I’m looking at a gently used Roomba iRobot 560. PCmag article and review is dated from 2007. So its pretty old. Seller is asking $120, I’m thinking $60. Asking seller about how long since its been charged/used to try to determine whether battery still holds a charge. New ones from amazon are $60 alone.
I don’t have the funds to purchase a newer one, and will not likely have them for a while. I’d be primarily using this for a laminate floor kitchen, and an adjacent short napped living room carpet. There, my biggest concern would be the silvery quarter round transition between these. Should it go over this?
Here’s the bottom line: I have terrible arthritis in my feet/knees and fibromyalgia and am currently seeking disability. Sweeping and vacuuming for more than 90 seconds are well…painful is a kind word for it. So it just rarely/never gets done.
I’d rather have a Roomba NOW that can do a basic simple job of keeping crumbs, cooking bits, hair, schmutz off these two floors than a good one 8 mos or a year from now.
Thoughts, feelings, experience, any one/where else I can ask these questions? Please point me in the right direction.
Thanks as always in advance. Dope was great with my freezer dysfunction question recently.
The item is available from craigslist Fort Wayne, In; household items for sale by owner. Seller is in Ossian. thanks
I’ve bought and sold about 10 things these last three months by doing my due diligence. So far no experience with scammers. Not that it is a guarantee, but Ossian is a very small town
I have a roomba 700 series and I am happy-ish with its performance. You do need to keep the filters and trap clean, and it likes to eat cords and shoelaces to its detriment. Also, prepare to manually clean areas it can’t reach like behind open doors, because on hard floors it tends to blow dust and dirt out of its way.
I have a Roomba to deal with Golden Retriever hair, and it does a great job. I’m not sure I get the transition between your kitchen and carpet, but mine has hoisted itself over a half inch brick ledge, so I’m betting there is no problem. It doesn’t do corners or walls, but it is great on carpets and crumbs.
I’ve had few problems with the battery, more with the vacuum assembly, and my first, cheap one, got wiped out by dog hair so my second was a special Pet one.
Give it a shot for $60. I bet you won’t stress the battery very much.
Wife got one. Mostly ditto above posts. Ours tends to get in the bad habit of going to the same corner again and again. Some have suggested get a ‘light house’.
We watched the one at my brother’s house and it was decent, but honestly it would go over the same area over and over and miss others entirely. As a professional cleaner myself, it drove me nuts to watch it leave areas dirty. I did think it did a pretty good job where it actually went, it just didn’t hit everything, and it has limitations in some smaller areas.
I’m too cluttered to use one but a couple friends (much neater than myself) swear by them. It isn’t a 100% solution but its been well worth the cost - and they bought new.
I have one; I bought it for my flat but that one has lots of low furniture and funky angles it didn’t do well with, and anyway that flat needs very little cleaning. It’s now in my grandma’s flat, that’s all right angles and doesn’t have any “heeeeelp I got here and I can’t get out!” spots, and it’s a lot dirtier (several windows can’t be closed at all). It works beautifully, we’ve even given it a nickname. We set it to go when we’re leaving the house and spot clean the bits it’s missed when we come back.
My Roomba is about the same age. It still works pretty well, although there were a few years where I didn’t use it because I thought the battery needed replacing. About 3 months ago I tried using it again and it ran through some kind of “battery refresh” cycle. It now runs for about 45 minutes on a full charge, which is lower than in the beginning but long enough to get a room done.
I like my Roomba but it does take about 5-10 minutes for me to get a room Roomba-ready (e.g. take the chairs out of the dining room). It does better in uncrowded rooms. I don’t think the quarter-round would be a problem. It is a good little vacuum, although as others have said, it does have a tendency to miss spots and inside corners are not its strong point. But as long as you’re not looking for perfection, seems like it would be a good choice for you.
We owned two 2009-vintage Roombas, and they were useless. My wife has long hair and both of them would be clogged by her sheddings by the end of each cycle. They were also perfectly sized to get stuck under the couch.
It was a nice novelty and did indeed do light cleaning. But your house had to be prepared for it, no cords, loose objects on the floor, rug fringes, etc. No couches, furniture, or cabinets that are just the right height for the Roomba to get wedged under.
I got tired of cleaning long hair out of the brushes and as they got older the batteries died and I never bothered buying new ones.
