Berck got us robot floor cleaners for Christmas, one for upstairs and one for downstairs.  They’re apparently smart enough not to fall downstairs (at least the upstairs one is; the downstairs one might well be an idiot).  They can vacuum and mop. They’re surprisingly fairly good at all-terraining it over doorway thresholds. They don’t do a terribly good job at cleaning, but they work hard (if you choose the work hardest setting), and the floors are a lot cleaner than when they don’t clean.  

They also freak the cat out.

They aren’t very loud, which is good, because the house can get vacuumed at times other than when Berck is in the shower.  That is historically the only time I’ve been allowed to vacuum, because Berck can’t yell at me to stop while he’s bathing. 

The best part, of course, is that Berck has taken the most interest in house cleaning that he ever has, because… robots. He set the downstairs one to clean the laundry room every morning at 8:00 (this is important because that is where the litter box is). He also set the upstairs one to clean the kitchen every day (at my request) at 11:00 a.m.  He lovingly inserts detergent, empties the dirty mop water receptacle, and refills the clean water container like a gentleman breeder refilling the food and water bowls of a prize bulldog.  He carefully edits the robots’ maps of the house like a meticulous cartographer. 

While the upstairs robot is programmed not to commit roboticide by flinging itself downstairs, that doesn’t keep it from pushing the records by the record player off onto the lower landing. 

The robots have also tried to eat things that they really shouldn’t, but they just stop where they are, and their app indicates that they’re stuck.  Unspooling whatever they’ve tried to ingest has so far been quite simple, and then you just give them a little tap, and they go again. It has kept me from leaving power cables on the floor though.