I Finally Bought A Robot Vacuum…But Here’s The Problem (Plus, Please Help An Insomniac Sleep!!)

Well, I finally bought a robot vacuum. So many of you have recommended that I purchase one over the years. I’ve looked at them several times on Amazon over the last couple of years, but never knew what to buy. Some of them are reasonably priced, while others are ridiculously expensive, and there was no way I was going to pay several hundred dollars for a robot vacuum.

But when Sherry at Young House Love started recommending the one she bought in their Instagram stories, and then she started sharing all of the positive reviews that people were sharing with her, I decided to take the plunge. I bought this Eufy robot vacuum that has a 4.4 star rating with over 45,000 customer reviews.

Overall, I have to say that I love it. The main thing that stopped me from buying a robot vacuum until now is that I have a dog — a 100-pound dog named Cooper. His size isn’t the issue. His shedding is the issue. He’s part Labrador retriever and part German shepherd. Both of those breeds generally shed year round, and German shepherds “blow their coat” twice a year. I can testify to that, as I see it on my floor every single day. I joke that Cooper sheds the equivalent of a long hair chihuahua on a weekly basis, but it’s really not a joke. It’s the truth. And Cooper isn’t the only furry creature with whom I share a home. We also have our cat Felicity. So I never thought that a robot vacuum would be able to keep up with all of that fur.

Well, I was wrong. I just needed to give the house a good initial vacuum with my regular vacuum cleaner, and then set the Eufy loose (Matt named ours Bug), and it has done an amazing job at keeping the floors fur-free. And it’s super simple to empty each day. I have ours set to vacuum each night at midnight, and then at some point during the day, I just have to remember to empty it, which takes about 30 seconds. I just press the button to remove this little container…

…and then open it up and dump the contents, which is 99% Cooper fur every single day.

The first two nights, it was picking up so much Cooper fur that it clogged the roller brush on the bottom. But that’s super simple to clean as well. The brush has a plastic piece that holds it in . That plastic piece just pops right out, then the roller brush comes out. I pull the fur out of the roller brush, put it back in, pop the plastic piece back on, and done! So on those first two days when I had to clean the roller and empty the container, the whole process took about one minute.

The one problem that I have with Bug is that I’ve used her four times now, and every single time she has gotten stuck under something. Every single morning, I wake up and see if she’s on her charging station, and every single morning she’s been M.I.A. So then I have to hunt her down to see where she got stuck.

Night 1: Bug got stuck under the sofa.

She fits under the back side of the sofa that’s just sitting on the hardwood floor, but she gets stuck under the front part of the sofa that’s sitting on the rug. That issue will be solved as soon as our new sofa arrives, since it doesn’t have feet and sits directly on the floor. But right now, that new sofa is stuck on a ship out in the ocean, and isn’t scheduled to be here for another two or three months.

Night 2: She got stuck under the refrigerator door. I’m not really sure how to solve this issue.

Night 3: Bug got stuck under the buffet in the sitting room…

And night 4 (last night): She got stuck in the exact same spot.

I guess I can add little 1/2-inch risers under the feet of the buffet so Bug can easily get under there. It’s just that center part that’s a tad too low where she gets stuck.

Other than having to play “hunt the Bug” every morning and manually sending her back to her docking station, I’ve really enjoying having a robot vacuum, and I’m still amazed at how she keeps the Cooper fur cleaned up. I never thought a robot vacuum could handle that job, but clearly I was wrong!

Right now, our entryway is kind of cramped with the bathroom doors and sinks still sitting in the floor. But as soon as I can get these items cleared away, I’m going to set up Bug’s docking station underneath the credenza in the entryway. That bottom shelf has plenty of clearance, and there’s an outlet right behind it. So when not in use, Bug will be hidden away, out of sight.

So I’m very glad I finally took the leap and bought a robot vacuum! It works amazingly well on my hardwood floors, and does a pretty decent job on my two low pile carpets. It’s definitely not a replacement for vacuuming those carpets with an actual full-size vacuum cleaner on a regular basis, but it keeps it looking cleaner on the surface between those vacuums. Anyway, you can check out the Eufy here if you’ve been on the fence about a robot vacuum. I highly recommend it, but just know that you might have to make some minor adjustments to some furniture pieces if it gets stuck.

On a completely different topic, I need y’all to tell if if you’ve ever dealt with insomnia, and if you were able to find a remedy. Please share what worked for you!

I used to be such a good sleeper. I mean, once my head hit the pillow at night, I was out, and I would sleep all through the night until my alarm went off in the morning. Then I’d wake up feeling rested, refreshed, and ready to tackle a new day.

Not anymore, though. And this has been going on for a long time. Matt says it’s been going on since 2020. I didn’t remember it being that long, but I would have guessed it’s been going on for several months now.

The problem is that I go to sleep just fine, but I can’t STAY asleep. I’ll wake up during the night thinking that it must surely be time for my alarm to go off, so I’ll just lie there waiting for the alarm. After 15-20 minutes of waiting, with no alarm going off, I’ll grab my phone to see what time it really is, and it’ll be 1:00am, or 3:00am. I try to go back to sleep, but I just can’t. But I don’t want to wake Matt up, so I just lie there, or I’ll get my phone and scroll Instagram or Facebook for a couple of hours. I generally fall back asleep around 5:00 or 5:30am, and then when my alarm goes off at 6:50, I feel groggy and exhausted.

I can’t keep doing this, so I’m getting desperate. I HATE taking pharmaceuticals (prescription or OTC), but I’m okay with natural supplements or vitamins. I already sleep with a sound machine that plays white noise through the night, so it’s not sounds that are waking me up. I’m not anxious about anything, so it’s not an overactive mind that’s worried about things that’s waking me up. I don’t know what it is, but I’ve got to find a way to sleep through the night. My days are less and less productive the more this goes on, because I’m so tired that I just want to nap during the day, and when I do work, I have a hard time staying focused.

So, tell me what’s worked for you! I’ll try just about anything at this point (except pharmaceuticals…it’s just a “me” quirk).

Addicted 2 Decorating is where I share my DIY and decorating journey as I remodel and decorate the 1948 fixer upper that my husband, Matt, and I bought in 2013. Matt has M.S. and is unable to do physical work, so I do the majority of the work on the house by myself. You can learn more about me here.

I hope you’ll join me on my DIY and decorating journey! If you want to follow my projects and progress, you can subscribe below and have each new post delivered to your email inbox. That way you’ll never miss a thing!