<p>I’ve always been able to train my cats to use the great outdoors. Not this one – she refuses to go outside. And she is very, very messy; she constantly kicks her litter out of the box onto the floor. </p>
<p>Now I’m moving to a new house that is significantly smaller. There are plenty of bathrooms but they are all floored with carrera marble tiles that would be wrecked by stray kitty litter. And outside is not a viable option for the new place since it is close to a very busy street.</p>
<p>So how do you deal with the kitty litter issue? Where do you put it? Any fabulous system or contraption you’ve discovered to contain the mess?</p>
<p>Before our kitties became angels, we had a hooded litter box that cut down, but didn’t eliminate, scattered litter. </p>
<p>I did see a model home that had a cabinet in a laundry room with a fake cabinet front. Looked just like a normal recessed cabinet door. It swung both ways, so cat could push to go in and push to come out. I don’t know whether it was effective, but I thought it was pretty neat idea…</p>
<p>Wow, that litterbox looks amazing! Thanks so much! </p>
<p>Where do you keep it in your home? Since the bathrooms in my new place are not really suitable, I’m thinking perhaps the garage (with access thru a doggie door that I’d add), or a coat closet that would be dedicated to this use (but I’m worried abt odors).</p>
<p>Would your cat use a fully enclosed catbox that has a hole on the top? One of my old kitties loved it, and it did cut down on stray litter significantly. My current kitties do not care for it and use the other 3 boxes (as the cat owner theorem states, the owner of N > 1 cats has to have N+1 boxes ).
This is a wonderful litter mat:</p>
<p>I keep the Roll n’ Clean box in a corner of the basement (home gym). I roll n’ clean it once a day in the evening. Two cats share the box, although I have a second one in a storage room in the basement. I open the door to the storage room so they can use both boxes if I’m out of town for a couple of nights.</p>
<p>I have one of the large $39 mats from Pets Mart. It’s probably five or six years old and still going strong. I would say that it traps 99% of the litter that comes out of the box on the cat’s paws.</p>
<p>Liter box in garage with a doggie door to the house would be fine. I’ve had the arrangement in the past.</p>
<p>There was a similar thread some time back and someone recommended the Tidy Cat Breeze. It is the best one I have ever had ( and I feel like I’ve tried them all ) I have two of them , one in our hallway bathroom for the " upstairs cat " and one in my laundry room. That one is inside a rather deep rubber made tote since I don’t want my dogs snacking in there. It seems to also cut down on the scatter</p>
<p>We built a kitty cabana–Think rabbit hutch attached to the house and accessible through a cat door mounted in a window. Too bad I can’t show you a picture. I clean it from the outside. Zero odor inside the house. Of course we subsequently atttached it to an elevated walkway (a catwalk!) that leads to an outdoor all enclosed catio, but sane cat owners don’t have to go that far. </p>
<p>I just looked at the Tidy Cat Breeze. Says you change the pad weekly and the pellets monthly. Just curious…what is the cost of those pellets…and the pads? </p>
<p>Our solution is a little different. We tried the hole on top cat boxes but they refused to go in so that became a gardening accessory for repotting plants. We (meaning me) don’t mind cleaning the box, but the litter spread kind of sucks. We did two things: set up one in the basement where the mess isn’t important and put FLOR tiles around the other in the bathroom. This may sound like an ad but they’re really well made carpet tiles that hold up and are very easy to vacuum or otherwise clean (like pick one up if you need to). We started with them in a mud room. </p>
<p>We have one box for 3 cats (and sometimes 3 more if the grandcats are staying) but it is a HUGE box. We call it “the beach”. It has a perfect place in our laundry room and we have one of those mats in front of it to catch the litter from the paws. It still gets messy. My cats have never liked the enclosed boxes, unfortunately. </p>
<p>Our cats don’t like the enclosed cat litter boxes so we have a littermaid automatic litter box. We empty the tray about every 5-6 days. As far as mats go, none of the ones shown above will work for our cats. They jump over the mats as they don’t like the hard feel of them. We found the Dirty Dog Doormat works perfectly on trapping the cat litter.</p>
<p>We keep the litter box in the laundry room and with the dirty dog doormat under the front of the box. It traps at least 95% of the litter we would have on the floor with the other mats. We have tried every mat you could think of, this dog mat is a wonder. Just don’t get the maroon color, some of the reviews state it stained their dryer.</p>
<p>I’ve spent a lot of time researching and trying various combinations of boxes/litter. We have the “Clevercat” box - it’s completely track proof and everything stays in the box. It’s also much roomier than the self cleaning type boxes, which is better for my large male who likes to move around and really dig. The amount of time it takes me to scoop is less than it seems on the video posted above - too much hassle clipping the top on and off. I’ve also found that self cleaning boxes don’t work when the dirty litter is stuck to the sides. </p>
<p>I also highly recommend “Everclean” cat litter. The litter dehydrates the cat’s business so thoroughly that when I last took a stool sample to the vet, she asked if the cat was ok - his poop looked completely petrified. It’s more expensive, but you use or replace much less - in the long run, it the price isn’t any more. It also tends not to stick to the sides like other litter.</p>
<p>With Everclean, the letterbox never has to be completely changed - just scoop and replace to keep an appropriate amount of litter in the box.</p>
<p>I’m sitting here chortling at the thought of my big Ragdolls (16 pounders) trying to wriggle through the opening of the "world’s best litter box " and then finding they can’t even turn around once inside! They’d also look at me as if I lost my mind if I presented them with a box that had to be entered through an opening in the top. Different strokes for different cats, I guess.</p>
<p>We keep the litter box in the least used room in the house, which is now the former playroom. Cleaning the box and vacuuming the area around it daily are just what you have to do when you have cats–a bit of clean-up each day is well worth the purrs and cuddles. A good quality litter (we’re using Clump 'n Seal these days) should keep odors away except for those first few minutes after a, um, major event. </p>
<p>OP, I can’t imagine having something as fragile as marble on a bathroom floor–spill some makeup or nail polish, and you’ll have a disaster, but maybe you have less accident prone family members than I do. Perhaps you could switch out the floor in the bathroom you’d like the litter box to occupy?</p>
<p>^^^I have marble or granite floors in most of my bathrooms - if you choose a durable stone, everything wipes up easily and it’s as durable as ceramic tile. I can’t imagine a little kitty litter would be a problem at all. </p>
<p>We introduced the top loading box for our big guy when he was about ten months old, so he doesn’t know anything else…it keeps him agile and jumping up and in is really quite natural cat behavior. It’s also larger than any other litter box I’ve ever seen so he has plenty of room. I usually scoop everyday, but rarely have to vacuum the area because almost nothing is kicked out. We keep it in the closet of a basement bathroom that no one uses very much…it’s like his own private bathroom! </p>
<p>I think I might have been the one to recommend the Tidy Cat Breeze to lje62. I got it for my grandma, but she has dementia and just couldn’t handle a change. But my sister in law told me that it changed her life. She was having to sweep up the cat litter three times a day, and it always stunk. Now she says it is odorless and she never sweeps up the litter. The people at Petsmart were really excited about it.</p>
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