So, Amy and I get home from soccer practice, and she gets in the house and yells “The dog pooped on the floor."

My thought: “That’s annoying.”

Amy: “..and it’s EVERYWHERE!”

My thought: “Great. One of the dogs has diarrhea.”

My next thought: “Oh crap… the Roomba.”

In case there was any doubt, it was made very clear that Roomba, the robotic vacuum, very effectively covers the entire floor surface. At least it was set up only to clean part of the house and not any carpeted areas.

My next thought: “What do I do now?

I’m far from a germaphobe, but I really don’t want a lot of dog poop residue all over the floor. So, I picked up the chunks and did a couple rounds of mopping with a general household cleaner. Cleaning is the key aspect of disinfection. Physically removing debris gets rid of the vast majority of bugs that are present, and that greatly reduces any risk of pathogen transmission. Fortunately we don’t have any infants crawling around the floor or any high-risk individuals in the household, so that also reduces the concerns. If we did have a baby crawling around, I’d probably be more diligent and thoroughly disinfect any potentially contaminated areas with a good environmental disinfectant. As it is, I’ll probably stick with a few rounds of thorough cleaning with a good general cleaner/sanitizer.

How to disinfect a Roomba though… that’s a different story.