NAPERVILLE, IL — A robot vacuum owned by the Callahan family has been deliberately navigating around the household prayer rug for an estimated six months, a behavioral pattern that has prompted what family members describe as “a level of spiritual discernment we did not expect from a disc-shaped appliance.”

The iRobot Roomba j7+, purchased in August 2024 following a Presidents’ Day sale, initially showed no signs of preferential cleaning behavior. The anomaly was first documented by Diane Callahan, 51, who noticed the device completing full room sweeps while leaving an 18-inch radius around her Bible, devotional notebook, and a small laminated verse card untouched.

“It gets everything else,” Callahan told reporters. “Dog hair, cereal, a lego my husband swore he’d put away. But it will not touch that corner. I’ve stopped questioning it.”

“We ran full diagnostics. The sensors are fine. The mapping firmware is current. There is no technical explanation for why it treats that 14-by-22-inch area like it’s consecrated ground.”

iRobot customer support representative Marcus Webb, 29, confirmed the company had received the Callahan case file but offered little clarity. “We ran full diagnostics. The sensors are fine. The mapping firmware is current. There is no technical explanation for why it treats that 14-by-22-inch area like it’s consecrated ground,” Webb said, pausing before adding that he had not intended to use that particular phrase.

The Callahan’s teenage son Brett, 16, has begun leaving his homework in the prayer corner, reporting a zero-percent disruption rate and what he calls “a real sense of peace over there, actually.”

At press time, the family had placed their tax documents in the corner as well, operating on the untested but reasonable assumption that whatever is protecting the devotionals extends to itemized deductions.