Cleaning litter box and cleaning accidents

[Twocoastscat]

We have two cats and for various reasons I need to have “my” cat’s litter box in my bedroom so it’s important to me to minimize odor. I usually scoop it out at least twice a day sometimes more if he or our other cat in the house does a bm. What is your advice on products to clean it? Also there have been times despite our efforts to scoop (we have two other boxes elsewhere in the house) they (not sure which one) have urinated elsewhere like on bath mats and a beanbag chair! We have pet odor eliminator for that but my understanding is that we don’t use that to clean the box? Or ammonia or bleach products? What is the role and use of Feliway in these situations.?

 

[maggie101]

I have 3. 2 medium size in my bedroom and an extra large in my living room. All dyi storage bins for my 3 senior cats. Odor has never been a problem. Boxes should be twice the length of the cat. I use arm&hammer clump and seal multi cat slide. My female cat pees standing up and shoots her pee sky high so my boxes are 15 inch high. I scoop every day,refill and mix with clean litter.. occasionally wipe the sides with Miracle wipes from petco.

 

[Antonio65]

Ammonia and bleach are what you shouldn't use to clean the litter box. Their smell is strong and could bother your cat even if you rinse the box very well.
I scoop the box no less that 4 times a day, ideally every time my cats use it, or at least 4 times a day. Once every three to four weeks I clean the box thoroughly with a detergent that contains Benzalkonium Chloride. If necessary I can wipe the sides with a paper towel and the same detergent as above in the spray form.
In the extremely rare event of a misplaced pee, I wipe and clean the surface with an enzymatic detergent.

 

[Kris107]

Urinating outside the box may not be related to the cleanliness of the box. That could be a health or behavioral issue. I'll loosely say that most cat, most of the time, prefer to be tidy and go in their box. Mine would go outside of it when they were unwell or very unhappy about something. That being said, I use liners in my box and when I change it, I douse it in the shower. Once dry, I give it a wipe with a clorox wipe. I've had the same boxes for probably a decade and they don't smell.

 

[FeebysOwner]

If you can correlate the times one or more of these cats have gone outside the litter boxes to when they have been cleaned, it might be what your are using that is causing avoidance. Or, it could be tied to the times right before you clean them and one or more of the cats finds the boxes too 'dirty' for their liking. See if you can find a pattern, because otherwise, as mentioned above it could be a health related urinary issue.

I use either dish soap or laundry detergent, along with some white vinegar to clean litter boxes. In order to ensure they are sterilized, and any residual odor is removed, I rinse them with boiling water. I do that because my litter boxes are plastic and are more prone to retaining odors and bacteria due to the porous nature of plastic.

 

[Furballsmom]

If those bath mats have a rubber backing, some cats are attracted to the odor of the backing and will urinate on them.

If the peeing is territorial a calming product could be useful. However, you might set up a camera so you can figure out which cat is peeing outside the box and get it in for a vet visit.

 

[Alldara]

It is vital to never clean up urine with any kind of bleach or product containing bleach. Urine contains ammonia. Ammonia plus bleach creates chloramine gas (toxic).

I clean my litter boxes monthly with Lysol bathroom cleaner.

 

[IndyJones]

I use regular dawn dish soap to wash my boxes but I also use liners so I don't need to do it very often. Usualy the top half is dirtier than the the bottom one.

I use covered boxes, Indy refuses to use one without a lid on it. She will pee on the floor before using one without a lid. I know people bash the covered boxes but my experience with them is most cats don't have a prefrence. I've had these boxes for probably 25 years now.

Litter boxes are a horendus price right now. I will keep these as long as I can even if a couple of the twist fasteners are missing.

 

[Alldara]

I use covered boxes, Indy refuses to use one without a lid on it. She will pee on the floor before using one without a lid. I know people bash the covered boxes but my experience with them is most cats don't have a prefrence. I've had these boxes for probably 25 years now.

It really depends on the cat. Some need a lid and some need no lid, some have no preference. Calcifer needs a lid too! He won't use open ones. Nobel needed open ones.

 

[amethyst]

One of the best things I've found for cleaning the litter box is cleaning vinegar, it's stronger then regular white vinegar so it works better. If possible let it sit for at least 10-15 minutes to allow it to work, then rinse with water. Vinegar naturally neutralizes the ammonia in the pee and is also antimicrobial. For just day to day odor control I found that products like Stall Dry (a horse stall deodorizer, but is safe for other animals) work well sprinkled into the litter.

Also keep in mind that depending on what the litter box is made of and how scratched up it gets, most don't normally last the lifetime of the cat. So if it's getting pretty scratched up, stained, and/or still smells after cleaning you may simply need to get a new one.

 

[IndyJones]

Liners prevent it from getting scratched up. My 25+ year old boxes are smooth as a babys butt. But I also have always used liners in mine.

 

[daftcat75]

This is my setup. I have just one cat. I have this great corner in a hallway between the living room (more like a bedroom these days), the bedroom (now a home office), and the bathroom (still a bathroom.) I got this enclosure from a Petsmart or Petco years and years ago. There’s a front service door and a side cutout that’s the cat’s entrance. Years ago I took off the front service door so Krista then and Betty now can just walk through the front opening instead of the side. And so that we both can see in and out so no one gets surprised. It’s also just a lot easier to keep it clean and I’m sure it smells better having more airflow. The litterboxes themselves are just a simple number with one stacked inside another. I call them the active box and the standby box. If and when I need to do a whole box clean, I can simply take the active box out and fill the standby with fresh litter. Now the previous box can be cleaned on my schedule without closing her bathroom. The fresh litter is kept in that big Vittles Vault on top to keep it fresh and at the ready but protected from grain bugs. Also on top of the enclosure is a LitterGenie which stores about two weeks worth of waste—or as I like to call it, The World’s Grossest Sausage Maker. I also have a stick-on battery light so I can see inside and a UV flashlight so I can see any accidents. Usually I just use the UV flashlight to point and peek inside and see if there’s any new waste. I clean her box in near real-time since I work from home. Never less than twice a day. Other perks I’ve accumulated in my setup over the years are a hand vac and hand broom for any stray litter, and a camera in case I need any litterbox questions answered—like how a small poop made it outside the box. (She had a cling-on that followed her out.) She’s also a blanket burrower. She likes to burrow into the blankets on the bed and defeat all the webcams I have in the house. But she does have to use the litterbox twice a day and I get those webcam notifications on my phone. So at least twice a day, I can find my cat on a camera. It also tells me when I’m out of the home that she’s finally woken from a nap and will likely visit her meal that’s been plated and served while she was sleeping.

 

[di and bob]

I have 3 cats and scoop once a day. Litter used is a huge factor in smell. I found that Scoop Away at Walmart is cheaper and workd very well on odor. Some of the more expensive ones don't at all! a while back I got stainless still litter boxes, expensive at 50.00 but they don't scratch and they don't hold in smell. I found the plastic ones get scratched and hold in the smell. I don't clean the boxes very often, and when I do I spray them with Nature's Miracle and wipe them down. It is a enyme urine destryoer and works very well on accidents and for cleaning.

 

[stephanietx]

I have 3 cats indoors and 1 outdoor kitty that lives in my sunroom when it's cold or raining and he has a litter box. I change the litter every 3-4 weeks depending on how frequently the box is used. I scoop at least twice a day, if not more often. I use a puppy pad under one of my boxes because someone is not completely hitting the box, even though the box is about 3 times her size. We clean our boxes with a blue Dawn dishsoap/vinegar combo. Every week, I change out one litter box and do a rotation. It's kind of a pain, but it keeps everything from smelling.

 

[IndyJones]

I have 3 cats and scoop once a day. Litter used is a huge factor in smell. I found that Scoop Away at Walmart is cheaper and workd very well on odor. Some of the more expensive ones don't at all! a while back I got stainless still litter boxes, expensive at 50.00 but they don't scratch and they don't hold in smell. I found the plastic ones get scratched and hold in the smell. I don't clean the boxes very often, and when I do I spray them with Nature's Miracle and wipe them down. It is a enyme urine destryoer and works very well on accidents and for cleaning.

Id like to get stainless ones but can't find any covered ones... Indy will use the floor or the chair before an uncovered box. They are the right size for liners too. Urine is corrosive and any flaw in the steel will corode over time. I've seen what urine does to condensor coils.