Our Robomow was taken yesterday! Updated #4
I left the house yesterday to take the kids to school. When I arrived back home 45 minutes later, our Robomow was gone from the spot in the front yard in which it had previously been! I looked everywhere for it, including down the street, in the gutter, and in the drainage ditch that it gets stuck in occasionally. It was nowhere. It had obviously been stolen. I called the police and filled out a police report. I couldn’t find the serial number, but I printed off the Amazon.com page on the Robomow RM400 which showed the model number, price, and a picture of the mower. He told me it had probably been kids pulling a prank, and I was inclined to agree. Some kids who used to live in the neighborhood stole our DVD player a couple of years ago and stole $80 worth of diapers out of our neighbor’s trunk. We assumed they returned them to Walmart for cash.
Last night, Tru, Heidi, and I went for a walk and noticed our neighbor and his two sons outside in their yard. I asked them if they’d seen anything and told them what had happened. Tony hadn’t seen anything, but his son had. Apparently, as he was leaving yesterday morning for school, he’d seen the yard trash truck come by and pick up our lawnmower with its big claw! I called the City of Madison Public Works this morning and spoke with two different people. One lady talked to the driver that worked our neighborhood and confirmed that he did pick up the mower. She insisted that the driver was supposed to pick up anything that is near the curb. However, their Trash Collection Guidelines and Information pamphlet that they distribute says, “WE ARE NOT ALLOWED to pick up PAINT, OIL, BATTERIES, GAS AND GAS TANKS (or anything considered to be hazardous materials) TELEVISIONS, COMPUTERS, MICROWAVES…” Our Robomow contained a battery and a computer, and that list sounds an awful lot like they will not pick up most large electronics. She said the driver said that he thought it was a broken regular lawnmower, since it had no handle. This confuses me, too, because that list above also contains oil, gas, and gas tanks, and a regular lawnmower contains all three. She also said at one point in the conversation, “We wouldn’t have picked it up unless it was by the curb by the trash.” It may have been near the edge of our yard, but it was far around on our side yard and not anywhere near our trash.
I got a bit snippy with the rude lady, because she kept trying to justify the driver’s actions and wouldn’t even attempt to help me. She transferred me to a man. He told me that they would look for the lawnmower. I can’t imagine that it has not already been destroyed with the rest of yesterday’s trash, though. I hope that it hasn’t been for their sake, because they will be replacing it if it is gone. Grrr.
Update #1 (9/23): I got a call from them at about 10:45. I called them back at 12:30 and a new lady told me that the Robomow has already been destroyed. She recommended that we file a claim against the city’s insurance policy to be reimbursed. Hopefully that will work and we will be able to get another one.
Poor, sweet Rob. We hardly knew ye. :’(
Update #2 (9/24): I filed a claim for reimbursement. Now the fun part begins–fighting with the insurance company!
Update #3 (10/05): Well, that was easy! The city’s claims adjuster just called and agreed with me that the city was liable. She is going to mail me a release and a check!
Update #4 (10/28): Got the check today. Yay! We will invest it until springtime and get a new Robomow then.
Woot.com has our tiny, handheld video camera for sale today for $79. Target.com lists these for $149. Most of the videos on our site come from this little camera, and it is so easy to use that even Tru can do it. There is no charger or special battery. It just takes two AAs. You can record up to 60 minutes of video. Plug it into your comptuer’s USB port, and just drag and drop the videos onto your desktop. They’re all ready for uploading to Youtube and most other video sharing sites. This camera is perfect for those just wanting a simple point-and-shoot video camera that fits into your pocket. We have two already. 
DandyID
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