Dead Roomba

With much excitement and anticipation, we put our little Roomba on the living room floor Sunday to watch it go. It didn't. Go, that is. It went in circles a couple times, stopped and beeped. We were underwhelmed to say the least. A little later, I decided it was the kids and dog that made it just circle. After all, it can't go anywhere when there are two kids and a dog less than a foot from it. Hooray! I found the solution; a kid-dog wall.

The kids go to bed and we pull the little guy out. It goes in circles, does the "uh-oh" sound and gives nine beeps. So, it wasn't the kid-dog wall. I call customer service and it closed about a half hour before I called. I get online to the forums and find out the nine beeps it emitted do not bode well. One suggestion was to lightly tap the bumpers, the other was to call customer service and see if your warranty is still good. Not good.

On Monday, I call customer service with much trepidation. You see, the one complaint when I looked into customer reviews was that customer service was not good. There were the usual "I couldn't get the durn thing to work", "why does it get caught on my long-haired cat's shedded hair", "will it clean up water" (uh, no that's the scoomba) and so forth. The overall reviews for performance were outstanding.

So, I dial and hit "0" until I get a human (little tip from me to you, go to get human to bypass those pesky voice prompts). I tell the guy that it goes around in circles then nine beeps. He says "oh no, the dreaded nine beep". I'm doomed, even the tech guy is concerned. He asks when I got it. I said a couple days ago. We had just charged it, put it on the ground and it won't work. He says the bumpers may be stuck and to gently tap them. Uh, really? Ok. I'll be danged, it worked! I put the little guy down and he started actually moving around the room! I kiss the guy over the phone, hang up and put my new little pet in the bathroom to start doing my floors.

The baby and I leave it alone and go to play in the other room. About an hour later, I head in and my floors are still dirty! I hit the button, and it does the dreaded nine beep. So, I call customer service again. She says, "clean the sensors". From what??? It hasn't been run enough for anything to get dirty. She puts me on hold and comes back. They are going to send me a new one! Yay!!!!

Now, my husband, the geek, is thrilled about a new machine. Why? I don't have to send the old one back. And you know what that means? Spare parts--something to play with.