Has anyone already designed a litter box cabinet/platform for human accessibility?
May 12, 2010 9:29 AM   Subscribe

Best practices for setting up an accessible litter box cabinet that's easy to maintain for an elderly or disabled person?

Googling this gives me lots of info about disabled cats. I'm seriously considering building a kind of cabinet/seat/raised thingie (wood) that will make the litter box easy to get to and work with for an older or disabled human.

I hope it will actually be easier to use for everyone, including me -- having to crawl/kneel on the floor every time we clean the litter box isn't my favorite, nor my extremely wonderful SO who actually cleans it most of the time. As long as I'm building something, though, I figured it might be good to prototype something that will let elderly or disabled people take care of their cats more easily -- seems like it could be a wonderful thing, if done right.

I'm wondering if someone's designed something like this before. There are a few challenges I've not figured out yet: if the litter box is in an enclosed cabinet (part of my requirements, since I want it to be OK to keep in a living room and to put things on top of this cabinet thing), how do you make it easy to scoop the litter? Has someone already figured out the best way to store the scoop? How about storing, and adding, clean litter, which can sometimes be quite heavy? Also, is there an ideal height for this specific activity (scooping) for people who are wheelchair bound?

Any pointers would be most welcome.
posted by amtho to Science & Nature (8 answers total) 4 users marked this as a favorite
 
There are tumbling litterboxes that use a crank or equivalent to sift the litter - I can't think of any brands offhand but you can try googling for tumble/tumbling and litter box etc.
posted by Billegible at 9:37 AM on May 12, 2010


if you are willing to buy, the Omega works fabulously well for the between full-chage cleanings. it rolls easily and all of the clumped waste ends up in a little pull out drawer. However, you do have to do full scale emptying every once and a while its it is a bit ackward for that.

There is also the ScoopFree but they are pricey and you have to buy replacement (again pricey) cartridges for it.
posted by rtimmel at 9:46 AM on May 12, 2010


Response by poster: Cool!

I should clarify: I'm planning to build a kind of cabinet, probably with an adjacent attached bench seat, that provides a place to put an existing litter box. The litter box would be inside an enclosed space, with the litter box some distance (maybe 20") off the floor (I'm hoping to find an appropriate height).

I've seen pre-made litter box cabinets for sale, but the litter box is always at ground level. I'm hoping to make -- or find -- one in which a person working with the litter box (cleaning, filling) wouldn't have to get down that low.

Yes, you could just put a pre-made litter box cabinet on a platform -- I'm trying to figure out the best possible done-right solution; then I'll adjust for pragmatism.

This seems like such an obvious need, I'm hoping someone else has already built something like it.
posted by amtho at 9:47 AM on May 12, 2010


Litterboxes are usually kept on the ground because otherwise the smell would be closer to nose level, so I'm not surprised there aren't really any pedestal options. Also, when the cat scratches over their doings, the litter would go everywhere (and even in pans with lids and a small door it still gets everywhere).

What about a way to easily raise a floor-based litter pan to scoopable height when necessary?
posted by Billegible at 9:58 AM on May 12, 2010


Best answer: Check out Litterworks. They have cabinets for automatic litterboxes, but also ones for regular ones as well. If I recall correctly, ease of use for disabled people is one of their selling points.
posted by crankylex at 10:38 AM on May 12, 2010


Response by poster: There you go, crankylex! That's what I'm talking about! I'm still looking over the site, but it looks promising.
posted by amtho at 10:55 AM on May 12, 2010


amtho, I had two of the automatic litter cabinets and I LOVED them. They can be kind of pricy, but in my opinion, worth the investment.
posted by crankylex at 1:11 PM on May 12, 2010


ikea hacker always has litter box projects...

Just use the site's search box for litterbox|"litter box" - Google Search
posted by crenquis at 4:38 PM on May 12, 2010


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