I’ve just swept and mopped. Once the floor dries, I could easily go sweep again and turn up more dust and dirt. If I were to mop again, I’m almost certain the water in my bucket would be filthy. It feels like it’s never actually clean.
Beyond that, there’s dusting, cleaning windows, sinks, countertops, bathrooms, and probably things I don’t even consider. How do you all stay on top of these things?
In newer construction, especially high-rise apartments, there’s a lot less dust. But in older buildings, it’s just an endless torrent, and the solution has been…
Robot vacuums
While they must be maintained, and won’t work well if you’re not diligent about picking up and keeping obstacles off the floor, they make it far easier to keep the whole house clean by reducing the overall volume of interior dust and debris inside the building envelope.
To illustrate (this will be gross) I change the bags about every month and weigh them and it’s usually ~1 kg (~2 lbs) per bag, and each year they remove roughly 30-40 kg (70-90 lbs). And every time I’ve cut them open to see what’s causing all the weight (or make sure nothing important was eaten) it appears to be mostly dust and hair.
It’s freaky thinking how all of that would be floating around, settling on surfaces, collecting in corners and crevices, saturating carpets and upholstery, and of course getting breathed in constantly. Instead I don’t have to manually dust and vacuum very often and our indoor AQI is usually better than outside.
So yeah. Robots.
Edit: added imperial mass equivalents
Robots is great, but the privacy implications scare me.
I do have one that’s dumb, only just smart enough to set a daily schedule, no WiFi or cameras, but it’s bullet proof and easier to maintain than the others, so It’s possible to not sacrifice privacy.
What brand/model do you have? I’ve been looking into purchasing one.
Not the person you’ve replied to, but I’ve got a Roborock Q7 Max. It’s cheap and relatively simple. It’s got a LIDAR and proximity sensors, but no obstacle avoidance or stair/cliff detection and no camera. From what I can see it’s also silent (no network activity) even though it’s bound to my WiFi. After months of using it I’d say its been a great choice to splurge on. Never had one, never thought I’d need one, but after seeing dust settling on every bit of the floor every day… I got tired of sweeping.
That one’s a refurb iLife v3s. Not sure of current price but I paid $62.
I hear you. There’s always Valetudo. Get yourself a supported vacuum and install Valetudo whenever you feel the need. Had my robot for half a year but haven’t come around to doing it just yet. Maybe after its warranty runs out.
Ate there ones that aren’t loud? I work from home and never leave the house, and if robot vacuums are only ever used when you jagger the house, then they aren’t for me
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We use a Neato Botvac Connected (it’s an older model) and the eco mode is quiet enough that we can run it at night. I’m an exceptionally light sleeper and it has worked for me. If we are leaving the house for a while I set it to turbo and that’s loud but cleans even better.
Highly recommend Neato. I think we’ve had ours for 7 or 8 years at this point.