After two years, the Roomba started breaking down. First, the Roomba would not charge even when seated in its dock. The orange light would not pulse. The other behavior was that it would approach the dock, when the dock button was depressed, but it would twist, turn and collide with the dock as if it could not detect it. I finally called tech support, and we went through all the typical steps: resetting the Roomba, making sure the contacts touched the dock, etc. The odd trick that got the Roomba working again was to spray compressed air into the battery charging outlet.

So, the Roomba was charging again, but it would not return to its base. It would run out of juice before the cleaning cycle ended, which tells me that cleaning cycles are timed, instead of based on the remaining charge in the battery. After a few more weeks of delay, I finally ordered a new battery.

Installing the new battery was easy. Just remove a few screws. I also cleaned the Roomba at the time. With the bottom panel removed, I could see dust everywhere. So, the Roomba has been working like new again. On one hand, I’m disappointed that the battery only lasted two years. However, it was working every single day during that stretch, which is more work than all the other vacuum cleaners I have owned have put in to date.

The garage was a terrible mess and in desperate need of organization. It didn’t start that way though. At first, all the Costco supplies were packed into the pantry. But, in a bid to clean-up the house, all that got dumped into the garage. And, one by one, the boxes multiplied until they occupied a fair amount of space.

I had always intended to pick up some shelving. However, every time, I spotted a stainless steel shelving rack at Costco, the size and weight of the box was just enough to dissuade me. Finally, I just ordered the shelving rack online from Costco. It took one business day to deliver, and one hour to assemble. If I had to put together a second one, I should be able to cut down on the time dramatically, especially if I started with a tape measure in hand. Mount the shelves at the same height on each leg!

After I assembled the shelving, I organized what I needed and disposed of the rest. Now, I have a mini-Costco in my garage.

After much hesitation, I picked up an iRobot Roomba vacuum cleaning robot at Costco. The popular warehouse retailer was selling the iRobot Roomba 595 for $299.99.

I was a bit apprehensive about this purchase. Sure, I had already outsourced the dishwashing and laundry to robots, but I had been acclimated to those appliances all my life. A vacuum cleaning robot seemed different.

Turns out that the critical question isn’t whether the Roomba will clean as good or efficient as a human. The Roomba doesn’t follow a grid pattern when vacuuming, so it may cover the same part of the room multiple times. However, what it lacks in efficiency, it makes up in effort by tirelessly vacuuming every single day without complaint.

Now, most people probably do not vacuum their own house every day. I certainly did not. But, the Roomba will if you set up its schedule to vacuum daily. I thought that would be excessively and was prepared to adjust the schedule until I saw the Roomba pick-up a dryer’s worth of link every single day. And all this time I thought the floor was clean.

Once you have an Roomba cleaning your house each day, I don’t think you can go back because now you know how dirty the floor is.

During a visit to Home Depot for other purposes, I spotted a BrassCraft Zip-It. Seeing that I had a slow bathroom sink, I was willing to give the product a test, especially since it only cost $2.50.

First, I filled the sink with 3 cups of water, measuring carefully with that precise, scientific instrument otherwise known as a Legoland cup.

Three Legoland cups of water yields about this much water.

Next, I measured how long it took for all the water to drain from the sink. A disappointing 24 seconds, per iPhone.

I could insert the Zip-It really easily down the drain, but pulling it back up took some wiggling. I think all the notches were catching onto parts of the drain. The Zip-It didn’t pull up a hairball or any large masses, but it did pull up a lot of black gunk.

After wiping away all the black gunk and rinsing the sink clean, I refilled the sink with 3 cups of water. The time to drain was a much-improved 9 seconds.

Last night, an elf had stopped by to re-decorate the house with a nice, red crayon. Fortunately, the elf focused on the baseboard with a semi-gloss finish instead of setting her eyes higher on the wall with a textured, flat finish.

What Worked. A wet sponge with a touch of Bon Ami was really effective in removing most of the crayon markets. Scrub, rinse and repeat. For the edge, I located an old, but clean toothbrush and brushed away the remaining art work that the sponge could not reach. Good for those hard-to-reach corners.

What Didn’t. I had a bottle of orange-colored degreaser spray that stated on the label that it could remove crayon marks. I sprayed some on the colored surface and rubbed away with a paper towel. I think the towel turned slightly pink, but was not particularly effective. I tried scraping away with a plastic Play-Doh knife. I was able to remove some crayon scraps, but that was not helpful either.

Despite its name, permanent markers stains are not necessarily permanent. How you approach a permanent marker stain may depend on the affected surface. Fortunately, the permanent marker stain that I faced was on the hard plastic countertop of a toy kitchen. Of course, I first tested with a paper towel and plain water. While the paper towel removed some of the ink, I could quickly tell that this process would be too slow. Next, I progressed to using Simple Green, which was not particularly effective against this type of stain.

In the end, what worked the best was rubbing alcohol. Actually, this is quite obvious in hindsight when considering the alcohol-based white board cleaners that populate many offices. So, I proceeded to scrub away with a paper towel dipped in rubbing alcohol. I managed to remove about 80% of the permanent market stain, but was not making any progress with the remaining 20%. The problem I encountered was that the hard plastic surface was not entirely smooth. My paper towel was no match for the tiny grooves that populated the surface. For my final attempt, I brought out an old toothbrush. Pour a little rubbing alcohol on the stained surface and brushed away. This completely removed the remaining stain from the surface. The toothbrush was able to reach the grooves that was inaccessible to the paper towel.

The Bissell SpotBot carpet cleaner is awesome. It works best for people who take off their shoes before entering the house and keep their carpet generally clean. And, when the occasional “oops” occurs, you pick up the SpotBot and let it do its job. The SpotBot has two tanks—one for clean water and one for waste water. The clean water tank contains marks on the side that indicate how much water and cleaning solution to add. Each full tank lasts for about 3 cleaning cycles (i.e., 3 spots) and uses up 8 oz. of cleaning solution.

So, why use the SpotBot instead of a standard carpet cleaner? Well, the best analogy would be the SpotBot operates like the Ronco Showtime Rotisserie Platinum Edition. Set it and forget it. Just plug in the SpotBot, fill the water tank, and push either the Surface Stain or Set-In Stain button to start the cleaning cycle. At this point, you can walk away for a few minutes until the cycle ends and the machine starts beeping. No standing in one place pushing the machine back-and-forth for a few minutes. It’s not the ideal tool if you have to clean a lot of carpet. However, for the occasional spill, it works great.

In all seriousness, I think the SpotBot is the ideal baby shower gift. Whenever a baby spits up, and all babies do, sometimes the spit up (or vomit) lands on your pristine carpet instead of the burping cloth. That’s the time to bring out the SpotBot to remove the milk stain from the carpet.