Who does YOUR floors? Scooba does mine - Review

A friend was telling me about her Roomba and how she loves how it vacuums her floors while she's gone. Vacuuming and mopping are some of my least favorite chores, and I kidded to her that they needed to make a Roomba that mops. "I think they do," she tells me.

What?!

After that, I was on a mission to find a "Roomba that mops", otherwise known as Scooba. Unfortunately I wasn't willing to shell out $200-500 just so I didn't have to mop the floors. So I hit eBay watched how Scooba was selling for a couple of months. Then I swooped in and got one for a steal.

First, Scooba is a big ole honkin' thing. A lot larger than I thought it would be at around 16" diameter. But since it has two water reservoirs and filters etc, I can understand that. It's really easy to use. After charging up, you fill the "clean" tank with water and either vinegar or cleaning solution. Set Scooba on the floor and she's ready to go.

They suggest you "remove all furniture from the room for the best cleaning" but who is really going to do that? I move the easy to move stuff (like the trash can in the kitchen, and the coffee table in the living room) but that's it. Scooba tends to get stuck under my couches (for some reason they're high enough to get under at some points but lower at others) so I block off the bottom of the couches with 2x4's that we have lying around. I Swiffered before I used Scooba the first time, but haven't since then. You don't really need to do pre-cleaning unless you've got gobs of stuff stuck to the floor or big things like Cheerios laying around. I'd suggest picking that stuff up first.

Oh, the other really neat thing is the virtual wall that comes with Scooba. It's an invisible laser that tells Scooba to steer clear of that area. It can project up to 8 feet away. So if you have a stairway or hallway you don't want Scooba going into, you set up the wall there. I bought two extra virtual walls due to the open layout of our house, which creates all kinds of neat, sneaky places for Scooba to get herself into.

Back to the cleaning, Scooba has a repetitive pattern that she uses to clean all areas of your floors. She really doesn't miss a spot. But since Scooba is round, she doesn't do corners or really up close to some things (like the toilet). So I still have to work those out myself. She vacuums, sprays out the clean fluid, and sucks up the dirty fluid all in one step. Your floors will be slightly wet, but they dry pretty quickly afterwards.

When Scooba's done cleaning, she plays you a cute little song to tell you that she's done. It takes about 45 minutes for Scooba to clean my living room. Yes, that is longer than it would take me to mop, but that is 45 minutes I can spend doing something else! (And the floors probably are cleaner than what I'd do anyway.) I can do my living room and kitchen on one battery charge.

Dump out the dirty water, rinse the two tanks, flush out the filter and a short 3" hose, and you are done. I usually check the brushes/scraper to make sure there's no hair or anything stuck in there, since my cats and I shed a lot.

I really like my Scooba and she's worth every penny I spent. With our traffic habits, I can run Scooba about every two weeks with a sweep here and there in between, and keep my floors looking great!

Do you have a Roomba or Scooba? How well do you think they work? If you don't have one, do you want one? Why or why not?



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