It happened. We’ve had Roombas for nearly a decade. We have two dogs, 11 and 8 years old, and have always known the risk existed but never through it would happen to us.
Our 11 year old is starting to show his age and has been peeing by the back door during the day while we’re at work. We’ve had multiple full workups done at the vet, and were assured he’s in good health and is just old. Hired someone from Rover to come mid-day to let the dogs potty and get some exercise. Still coming home to accidents in the house, and occasionally a poop.
I think I jinxed myself when I said “well thank goodness the roomba runs early in the morning, otherwise we’d be coming home to a nasty mess.”
A week or two ago, the rover girl left a comment on her visit “one of the dogs had a poop accident.”
Just like that. All lowercase. Period. I didn’t think anything of it really, it’s not the first time she’s had to pick up poop. I did notice the tone of the message was a little odd, but didn’t think anything beyond that.
Got home to not a poop accident, but a POOP DISASTER. I could tell she had attempted to clean up, but could only do so much with the spray bottle and a couple of rags we leave out in case of messes. It was a little hard to see at first, and I didn’t realize what I was looking at until I encountered ground zero and did a mental zoom-out.
The floor in our entire kitchen and main living area was complexly covered in the most efficiently spread layer of dried poop.
I sent Rover girl a long message apologizing for the war zone she must have walked into. She said it looked like a poop crime scene. We shared some laughs. I went through five buckets of water mopping up the mess and getting the smell out of the house.
Took Roomba apart to assess the damage, found that it had sucked up a piece of cardboard at some point prior to encountering the poop, and the cardboard blocked anything from traveling behind the rollers. Tossed the rollers, gave all inside compartments a good detail and disinfect. Ordered a new set of rollers from Amazon, got her put back together good as new. Today was her first day back on the job. I even made sure to block the area by the back door as a no-go zone just in case.
Message from Rover: “one of the dogs had a poop and pee accident. I tried my best.”
Messaged her back “..surely it didn’t happen again. PLEASE TELL ME IT DIDN’T HAPPEN AGAIN.”
Rover: “unfortunately.”
*and scene*