Last fall I won a Roomba at the Accelerating Change meetings. After we unpacked it we were sad to find that our house is not Roomba friendly. The house is of several vintages. The oldest part dates to the 1850s, there is a newer section built around 1910. In the 1940s a sleeping porch was added that we have dressed up a bit. Hanging off the back of the oldest section is the new kitchen that we added about 15 years ago. The second story has been gutted, the roof raised, a balcony added on the front and a north side balcony enclosed and added to the interior space on the back. Counting down from upstairs (2), through the living room (3), to the foyer (4), the dining room (5), the kitchen (6), and the lake room (7), there are seven separate room elevations in this ramshackle twelve room, two bath dwelling.
In the dining room, the Roomba battles with chair legs, table legs, a buffet and a china cabinet with inconvenient dimensions, and an area rug that traps the poor bugger along the outer wall. He’s not agile enough to climb out of the dining room into the foyer or the kitchen, although the elevation is strictly an actuarial stumble-bump nightmare of an inch or so.
In the living room the pitiful sod chokes on the fringe of the carpet. I won’t let him in my office lest he eat the random cable. The kitchen, the laundry room, the utility room, and a bath are all on the same level, but we’d have to close the doors to the foyer and the dining room or he’d never return after taking the short step down into those areas.
What we don’t have is the modern house with wall to wall carcinogenic carpeting that Roomba was designed for. Nevertheless, I’m tempted to get the old boy out of storage just so we can dress him up.
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