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 Illusions: Confessions of a Littermaid owner | |
| I have two cats and would never consider going without a Littermaid unless cats were somehow outlawed or child services took them away from me.
I find it interesting that people have such complaints about how the Littermaid is different from a manual litter box. Yes, it definitely is different. If you are a person who lives in fear and does not take well to change, please, keep doing what you are doing, this device is not for you. However, if you embrace change and can handle two things: 1) The Littermaid is not magic, you have to do periodic maintenance and 2) The Littermaid is different than a manual litter box, so there are some new factors to cope with (such as the litter tray), then you might want to give this home automation device a spin. I have used the device (Mega-model, two cats (7 and 10 lbs)) for two years now. Here are some observations: * It's great, I would never even consider using a manual litter box * Dunno what abuse come cats/people dish out, but it has never broken in the two years time * It is easy to control the smell by purchasing some of those pink urinal blocks from a janitorial supply. Break one up and put a piece in the tray between changes. Any little odor that attempts to sneak out will be caught * It runs better with less litter than more. Remember, this is a different concept here. The device is raking out the waste. The waste is not intended to be buried. I never fill mine anywhere close to the fill line and tend to keep it closer to empty. It sounds gross, but trust me, the problem with waste sticking to the rake goes away with less litter in the pan * It does conserve litter since only what sticks to the waste or clumps up is discarded (raked into the tray). * I don't know what some cats or people are doing to this thing, but I never clean it outside of changing the tray and wiping down the exposed plastic now and again. I don't understand the complaint about "it's a pain to clean" * The tent is a complete waste of resources. If you want to keep the Littermaid out of sight, build a cabinet to keep it in. There are a variety of vendors who sell these online if you don't feel that handy in a woodshop * To avoid issues with waste sticking to the rake, use super-premium clumping litter (Petsmart house-brand will do) and keep the litter level low, low, low. * (Ultimate Hack) Build a cabinet that goes underneath the Littermaid. Cut a hole in the top that matches the dimensions of the litter tray. Cut the buttom out of the litter tray, tape a trash back into it (double-bag is best). Place trash bag inside the cabinet (mine hinges opens on the side). Now the unit rakes into a trash bag instead of into a teeny tray. I empty mine about once every 3 months. Note the trick above about using urinal cakes to cover the smell. I never smell the thing, ever. It sounds gross, but you never see a thing and never smell a thing. The only reason I have to empty it so often is that 3 months of waste weighs about 80 lbs. Much more than and my back will break. * Enjoy. The logic and design of this device is well though-out and proven by thousands of happy owners. It can also be modified to become almost maintenance free (I fill mine about once a week, change the bag and clean about once every quarter). There are other hacks such as automatic litter refill that I haven't even tried to do, but wouldn't be that hard. * Thank God we live in an age of such cheap accessible technology Enjoy. | |
 PLEASE DON'T WASTER YOUR $$$ ON THIS | |
| This piece of crap was a complete waste of my money. I've thrown it away and gone back to the good old fashioned litter box. It didn't make my life any easier as it is a huge pain to clean. The self cleaning litter box is a good idea but this one has major design flaws. First, the poop receptacle needs to be much bigger. I only have one cat and it starts over flowing in less than one week. This results in me having to clean up litter from between the litter box and the incredibly stupid "tent" which is the second design flaw. With my (...) litter box, the top part latches down on to the pan so none of the waste can go outside. With the littermaid you have to slide the heavy pan into the tent. This is not a simple task as they didn't even design the tent opening to be wide enough for the pan to easily slide in and out. The third major design flaw is rather than pulling out the plastic bag whenever you want to completely clean the litter box, with this piece of crap you can expect to invest a significant amount of time as you have to pull the heavy thing out of the tent and figure out how to get the litter out of it (either scoop it out cup by cup or find a place where you can dump the whole thing) and then you can have fun scaping crap off the bottom of it. Please don't make the same mistake as I did, SAVE YOUR MONEY!! | |
| Custom made for a landfill near you... | |
| Not worth even incidental consideration. I've had two,and they both conked out after two months use. I consider them a complete waste of my hard-earned money. Don't do like I did...heed the reviews. Seek quality elsewhere...you won't find it here. |
