After another couple months of use, I too am finding that the Scooba does best with a smaller defined area. I'm not very good at dimensions, but I'd say you could let it loose in a 12 x 12 room and it would give it a pretty good cleaning before running out of juice. So I would recommend running it a room at a time, or a smaller defined space at a time. The Roomba runs much longer than the Scooba before its power runs out, and it moves a lot faster, so it can cover a lot more space than the Scooba can. Scooba is great on hardwood and tile floors, but NOT on laminate floors like Pergo. (I'm thinking about running it on my saltillo tile in the back yard! I'll probably have to stay with it to make sure it doesn't fall off into the lawn.) There is no bleach in the solution. Here are the ingredients listed on the label: nonionic surfactant, chelating agent, fragrance. The solution label also has a note that says: Not recommended for use on visibly worn, unsealed, unfinished, waxed, or oiled wood floors. One more note after some hard use: I dropped the Scooba unit about two feet into my sink a few weeks ago. It fell pretty hard, as the unit is heavy. It wouldn't run after that, and I was devastated. Then I realized that the front wheel had fallen off into the sink when I dropped it. I just popped the wheel back on, and it has run pefectly ever since. Both my Roomba and Scooba units have had heavy use for several months now (Roomba going on six months), and though my Roomba is looking a little worse for the wear, they are both running just fine.

I adopted my two dogs from petfinder and did not have any problems. One was from a private owner who listed on petfinder because he had to move and the other was from a breed rescue. I found that in both cases the dogs were correctly represented on petfinder. I also asked like a billion questions to make sure the dog was right for us. I always recommend pet finder to friends. I also checked the local animal shelter often and found that petfinder was easier to work with. I did check the listings everyday, knowing that younger dogs are adopted more quickly. When I found a dog that I thought would be good for us I moved quickly and contacted the adoption group. They also knew I was looking for a dog and had "pre-approved" me per se. The adoption group called my references and vets and knew that I was serious and would provide a good home for the dog. As far as listing pit-bulls as a whatever-mix I think that it is best for people to not know it is a pit bull if the dominate characteristics are of another dog breed. Say they thought a dog they saw which was a pit-bull mix was perfect for them and come to find out that they can't adopt the dog because of their insurance company? The dog could be 25% pit bull or maybe it just sorta has a pit bull characteristic and really it isn't one. Then that poor dog may never be adopted just because it has the "stigma" of being called a pit-bull mix. It is sad that they have to be less than truthful about this but if the person that adopted the dog doesn't have anything on paper that says "pit-bull" mix then I think that they have no chance that their insurance company will drop them. One of my co-workers parents adopts pit-bulls and mixes from homeowners that have to surrender their dogs because of insurance carriers dropping them because of their new "dangerous dogs" policy. They have never had any problems with their adopted dogs. It is sad that the owners had to give away their pets that they love when the dogs have never done anything wrong. -renee

just my 2 cents: I have 2 large dogs and bought a 500 series a few months ago, returned it after 2 weeks of really trying to get it to work. There are too many negatives to really do the work right and save time. 1. It would clean OK, but it would drop the dog hair randowly as it cleans, it may pick up on the next path and may drop more somewhere else. 2. It needs to be emptied too often, and the dog hair would get into the "wheels" of the spining brusher, difficult to take it out. 3. It SOMETIMES goes on a area rug OK, and SOMETIMES not. 4. It doesn't seem to have a logical pattern to clean, espeically after it hits an obsticle and turns back, it just seems to go over the same path too many times and ignores other area. 5. I live in a dry climate, the Roomba generates static while cleaning, so the dog hair gets on the Rooma itself, and when it cleans my couch, it touches the base of the couch and drops the hair on my couch! I can go on ... LOL. I just felt it needed too much "babying" to same time for me. So mine went back to BBB (bed bath and beyond).

I love making soil. I love it even more when someone else is doing most of the work for me. I'm itching to start some spring planting in my tiny garden, but it's technically still a bit early (our last frost date is supposed to be around the 18th or so, but these days who even knows) and I'm impatiently waiting for the contractors to show up and replace my rotted fence before I can do any planting in the back half where the pile of rock mulch over weed cloth used to be. The fence would have rotted anyway, but the bottom of it was completely eaten away where the rock mulch was piled against it. I have already put down a tiny new tree (Amelanchier x "Autumn Brilliance") which arrived bare root and needed to go in the ground ASAP, but it's not next to the fence, so it should be fine as long as the fence guys don't step on the 18 inch high forked stick which, seen with my eye of faith, is already a handsome small patio tree. The tree went in the spot where the old, scrawny, unhealthy cherry plum used to be, where I have been piling vermicompost and leaves ever since last summer. I didn't amend the planting hole at all - just dug and filled in. Enough leaf mold and vermicompost just fell into the hole to make me feel fine about the start my new tree's roots are getting. Anyway, the "someone else" who is working for me outside is a healthy passel of earthworms, which I can see out there every time I pull back last autumn's leaf mulch, which I diligently collected from the sidewalk in front of my row house and brought out back. Even if I can't set to work yet, I like knowing that they're hard at it. I've seen some of my red wigglers who rode out from my indoor worm bin, and at least three separate species of native earthworms: slow gray short guys, some really huge red nightcrawler types, and a longer, thinner, super-active wiggly worm that's new to me. I've also scattered out some seeds and grains for the sparrows and squirrels, inspired by some videos of composting chickens I've watched on Youtube: so there's been lots of pecking and scratching and digging going on in the layer of leaves, which is both fun to watch and will serve to further shred down the leaves for incorporation in the soil. When I do get to the planting along the back fence, I'll try to remember to post a soil pic as a "before and after" to the one at the start of this topic.