I have had my Roomba since March, and I love it. I had purchased a refurb (rox0rz!) from another retailer, and had the common problem -- my battery wouldn't hold a charge. Naturally, I called customer service and told them I had tried the recommended fixes and nothing worked. The customer service representative asked for my Roomba's serial number, and when I was not able to proivide it (I was at work, the Roomba was at home), he told me that he'd send out the new battery right away, and just to send the serial information to him via e-mail when I arrived home. My new battery arrived the very next day.
My Roomba makes my life so much better. I have come to accept random criss-cross patterns in my carpet as the sign of clean. In fact, my Roomba will pick up debris that my previous vaccum missed. Most notably, I have long hair. Previously, after vaccuming, I would have to brush the carpet around my vanity in order to collect a puffy hairball. Now my Roomba picks up all my shed hair.
One should empty the bin regularly; I have no problem doing so after every use. The small bin detaches easily, and dumps nicely into the household garbage bin. It's slightly more difficult to clean the brushes, and they need to be cleaned of pet and human hair regularly. Once I purchased the easy-clean brush and its easy-cleaner object, however, even that became pretty basic.
Then I treated my Roomba badly.
Roombas can kind of un-attach themselves from things that they've gotten tangled up in, so long as it's not too complicated. They can sort of stand up on their wheels and scoot around until they're free again. Sometimes this process doesn't work and you have to rescue the poor thing, but most of the time it does.
Well, my Roomba found an old New Yorker under the sofa. It dragged it out, and found itself caught between the sofa and the magazine rack. The process of freeing itself from the New Yorker and the strange little corner it had found itself in took about 3 minutes, and left the New Yorker pretty much shredded. (It was one of the semi-regular fiction issues, too - everyone's a critic!) My boyfriend and I just sat and watched it, nearly dying of laughter, and neither of us could bring ourselves to rescue the poor robot. Or the poor magazine. Heck, we couldn't even get up to get a video camera, and this was the kind of entertainment YouTube was invented for.
I think that the New Yorker got its revenge on my poor Roomba, however. A few days later, it started making a strange grinding noise, and it was doing a very poor job of picking up dirt. I was so upset! So I e-mailed customer service. I told them the symptoms. They e-mailed me back directly with some questions. After I aanswered them, they asked for the serial number, and said that they would replace my robot. Which they did -- even before I got a chance to send out the sad, non-functioning Roomba. I had a new one within a week, and it runs perfectly. The customer service over at iRobot is fantastic. My carpets are all perfectly clean. And my New Yorkers all stay off the floor in fear.
