those areas we just hand-vacuum. The cleaning time is over three hours per day! It cleans up any litter that gets thrown by my cats out of their Litter Robots (I have those, too!). Sometimes I am bad and brush off a few crumbs on the floor because I know they will be eaten by Shuttlecraft. When I tell people I bought a Roomba, they usually say, “I hear those things’ batteries die fast.” This is not the case. When its battery gets low after about two hours, it goes back to “home base” to plug in and re-charge for about an hour, then remembers where it left off and finishes the job. If there are areas you don’t want the Roomba to clean, there are radio frequency emitters you can set up on the floor unobtrusively to electronically wall off zones. You can set up a straight line to wall off a room or a cone shaped area spanning 24″. I find the latter useful in my cats’ room behind the water bowl. I don’t want it pushing or knocking around the water! Normally, we keep our bedroom door closed to keep out the children, so if I want that room cleaned, I just pick up the Roomba and place it in the bedroom. It goes from there. You can set it up to “edge clean”, where it does a detailed cleaning around the edges of everything (cabinets, furnitures, walls). You can also set it to do a higher suction mode when it’s on carpet, or at all times. You can program the Roomba to make two passes at everything. I even get a map report about where it’s cleaned. 
I love it! I spoke with a friend a few days ago who had one and didn’t like it. He owns a carpet cleaning company. He said his Roomba would get clogged with pet hair. Mine doesn’t! I clean it out everyday! He never cleaned his out. That just requires opening the lid and dumping it in the garbage, and shaking out the filter.
Does the iRobot Roomba 980 ever get stuck? Yes. If I accidentally leave a cat toy on the floor it can get the little “mouse” tails twisted in it. If that happens, I get an alert on my phone saying the Roomba requires my attention. Of course, I get frantic at the office and want to run right home to fix it. I get entranced watching it. For the first several days I couldn’t get ready for work, I had to follow Shuttlecraft around the house. Do my cats like it? No. They usually stay in the walled-off room while it’s running. I think they think it’s alive and they are jealous of my new pet. I actually found Nikolai sitting in front of it staring while it was parked at home base. He was waiting for it to move.
I’ve never been OCD about cleaning before. This has spurred on a new aspect of my personality. If only they could automate a Swiffer!
It’s Wendy… It’s Sold!
Wendy Rulnick, Broker, Rulnick Realty, Inc.
Call 850-650-7883 ext 204
Email Wendy: [email protected]
Wendy Rulnick, Broker, sells real estate in Destin, Santa Rosa Beach, 30A, Miramar Beach, Seagrove Beach, Watercolor, Sandestin, Seaside, Rosemary Beach, Fort Walton Beach, Niceville, Bluewater Bay, Navarre, Florida.
