<p>WashDad, hasn’t happened yet in our house. I did notice, though, that when I asked him to bring back Mr. B to the docking station from a different floor, it never happened.</p>
<p>julia_525, I think it gets dirty in a hurry because the Roomba vacuums for so long that it picks up so much dirt. While I prefer a “self-clean” roomba, I don’t mind cleaning it. I have never in my life vacuumed one room for 30 to 45 minutes!</p>
<p>Don’t wait for it to ask to be cleaned. Just clean it after each use and it won’t be so much of a chore. That’s what I do.</p>
<p>
My father got a Looj for Christmas…he hasn’t had a chance to use it yet, but perhaps when spring comes, I’ll ask him for a report.
For some reason, naming Roombas and Scoobas seems common. Ours both have names.</p>
<p>By the way, if your Scooba was “born” before a certain date (11/22/06 for Scooba 5900 and 9/22/06 for Scooba 5800), you are eligible for a new battery and a firmware update. Those units are programmed to charge in such a way that the battery gets fried and has to be replaced more often than usual. I emailed iRobot on Monday about it and had a reply on Wednesday. Just say you need an OSMO and a battery, include your serial number, and they’ll send it right out.</p>
<p>Roombas made before another date (8/23/05) are eligible for the OSMO update, but it isn’t necessary. There’s also an update for Roombas that do a “circle dance” over and over again.</p>
<p>Thanks for that bit of info DeanJ. My Roomba is 2004 and has not been used in a while because it would start up and run for a few minutes then die. I was going to buy a new battery but will try for the freeby.</p>
<p>I really want a scooba. Wonder if I can wrangle it as a birthday present.</p>
<p>Had the original Roomba and finally sold it at garage sale - didn’t care for it. The trasher receptacle was so small that it got full before it finished a room. It stopped then, and I would have to clean it out and the restart it. It also died out quickly. As for changing it for better software, the receptacle would still be too small. Perhaps if the new one has a larger one, i will consider it again.</p>
<p>I guess the honeymoon is effectively over. Astro’s brushes don’t turn anymore, making him the vacuum that doesn’t. This is no problem to me – I know sometimes things go wrong. What does bug me is that I’ve sent the tech support group at the company four emails in the last five days and haven’t heard back from them (admittedly, two of those emails were just today). I should have heard back within 12 hours of the first email. My customer service experience with iRobot is dropping from “sucks” to “world class sucks” on Monday. Really, really disappointing.</p>
<p>Aw, poor Astro. I was really thinking I needed one of these.</p>
<p>Have you tried this?: [My</a> 560 brushes don’t move! 
- Roomba Review](<a href=“http://www.roombareview.com/chat/viewtopic.php?t=8209]My”>http://www.roombareview.com/chat/viewtopic.php?t=8209)</p>
<p>WashDad, Did you take the screw out of the brush the sweeps the dirt into the bin and clean under the brush? Hair and rug fibers build under there and then the brush won’t turn. Shotting compressed air into it was another trick to keep it clear.</p>
<p>WashDad - oh no. I better be nice to the husband again.</p>
<p>julia_525 - I always have to clean that part of the brush every time I use Mr. B.</p>
<p>One of my little whisk brushes broke off. Returned Roomba to Linens and Things and they gave me a new one.</p>
<p>WashMom was out running errands and took AstroOne back to Linens and Things. They just told her to grab a new one off the stack, so we are back in business with AstroTwo. Sometimes it really pays to buy locally.</p>
<p>This afternoon we finally heard from iRobot’s customer service group via email. They suggested cleaning the brushes, something I routinely do after every couple of sessions.</p>
<p>Thanks for the tips and sympathy, all.</p>
<p>I removed the brushes today (though they did not look very dirty) and was surprised at the buildup of fibers (mostly dog hair) around the spindle and the other parts -bushings, etc.</p>
<p>Used a toothpick to thoroughly clear the offending material out of the way, and now that I have the hang of assembly/disassembly, this won’t be a big deal.</p>
<p>WashDad- The same thing happened when I returned to Linens and Things. Just grab another. Not even done through the register. Didn’t even ask to see the receipt. I haven’t done much shopping at L and Things but I was surprised. When the arm broke I was regretting I hadn’t bought it at Costco that takes anything back.</p>
<p>My birthday is coming up in a couple of weeks and I was thinking of asking for a Roomba. I was wondering if those of you that bought one back when this thread was started are still happy and if those of you that had Roombas that broke, fixed or bought new ones. We have a now-shedding golden retreiver and I am tired of daily vacuuming.</p>
<p>Kathiep- I still love my Roomba but it isn’t as hassle free as I would like. I still use my regular vacuum weekly but I like the Roomba for certain rooms. I love it for picking up sand and dog hair. We also have a golden and it does a great job with the hair. I do wish cleaning the brushes was easier. I also love letting it loose in my kids room and coming back to the floor looking so nice and clean.
One annoying factor in my house. I have a family room, dining room and kitchen that are continuous. The dining room area has heavy large chairs. We only eat over there about once a year and it is not a part of the room where anyone even walks. But for some reason my Roomba loves to vacuum the persian carpet under the dining room table. The chairs are large and heavy and the roomba regularly gets stuck under the rungs of the chairs. It seems no matter where I start in the room it seems to naturally want to go to that area.
What I do like is that it goes easily from wood floor to carpet.</p>
<p>I love the concept but the Roomba didn’t work in our house. It kept getting stuck under things, and with our open floorplan we couldn’t contain it in a particular “room” for cleaning. It did come with little towers that functioned to mark an area off-limits, but we had too many obstacles/off-limit areas (open fireplace, chairs that trapped the device, etc.) for that to be effective.</p>
<p>Our floors are nearly all hardwood (e.g. only the bedrooms are carpeted). A couple of area rugs - but mostly just hardwood. Which Roomba makes sense in this evironment - and yes like most of the posters above we have a Golden Retriever :)</p>
<p>Astro, our Roomba 530, has settled into a happy, productive life. He is unexpectedly good at hard surface floors, too.</p>
<p>We bought a Roomba in May, and I wish I had my money back.</p>
<p>Upstairs we have wall to wall thick, plush carpet. The Rooma has a lot of trouble with it. The suction is light, so it doesn’t clean deeply. </p>
<p>I can’t do my one son’s room with it at all, because the room has some odd angles and heavy furniture, and the Rooma misses a lot, or gets stuck in corners. Our cat pretty much lives in this room, so I can’t really use the Roomba to deal with the cat hair.</p>
<p>Downstairs, it does much better, on both the hardwood and the Berber-type carpeting. I got the Roomba because I have a bad back, and vacuuming is hard for me. But we’ve found that to get the best cleaning from it, we have to remove as much furniture as possible. So to clean a room, I have to first remove all the portable stuff - chairs, floor lamps, etc. When I vacuum with a regular sweeper, I can just move stuff aside a foot or two, then move it back. With the Roomba, I have to move stuff to the next room – much harder on my back! And takes much more time. By the time I am done moving furniture, I could have had the room vacuumed the old way.</p>
<p>I’ve made a couple calls to the Roomba folks. That’s an irritation in itself. The numbers are set up as a cycle. By the time you finally get through the program to the assistance part, they tell you to hang up and call their assistance people - which is the number I dialed in the first place. I have found the best route to be to ask for sales - that is how to get to customer service.</p>
<p>The first time I called, it was because the Roomba was taking far too long, ignoring the lighthouses, and not re-docking. I learned that the lighthouses and virtual walls cannot be set up within 6 or 8 feet of the docking station. (This info is NO WHERE in the manual.) Which means the docking station can’t be set up at the edge between roooms. (Since the Roomba doesn’t clean around the docking station, I thought that I could set it up at the edge, then move the virtual wall to the other side when I did the adjoining room, and thereby get ALL the floor cleaned.)</p>
<p>Since I can’t use it upstairs, and it takes so long to clean downstairs, I really use it very little. So the last time I used it, I was frustrated when one of the brushes broke off. The Roomba had been used only a handful of times.</p>
<p>I called the number, played the run around again, and finally was told that the brushes break often, they aren’t covered by any warranty, and since they break so frequently, they would offer me a good deal. I can’t remember the price they quoted, but I thought it was high. They agreed, finally, to send me one free replacement. It took them several weeks to do so, and when it came, it had 3 brushes on it (The broken one had 6 – has 5 now that one broke off.) The directions it came with shows a photo with 6 brushes, so I don’t know why it only has three.</p>
<p>I’m so frustrated with the Roomba, and with dealing with the people there.</p>
<p>Washdad said: “Astro, our Roomba 530, has settled into a happy, productive life.”</p>
<p>If only our kids would follow suit!</p>