The following is a guest post from Mrs. PoPs at Planting Our Pennies. Feel free to check out their site!
Roomba – the fourth member of our family.
Okay, so maybe the title of this post is a bit of hyperbole. Was I really ready to leave Mr. PoP over dirty floors? Probably not. But four months into renovations on our duplex, we were both working full time jobs, and then putting in 15-20 hours each of manual labor fixing up the duplex every weekend. I was pooped. Emotionally, physically, you name it.
I didn’t have the energy to keep our house as clean as I normally like (for the record, that’s pretty clean but not neat-freakishly clean). And when the rainy season hit and we both began tracking leaves and mud through the house constantly, I thought I was going to lose my mind trying to figure out how I could possibly have the time to sweep the floors (which are an ugly problem to start with), in addition to everything else.
It was a Saturday night, we had just both finished 12 hours of installing tile and painting walls, and we came home to filthy floors. I cried. I’m not proud of that, and it was (in hindsight) the pure exhaustion of everything that got to me. But apparently the only way I could communicate how exhausted I was feeling was to cry about dirty floors.
What is My Sanity Worth?
My cry for help (pun intended) rang loud and clear to Mr. PoP, because he finally realized that all my recent jokes about needing someone to come in and clean the floors for us were more than mere jokes. (He knows how cheap I am that I would never hire a cleaner when I can do it all myself.)
“What can fix this?”
“We could get a Roomba? But they’re expensive.”
“How much money will it take for you to stop feeling like this?”
It was 8:30 at night when we left for Bed, Bath, and Beyond. We had 15 minutes in the store to look over the models, and compare prices on our smart phones. Fast shopping, but effective. $300 later, we walked out the door with a brand new Roomba under my arm and I went about setting it up that night.
Love My Roomba!
Long story short, I love Roomba. He (yes our robot vacuum is a “he”) brings me joy everyday to come home and see what room he vacuumed that day. Kitty PoP even finally started to like Roomba, occasionally playing with the vacuum as Roomba roams around cleaning.
But Roomba’s awesomeness aside, we did learn something from this whole experience. Sometimes, yes sometimes, money really can buy happiness. In exchange for $300 that night, Roomba continues to bring me joy day after day. And my reduced stress over the floors makes Mr. PoP happy. And Kitty PoP has a robotic playmate.
And even better, Mr. PoP and I figured out that we needed to build in time (and some money) when we weren’t focused on our “real jobs” or our investment property, otherwise we were going to burn out. So we did. The work that was going to take us another six weeks at the duplex ended up taking eight weeks. But we didn’t drive our relationship to the brink overworking each other.
Lesson learned, and a major win for the PoPs.
Crystal’s Comments: I loved the Roomba we had but all our dog hair killed it in about a year (EDIT: We had bought a cheap office one that wasn’t made for the entire house for like $90, so it didn’t have a fighting chance). It was actually a little funny. It was already having a little trouble with one of our pieces of furniture. Everytime it hit it just right as it backed up, it would drop its booty – the back would just eject and sit there as my poor Roomba beeped that it was missing something. Eventually the dog hair (despite daily cleaning) got into its insides and messed it up. But that was when we had a Black Lab…I think it would do much better with us now with just a Pug and Dachshund. We’ll get another one in our new house that is mainly tile. 
Have you ever had or thought about buying a Roomba? Any experiences to share?
We have one, too. Love it! Only now we have a problem. We think Roomba doesn’t love us any more. He (Yep, he’s a he in our house, too. Plenty of room for that one, but we’ll leave it alone for now LOL). Anyway, he just hides under the bed now. He will start, do his criss-cross cleaning thing and then stop – right in the middle of the floor under the king size bed!
Maybe it’s the battery that is losing it’s cycle time. We need to contact customer service and find out what the hey is going on.
Sorry for that ramble. Bottom line: yes, absolutely, Roomba is worth every penny! In the beginning, we were like two kids with a new toy: watching this little booger scope out the room and then get to work. What iRobot needs to do is add a Siri module to it – hard to tell it that will be fun or creepy… (“sigh… well OK, if you absolutely insist!)
Thank so much for including our guest post, Crystal!
@William – we did the same thing when we first got Roomba – start him up and just watch him meander around the floor trying to predict where he would head next. =)
I’ve thought about getting one – we’re bad about vacuuming the house. It would totally be worth the money if it lasted a couple years. But the cost and possibility of it dying have kept me away.
I think our dog hair would kill it. Can you just set it for the hard floors? I get your point about burning out with investment property. I’ll try to remember that over the next month while we’re fixing ours up. Whoever thought up the name Roomba was genius.
I’m intrigued by the Roomba, but not enough to buy one. I’m apprehensive about how they’d do on a thicker carpet and I’ve got the dog-hair problem. I need a vacuum that can stand up to pet hair and I just don’t think this is it.
Wow – not bad at all. I agree. We recently bought a portable dishwasher (we’re renting) because there wasn’t one and we were sick of spending hours each week doing dishes. Now, it takes maybe 30 minutes a week to manage all of our dishes. It definitely made us happier!
Too great! I agree that sometimes you need to invest in…luxuries?…in order to keep your sanity. I may have to go out and buy a Roomba….
Confessions: I love to vacuum. *blush*!!
@W – Totally understand about being worried if it’ll last – that was one of my worries, but 1.5 years in, it’s still going strong!
@Kim & @ Sheryl – Crystal’s experience with dog hair is the only one I’ve heard with pet hair troubles. Ours definitely needed more cleaning the couple of weeks that we had 2 cats in the house (the visiting cat had super long hair) but it was okay. They do have a model that they claim is good for pet households, but that’s not the one we have. Maybe it holds up better?
@ 20′s Finances – The portable dishwasher sounds awesome!
@FemmeFrugality – Yeah, the Roomba is definitely a luxury, but it’s at least one that we get tons of use out of!
@Amanda Grossman – I’m so impressed with people who love to clean… us, not so much. I love having a clean place, just not doing it!
We’ve got a golden retriever/lab, otherwise I’d totally have one of these! It’s funny, vacuum’s are romantic. My wife had me trade in a weekend vacation at a waterfall resort to purchase the Dyson Animal. Seriously.
And we still love that vacuum to this day, because it cleans so well, and keeps our house smelling clean.
What is the return policy on them? I was interested until you mentioned dog hair (our main problem).
Just one other reservation: we have hardwood floors with area rugs. Roomba (and this must be why he is a he not a she) doesn’t like change. It doesn’t like going from hardwood to carpet – the edges of the carpet seem to be scrubbed more vigorously. The carpet itself is great – we are very pleased with Roomba’s smartness. Only his hiding under the bed thing is still puzzling…
I’ll need to make sure that I clean up the house a bit once my wife starts school full time (she’ll be working full time too). Better break out my task management software…
I have to admit, I’ve had breakdowns because of how dirty our floors were. I will admit it’s mostly our dogs fault (a lab as well hah) Im glad the Roomba solved your stress at a cost of $25/mo. Unfortunately, I know we won’t be getting one anytime soon, but good to know it worked!
[...] had our very first guest post at another blog this week with Roomba Saved Our Marriage hosted by Crystal at Budgeting In The Fun Stuff. If you haven’t caught it yet, check it out! [...]