Whenever you purchase a new home appliance or piece of tech, it can take a bit of time to get used to it. But this is a bit much.
As reported by WCHP TV in High Point, North Carolina, Thomas Milam and his wife were sleeping soundly in their Clemmons, NC home one night last week when they were awakened by bumping sounds downstairs.
Rather than confront a potential intruder, the couple hid in their closet and called 911.
But when the cops arrived, they couldn’t find an intruder. They did, however, find Harry.
Harry is the name the couple gave to their recently-purchased robotic home vacuum. Harry had somehow activated itself, became stuck in a tight spot and so started repeatedly banging on the wall as it sought to free itself.
“It definitely is better safe than sorry because having heard what we did, I still would have called the police and because you just never know,” Milam said.
This isn’t the first time police have been called to investigate reports of intruders that turned out to be robotic vacuums. Last April, in a story that made national headlines, the Washington County, Oregon sheriff’s office responded to a call from home guests of an intruder in a downstairs bathroom. That turned out to be a Roomba that’d somehow gotten stuck inside and was banging against the door.