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"It is change ... that is the dominant factor in society today... the world as it will be. This means that ... every man must take on a science fictional way of thinking.""
- Isaac Asimov

Automated Apartment Maintenance  
  Automated devices that would oversee the maintenance of a rented apartment.  

Picking up the vidphone, he dialed 214, the extension for the maintenance circuit of the building. "Listen," he said, when the homeostatic entity answered. "I'm now in a position to divert some of my funds in the direction of settling my bill vis-a-vis your clean-up robots. I'd like them up here right now to go over my apt. I'll pay the full and entire bill when they're finished."

"Sir, you'll pay your full and entire bill before they start."

Technovelgy from Ubik, by Philip K. Dick.
Published by Doubleday in 1969
Additional resources -

Compare to the repair robots from The Well-Oiled Machine (1950) by H.B. Fyfe, the Powered Suit with Trauma Maintenance from The Forever War (1974) by Joe Haldeman, the service drones from The Two Faces of Tomorrow (1979) by James P. Hogan, the Christmas Bush Motile Robot from Rocheworld (1985) by Robert Forward, the maritime robots from Mare Nostrum (2022) by Bruce Sterling and the maintenance drone (holon) from The Mountain in the Sea (2022) by Ray Naylor.

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Additional resources:
  More Ideas and Technology from Ubik
  More Ideas and Technology by Philip K. Dick
  Tech news articles related to Ubik
  Tech news articles related to works by Philip K. Dick

Articles related to Robotics
Robots Repair And Modify Themselves
Robot Janitors Get To Work
Robots Learn To Install Charged Batteries Into Themselves
Robot Rabbits Entice Pythons

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