May I introduce...

[akk]

R2!

It's doing my vacuuming for me from now on.

But a little bit of context first. I live on 120 squaremeters on one floor together with two relatives. Out of us three, I'm the only one fit enough to regularly do strenuous housework. (The others are 96 years old or have osteoporosis, respectively). I'm allergic against dust (more precisely dust mite feces, but let's not be more anal retentive than usual) and pollen (mostly grasses, with rye being my "favorite"). During pollen season (starting in February, ending in November - except when we have a warm winter, then there's no break at all), the recommendation for people like me is daily (!) vacuuming of all rooms (!!), and twice a day if you have symptoms and feel weak and out of breath (!!!).
I also work full time, commuting a total of 1.5 hours a day and I'm sad to say, I fail at daily vacuuming especially when I'm having symptoms. Hell, I fail at weekly vacuuming regularly, symptoms or not! Not because I don't want have to do it, but because... WHEN???!

R2 is a Roomba 780 from iRobots, and yes, in one go it sucks up less than the big Vorwerk Tiger 251, but R2 works daily for two to three hours unsupervised on the 90 squaremeters available to it (I blocked the wet and fat area - a.k.a. bath and kitchen - with infrared barriers). Its random walk makes it work on each spot multiple times, and it's stubborn like a hungry wasp on your fruit juice when it comes to squeezing itself into corners and crannies to clean them.
When I vacuum, I miss more spots and cut more corners than this bot! And I'm not ashamed to say that R2s results on our linoleum and short hair carpets are superior to mine, even when I dedicate a whole weekend day to that work.
R2's been working daily on my flat since this Friday and even after just three runs the amount of dust in the rooms and even on the shelves is dramatically reduced at a cost of approx. 30 € a year for electricity (charging and stand-by, calculation based on the current electricity costs).

Frankly, eliminating the dust in your apartment is a war of attrition and those aren't won by the guys with the biggest guns, but by those with the most tenacity.

Comments

[rurounitriv.livejournal.com]

I so wish I had one of these. I stink at vacuuming. And dusting. And housework in general. And with six cats, there's LOTS of housework that really needs doing.

[akk]

Not sure about dusting. It can't climb up the book shelves (yet), but there's a special version for pet owners in the previous line. :-)

[rurounitriv.livejournal.com]

Ah, but if it vacuums, then dusting is simply a matter of knocking the dust down where the robot can get to it without knocking down books / knickknacks with it. Dusting is much easier (as long as you're as not-worried about a little dust as I am, at least) if you don't have to clean up the dust as you go.