How To Ensure Your Roomba Doesn’t Make A Pet Mess Worse 

If you have pets, you know they can create a mess. Some of that mess can be vacuumed up by your Roomba, and some of it will create an absolute disaster if it gets eaten by the robot vacuum. You know what I’m talking about. (I’m talking about poop.)

Refinery 29 writer Elena Nicolaou shared a story on Twitter of trauma and dog faeces that will make any animal owner check thrice before releasing their Roomba onto the carpet. Her screenshot of someone named Jesse’s post alleges that if a Roomba, or any robot vacuum, sucks up an accident, it will then spread it across the the floor and anywhere else within reach. They don’t make a robot that can deal with this sort of nightmare yet:

TIL: if a Roomba comes across dog poop it will spread that poop all throughout the house & that this has happened to many people & I know it’s mean but I can’t stop laughing pic.twitter.com/vWNJS9d8Ud

— Elena Nicolaou ✨ (@elenawonders) April 16, 2018

Is this a real phenomenon? It seems so:

Welp! I just joined the “I wish roomba’s had dog :poop: avoidance technology” club.

Oh god.

— Jesse Noller (@jessenoller) July 21, 2017

https://twitter.com/mclovinanh/status/986851580086575106

And here is a video of a very determined little Roomba trying to suck up dog doo:

Look at it, trying as hard as it can! Brave bot.

In a message from an iRobot spokesperson to Lifehacker, the maker of Roomba suggests that people not schedule their vacuum to get to work when they’re not around, especially if you know your pet is a bad, bad boy:

iRobot is a pet-friendly company with many passionate, pet-loving customers and employees. The large majority of customers with pets greatly appreciate the help our robots provide with cleaning the home, especially when it comes to pet hair. Our guidance for customers with pets that may be prone to accidents is to avoid using the scheduling feature found on most Roomba vacuums if the they are not present to inspect the floor conditions.

Be safe out there, folks. I doubt anyone who has a robot do the vacuuming wants to deal with a disaster like this.