Hi!
So curious if anyone has any tips regarding this. We have our cat litter in the washroom of the house. The current cat sand we use has a distinct smell. While we are experimenting with different types of sand, they all, so far, have some sort of smell to them. Obviously it will also smell extra bad whenever the cats use the litter box. While we do remove the litter as soon as possible, we are curious if there are ways to at least mask the smell of the sand with something else… Anyone got any tips?
Use unscented, clumping, cat litter. Good unscented cat litter doesn’t really smell like much of anything.
Run your bathroom fan, it will suck clean air from your house into the bathroom and flush it out so that even as you approach the bathroom youl be smelling air from the rest of the house and bad odours won’t build up.
Scoop the soiled, clumped litter into a green bin, and then tie the bag closed between scoopings.
Avoid “light weight” litter, that just means it’s lots of fine particles that are more likely to fly around.
Also, you have cat. You will never get rid of the smell completely. In fact, you are discovering why the U-trap pipe was invented. It traps a small amount of clean water in the U which prevents sewer gas from coming up out of the toilet. Anyway this person’s got a pretty good handle on the situation. Just remember to wash your hands when you’re done.
From wikipedia
It was invented by Alexander Cumming in 1775 but became known as the U-bend following the introduction of the U-shaped trap by Thomas Crapper in 1880
Are you shitting me?
This is what’s wrong with America, we used to have good names, strong manly names like these
18th century America:
My name’s Alex Cumming, and I’m here to stop that pipe smell.
🫤
My name’s Tom Crapper and I’m here to stop that pipe smell.
😍
Dis you try wood pellets?
Wood pellets have been a big revelation in the cat department of my life
Hmm…I"m a woodworker, I have access to barrels of sawdust…do cats like to go in sawdust?
Can’t say, the best thing of the pellets os that they dissolve when they piss on, so you can filter the dirty wood for the clean one.
Might be bad for thier lungs if it goes in the air when they dig. The wood pellets look like some sort of compressed sawdust, so maybe there’s a way to make the sawdust a bit less… dusty?
Pause for a moment to be a woodworking nerd: Not all “sawdust” is alike. There’s an entire science behind chip formation , and in a wood shop the type, shape and size of chips varies widely depending on the cutter and operation. Wood shops produce shavings of all sizes from hand plane shavings which resemble paper tape to sanding swarf which is microscopic powder. If I were to choose from my own various production of wood chips to use as cat litter, I think I’d go for planer/jointer shavings which are confetti-like and similar to what they used to sell as rodent bedding, like the cedar chips you’re warned not to use for hamsters anymore. I would also try to choose a wood that is less aromatic than a softwood, maybe something like ash, maple or oak.
Apparently those wood pellets (often manufactured as a surprisingly efficient stove fuel but other uses abound) are made first by putting wood through a hammer mill which produces a homogeneous dough-like substance, which is then extruded through a die which has the effect of plasticizing the lignin turning it into basically tree hamburger. Same chemical makeup as wood but none of the original structure. I imagine this could be made of practically any size of shavings, chips or swarf.
Not seen that as an option in the close-by shops, but I could perhaps widen my search for this!
You’re best off going to tractor supply or something similar for wood pellets. You want horse bedding. It is much cheaper.
You can look for them on hardware stores too, they’re cheaper there.
We use a “flushable” clumping corn-based litter. We don’t actually flush the clumps of litter, that’s a recipe for disaster. But it does mean I can scoop poops directly into the toilet and flush them. (My cat never got the memo on burying poops, but she does warn us when she’s going to go, so I can get them right away.) I scoop the clumps into those little green dogpoop bags, and put those in a lidded can with a liner. It’s not perfect but it’s not bad. We also discovered our bathroom vent fan just went into the walls, so we had a contractor run a proper vent duct to the outside, made showering in there much better as well.
It doesn’t eliminate the smell, but air purifiers can reduce it significantly. We have a decent one in the room where the litters are that turns on on a schedule. It’s a bit annoying that if the cats use the litter just when it’s turning off then it’s kinda no use.
My long term plan if I ever get around to it is to build a cupboard type thing to put their litter in with an extractor fan to the outside.
Litter robots could help, but all the people I know who have them said they just replace some issues and chores with other issues and chores in the end.
This definitely isn’t the best solution, but when I got one of those litter robots that automatically dump into a sealed compartment, I haven’t noticed the litter smell.
I use plain Arm & Hammer clumping clay litter.
Yeah I saw these ones, while they certainly look good - they are a little outside my budget right now.
It’s 100% worth it, though, as soon as you can afford it. I would recommend trying the Neakasa M1. I have never owned one, but I have had a Litter Robot 2 for several years, and while I love what it does, the quality kinda sucks. I’ve replaced numerous parts, had to debug, disassemble, and tighten parts, and it’s still pretty twitchy.
Three M1 is quite a bit cheaper, and the design is fabulous - the enclosed design of Litter Robots can be off-putting to some cats; we currently have one cat who absolutely refuses to get in it (we think it’s because it reminds him of cat carriers and vet visits).
I’d still recommend it to anyone who could put it on a charge card, because when it works (which is most of the time) it utterly eliminates odor, leaves an essentially fresh litterbox for the next cat, requires no scooping, and requires emptying once a week.
I hate the QC on the Litter Robot; love the product. I’m excited to replace our LR with the Neakasa M1
I’ve personally had better luck with the Litter Robot 4. We started with the 3 and had some issues with the bonnet getting “unseated”, among other things. The 4 has been more stable over the year we’ve had it. The base being narrower but taller lets us get away with an extra day of not emptying.
Honestly, look into the Breeze litter boxes. They’re not automatic or anything crazy expensive, but it really does make a HUGE difference. I’ve been told by multiple strangers “I thought you had a cat?” after being in my house a while because she hides and the box generally cannot be smelled. If you change the pads regularly (i.e. before they are full), replace the pellets 2-3 times a year, and clean the box itself when replacing the pellets, the only smell you will have is from poop. I personally buy the bioplastic dog poop bags in bulk, and just use those to quickly grab and dispose of it.
When we used regular litter the cats tracked it everywhere, flung it out of the box, and it always had a smell, even when cleaned daily. I have none of those things with the Breeze boxes. We were using two when we had 3 cats and I had to replace the pads every 3 days. Now with one cat I replace the pads every week to two weeks depending on whether she divides her usage or fixates on one. We pick up the poop as soon as we notice it, which is usually very quickly because they can’t really bury it as well. I will never go back to traditional litter.
My neighbor uses crushed walnut shell litter and I can never smell anything. I was thinking of getting it too.
Certainly interesting!
The quicker the poo dries out, the quicker it stops smelling. This is one of the benefits of crystals, but I prefer wood pellets for the same reason.
Apparently the Crystals can be a bit sharp sometimes and lead to cuts, I’ve not seen it happen personally but switched to wood pellets that have some baking soda or something in it too since I heard that.
Yeah I find that the pellets dry everything out after about an hour. You just gotta be on top of emptying the sawdust as it piles up and things stay pretty odour free
There are for sure brands that are more perfumed than others, and there are some that are unscented. Of course, the scent is there too mask the pee smell. We use scoop away, which is scented, but not heavily so.
We have a covered litterbox with a little charcoal filter in the lid, and that helps some. Also, since we have dogs who like to look for cat poo roca, we have ours in a closet with the sliding door open just enough for the cat, and that helps too.
When I still had kitties (and a house), I bought a litter box with a lid. I then fashioned a vent hose with a 120mm 12V PCM fan running at low RPM. The hose went through the ceiling in a closet and exhausted out an attic vent. Zero cat box smell and no noise. While my exact implementation isn’t available to everyone (like in apartments), the basics can be adapted to almost any situation.
We use a pure-clay, non-clumping litter for that reason. I hate the chemical smell of the clumping litters. I’ve also heard really great things about wood pellets.
Using litter tray liners virtually eliminates the smell in my apartment. Also recycled paper litter. Of course, now my overlord the cat asks me to give him a fresh one multiple times a day, since he loves the freshness too.
For a spray that actually will kill the odor, try Ozium. But that probably needs to be an additional tool in your arsenal.
If you clean the litter tray regularly, replace the litter once per week, and keep the house well ventilated then there should not be a bad smell. If there is it may be worth taking your cat to the vet if their poo smells worse than usual.
Put the litter box in the garage with a cat door if that’s an option.
