The Chaos Chronicles: Roomba Vaccum
Let me start with a warning: if you’ve ever thought about automating your house chores with technology, my story will make you clutch your mop like a security blanket.
It began innocently enough. My daughter had been banned from daycare for flu-like symptoms (daycares don’t play around with contagious germs). Grandma — my mother, our family’s MVP that day — had agreed to spend the night to help care for her the next day. Perfect plan. I could sneak off to work early while Grandma handled sick-kid duty.
At 5:00 a.m., I noticed my mom was already up. Wow, what an early bird! I thought. Maybe she couldn’t sleep. Maybe the mattress was too soft… or too firm…or she was too hot… or too cold…But then it hit me.
Not the smell of bacon. Not coffee. Nope. It was poop. Thick, gag-inducing, undeniable poop.
My brain instantly went into a diagnostic spiral. Did my daughter’s flu turn into a full-blown GI apocalypse? Did my mother get sick? Nope. It was Hudson, our golden retriever, who had chosen the living room carpet as his personal Porta-Potty.
I ran downstairs in horror only to find… my mother. This woman, who deserves her own cape and Marvel movie, was already emptying the portable carpet cleaner into the sink. She explained that at 4:00 a.m., just as she was drifting back to sleep after hearing my husband leave for work, the smell ambushed her nostrils. Instead of ignoring it, she went full Navy SEAL on the living room. And bless her, she even gave me the play-by-play: Hudson’s “art” was a perfect pile in the centre with bonus droplets trailing around for dramatic flair.
The day spiralled from there. I was late to work. Grandma scrubbed. Grandpa got called in with their super carpet cleaner. By the time lunch rolled around, I thought I’d offer to send skip-the-dish for lunch to show my gratitude. But Grandma had already fed my daughter and tucked her into bed like Mary Poppins. Crisis managed.
Or so I thought.
Fast forward to me pulling into the garage that evening. I sighed, ready to unwind, only to see my Roomba flipped belly-up on the stairs like a dead turtle. And you already know what that meant…The Roomba had found the poop.
Inside, I discovered my mom and husband mid-conversation, casually discussing the “ lingering poop stench.” Spoiler: it was our Roomba and the docking station. Apparently, Hudson (in his anxiety) sometimes boops it on. Which means yes — the Roomba had heroically tried to vacuum up diarrhea.
But wait. It gets worse.
Because my mom had brought over a used Roomba the day before to gift us as a replacement, since ours was on it’s last legs. Meaning not one, but TWO Roombas were in play that day. Ours was unsalvageable. Hers, by some miracle, survived.
Then came the sinking realization: Roombas can fit under our furniture (Cue internal screaming!) We decided to eat dinner and ignore that horrifying truth, with full confidence in my mother’s cleaning skills. Denial, as it turns out, pairs well with pasta.
Later, I finally moved the couch with a casual hip-check, for I could still catch whiffs of poop in the air. I found what can only be described as poop’s grand tour of the living room. It was everywhere:
Smudged under couches
Painted on air vent covers
Two inches up the baseboards
Decorating the feet of furniture
And, for the grand finale… smeared on my daughter’s bouncy purple dinosaur toy (which now looked like Dino from The Flintstones had gotten a muddy pedicure).
By 8:00 p.m., our old carpet cleaner broke mid-rescue mission. We tried a “quick fix” YouTube hack involving a nail — which basically flooded the carpet with a surprise water feature. Cue emergency run to Canadian Tire before closing.
At 9:15 p.m., my husband returned, heroically clutching a brand-new Bissell Cross-Wave. By 10:00 p.m., we were finally done scrubbing the crime scene. Honestly? I’d recommend the new model — solid suction, easy to use, five stars if you ignore the trauma. We collapsed into bed laughing like exhausted pigeons, because really, what else can you do after a day like that?
The next day, our vacuum broke (because apparently the Cleaning Gods weren’t finished with us yet). So back to Canadian Tire we went. As for the replacement Roomba? It sits untouched. My husband doesn’t dare suggest we use it anymore — I think he knows better. My strategy is to keep it either “full of debris” or off the charger, so if Hudson boops it, nothing happens.
The good news? The poop stench finally left our house. We had new and exciting tools to clean the floors with. My daughter became healthy within a couple days. Hudson’s digestive system has calmed down. But-if there’s even the faintest evidence of a loose stool, that dog is immediately quarantined to the tile floor.
Because some lessons, once learned, can’t be unlearned.
It was, without a doubt, the crappiest day of my life. Literally.
