How do I ease cat litter cleanup?

December 31, 2008 11:12 AM

MeowFilter: I am lax on cleaning my cat's crapper. What can I do to make this better for both me and the cat?

More to the point: are there any automated litter boxes that are worth it? What about disposable trays? Is there anyway to make the cat not piss in the same exact corner all the time so I don't end up with a giant ammonia smelling brick of mushy clay?

posted by phrakture to pets & animals (21 comments total)

I love my Litter Robot, it's coming up on two years of flawless service this January.
posted by jamaro at 11:26 AM on December 31, 2008

We use a 30-gallon trash bag and a large litter pan with a hood. Slide the litter pan in the trashbag sideways, then fill with litter and fix into position with the hood. When it's time to change the litter (about once a week), just lift the trashbag out of the litter pan and put on a new trashbag and re-fill with litter.

No scooping -- and best still, if you do it right, you can slide the litter around to the undamaged portion of the trash bag, thus making it completely leak-proof. :) Be advised that you use more litter than if you scooped, but in the US you can buy litter for $12 for 30 pounds at PETCO, which is enough to last for four complete changes (about a month).
posted by parilous at 11:28 AM on December 31, 2008

I've switched to feline pine, and the ammonia smell has disappeared, although . . . erm, solid waste has to be removed immediately because the pine does nothing to cover up the smell. Unlike regular litter, it's totally flushable, though, so cleaning that up isn't nearly as unpleasant as it used to be.
posted by PhoBWanKenobi at 11:37 AM on December 31, 2008

I used to use Littermaids and loved them, but when my cat got elderly he too started urinating exclusively in one corner of the box. The resulting giant blob of litter would pin the Littermaid's comb so it couldn't scoop. I eventually switched back to old-fashioned non-scoopable clay litter, which needed to be changed more often but was much more pleasant to deal with as the urine/litter brick didn't form. I also tried that crystal litter, which worked well, but it was rather expensive.
posted by magicbus at 11:37 AM on December 31, 2008

I had the same problem. I somehow managed to convince my boyfriend that he should be the one to take care of it. Problem solved. Before I convinced him, though, I used litterbox liners and a giant pan and just changed them once a week. Went through a lot of litter, but I never had to scoop.

To be fair, we did purchase a Littermaid last year and have had no problems. I am completely sold on the Littermaid and will buy one for the rest of my cat's life.
posted by kerning at 11:41 AM on December 31, 2008

You cold train them to use the toilet.
posted by Gungho at 11:46 AM on December 31, 2008 [1 favorite]

Here's an honest question: do you wipe your butt only once a week?

Play a little game with yourself: you can't take a dump until you've cleaned up the clumps.
posted by notsnot at 11:48 AM on December 31, 2008 [2 favorites]

Littermaid is next to godliness.
posted by tkolar at 11:52 AM on December 31, 2008

If you use clumping flushing litter and keep the catbox next to your own toilet you can just scoop it and flush it whenever you go to the bathroom yourself.
posted by Jacqueline at 12:08 PM on December 31, 2008 [1 favorite]

Clumping litter is dangerous anyway. You don't want to be using it for your kitties - and to add to the health issues - it's a major PIA to clean. Yuck. My suggestion is for you to start looking at this whole thing from a different angle - the cat's angle. You love the kitty - you want the kitty to be happy and healthy and one of the few things a cat has to enjoy is their bathroom and the habits it arouses in them - the digging, the covering and the feeling of being clean about themselves and their area.


That all said - habits can be changed and being lax is simply putting off something that needs to be done everyday or at least every other day for everyone to be happy - the cat and you (no odors). So - just approach this as a project. From today onwards you will simply be on this for the love of your cat. Go out and get the non-clumping litter. There's cedar chips, there's corn, there's a whole bunch of cheap gravel like litter that works just fine. Clean out the box with some clorox, rinse out well and fill it with about one inch of litter.

Tomorrow it will fill up somewhat. You can remove the big pieces and discard them. One day of accumulative urine in one inch of litter will not be very offensive to either of you. But the next day - Friday - you will discard the now saturated litter, clean the box and refill with another one inch. On Sunday you will be due to re-clean and re-fill.

You will soon find that it's not a big deal at all - it'll be automatic. Just do it. Don't even think about it being a chore. It's just something to do - like emptying the trash can, getting the mail or sweeping the floor. Your kitty will be very happy - and I know you will too because you've done something really nice for someone who loves you.

Good luck. :)
posted by watercarrier at 12:13 PM on December 31, 2008 [3 favorites]

We've had three Littermaids in the past four years. The first one lasted nearly three years, but the next two only lasted about 6 months or so each before they became more trouble than they were worth. The rakes would get stuck and come off track, or (to quote my wife) they turned into "...damned expensive poo flingers..". Now we have a regular litterbox and clumping litter, and I just bite the bullet and clean it every other day. More work, but less annoying than being woken up at 3AM buy the sound of the Littermaid grinding itself into pieces and the cat hissing at it.

I think, though, that I'm going to start the new year with parilous's suggestion about the garbage bags. That may be the new way forward for 2009.
posted by ralan at 12:14 PM on December 31, 2008

Cat Genie is supposed to be pretty good, but I couldn't get my cats to use the litter - They sent me a free sample to try but the granules are too big for my cats' picky asses, and they use proprietary cartridges that have a smart chip that forces you to buy more rather than figuring a way to refill.

The one thing I did see mentioned when I was researching is that while they work pretty well most of the time, if there is a clog, it might mean cat shit water all over your floor.

If you want to do more research: http://www.litterbox-central.com/forum/
posted by [insert clever name here] at 12:27 PM on December 31, 2008 [1 favorite]

Litter Robot- mine was a gift, but oh man, they are totally worth it.
posted by pseudostrabismus at 12:30 PM on December 31, 2008

Depending on your reasons for being lax, you might enjoy the Omega Paw litter box.
We picked one of these up recently and it works quite well. It isn't automated, but it only takes about 30 seconds to clean it out and you don't get messy. You just roll the whole box over and then back and it shifts the clean litter into a separate area, and drops the clumps in a removable tray. They're a lot less expensive than actual automated boxes.
posted by heh3d at 12:33 PM on December 31, 2008 [1 favorite]

We use the scoop-the-clumping-litter method in a large, open litterbox, and we have had NO odor problems with World's Best Cat Litter. It's made from corn, so it's also flushable. Our bathroom is too small for the box, so we just keep a Litter Locker next to the box.

If your cat won't change to a new litter, I suggest you do the disposable plastic liner method others have mentioned. This worked for my parents with our cat for over a decade.
posted by Sprout the Vulgarian at 12:56 PM on December 31, 2008

You might want to check out Modern Cat archives... they went over the whole automagical litter box thing a while back. Maybe start at Litter Week Wrap Up.
posted by zengargoyle at 1:07 PM on December 31, 2008 [1 favorite]

What I'm getting here are a few different things:

• Automated litter cleaners are awesome
• Non-clumping litter is preferred
• A lot of people dump out the whole thing rather than scoop

New questions: Does non-clumping litter work OK with the automated robot overlord cleaner?

How expensive is it to use non-clumping litter and just discard it every other day?
posted by phrakture at 1:10 PM on December 31, 2008

Dumping out huge amounts of litter just fills the landfills faster.

Don't flush cat litter. Please, please, please don't do it, no matter how tempting the litter packaging makes it sound. Flushing cat waste is one of the reasons the sea otter population is declining, and is also contributing to dolphin decline.

As to eliminating one way in one area (pee clumps), that's just what cats do. If you scoop daily, you won't have a huge brick to break through.

An automatic box may be your best bet, if you can't motivate yourself to ensure a clean elimination area for your pet on a more frequent basis.
posted by batmonkey at 1:16 PM on December 31, 2008

Does non-clumping litter work OK with the automated robot overlord cleaner?

The Litter Robot works with all brands of clumping cat litter made of clay or crystals. In my experience, it doesn't work well with Swheat (too sticky when wet) and Feline Pine (pellets are too big to screen). I use the generic Costco litter in mine unless I happen to find something cheaper on sale.

The LR works sort of like a cement mixer: the litter is held in a barrel which is tumbled through a screen several minutes after your cat trips a weight-sensitive trigger. Cute animation here. It depends on the cat urine being bound up into clumps to work properly. The screened out turds and clumps fall into a drawer below. The drawer stores several days worth of 1 cat's output, for my three prodigiously poopy cats who share one LR, I find I have to empty out the drawer every third day. Cleaning it requires opening the drawer, pulling out the plastic bag you used to line the drawer and replacing it with an empty bag. Any type of bag at least 13 gallons in capacity will work.

Definitely check into what each of the various brands of automated litter boxes requires as consumables. Some require specific brands of litter, some require specific brands of disposable trays. Aside from what I feel is a superior rake-less design, I really like that the LR doesn't lock you into buying a proprietary brand of consumables.

The downside of the LR is it is huge (~30" x 2' x 2' — the barrel is bigger than a pony keg) and definitely will not fit into a discrete corner of the average-sized bathroom.
posted by jamaro at 3:48 PM on December 31, 2008

Non-clumping litter is for the throw-out-the-whole-shebang method, not for scooping (manually or automatically).
posted by winston at 7:47 PM on December 31, 2008

If you decide to stay with manual cleaning, a couple of recommendations:

Tray liners make changing litter a breeze. When it's time, you simply gather the ends of the liner together and tie them, then toss the whole thing in the bin. No mess, no fuss. They also save you from constantly washing the tray, which may balance out the environmental concerns a little.

Rather than using a lot of litter, use a small amount, and change it every day or two. You shouldn't have to scoop if you replace the litter regularly enough, and it's more hygenic for yourself and your kitty. Since I switched to this method I actually use less litter than when I was changing it twice a week.

I recommend clumping litter, though I hear the pine is also good (I've not tried it). Paper litter doesn't handle smells very well, which makes it unpleasant for bathroom use, and crystal litter tracks *everywhere*.
posted by Georgina at 4:41 AM on January 2