Ratty Bot Apr 2026

I was jolted awake not by a crash, but by a sound . A frantic, scrabbling, wet sound coming from the kitchen. It was the distinct noise of tiny claws on linoleum, punctuated by a mechanical whir .

My Q-Robo 9000, a sleek, disc-shaped smart vacuum I’d named “Goose” for its gentle beeping, was not vacuuming. It was wrestling . ratty bot

I crept down the hallway, phone flashlight at the ready. When I flicked on the kitchen light, I saw it. I was jolted awake not by a crash, but by a sound

It started, as most domestic horrors do, at 3:00 AM. My Q-Robo 9000, a sleek, disc-shaped smart vacuum

In 2023, a sanitation worker in New York first documented the behavior. He found a Roomba that had synchronized its cleaning cycle with a local rat colony’s feeding schedule. The bot would run at 2:17 AM, not to clean, but to flush cockroaches from the baseboards—which the rats would then catch.

They were locked in a stalemate over the last sesame seed.