Pros & Cons

So I promised to give you a list of the pros and cons to having a roomba. (For those of you who like How I Met Your Mother, I'm totally picturing everyone cheering about my pros and cons list!)

I'll start with

THE CONS:

-It really only vacuums the floors. So if you're like me and you use the hose attachment to vacuum up cobwebs on the ceiling and stuff like that, you might still need a regular vacuum. In my case the hose attachment was the only thing that still worked on my old vacuum, so this was perfect.

-It also doesn't do stairs. But I just sweep all the dirt down to the bottom floor and let the roomba vacuum there.

-It's kind of slow. It probably takes Dustin' thirty or more minutes to vacuum a bedroom. You could definitely do it faster with a regular vacuum if you're in a hurry.

-It has to charge its battery after a couple rooms. If you're planning one of those marathon-esque, clean-the-whole-house-in-one-day sorts of days, it might run out of battery before you're run out of floor. (Um, not that I ever have one of those days...) And then you have to let it charge for a couple hours before it's ready to go again.

-You don't get those perfect little vacuum lines, because the roomba works in weird spirals and stuff. But recently when I vacuum the kids like to pull out their toy strollers and use those to "vacuum" along with me, thus destroying my lines anyway. So this one was a wash.

-You need to pick up most stuff off the floor before you run it. But that's true of any vacuum, really, and it does goes around electric cords just fine. So this isn't really much of a problem. The only time it's kind of a pain is when it vacuums under beds and I have to make sure the kids get ALL their stuff out from under the bed first. But this is directly related to...


THE PROS:

-It vacuums UNDER your furniture! So if you're like me, and that only happens when you move and it's really gross to see just how many dust bunnies were hiding out under there, this is totally awesome! AND totally worth having to get things out from under your bed. I just wish our living room couch were taller so it would vacuum under there, too! The first time we used it, Dustin' found Craig's headphones that had been hiding under his night stand. Who knows when we would have ever discovered them without Dustin'!

-It recognizes stairs and doesn't fall down them. It's kind of impressive to watch, actually. A little nerve-wracking, since it juts all around the top stair, but also impressive.

-It changes modes as it goes from carpet to hardwood floor. In our house, this is a must.

-The kids love watching it work, so it's both a vacuum and a babysitter all in one!

-It also follows walls, so it gets everything clean-- corners, walls, middle of the floor. You name it.

and perhaps most important...

-IT WORKS ALL BY ITSELF!!! So while it's vacuuming my bedroom (and under my bed and under my dresser and everywhere else!) I can be doing the dishes! Or taking a nap! Or watching TV, reading a book... The possibilities are endless.

So there you have it. It's not perfect. But that last point alone makes getting a roomba a complete win in my book. And all the other things listed under "cons" were things I didn't even care about to begin with. I mostly only told you so that you would be well informed. Now. Go buy yourself one today!