Kitten Stork

Review by M. Lee:

This is by far the best solution for decreasing the amount of litter that gets tracked on to the floor. My cat dislikes the mats that aresupposed to wipe the litter off of your cat’s paws, so she would always jump over it and onto the carpet, tracking the litter with her.

This litterbox is the perfect solution for dirty paws! It has a grid at the door that my cat has to step on in order to get out of the litterbox, so her paws are cleaned before she even gets out.

Furthermore, the front half of the cover swings open for easy access to scoop the litter.

This is the perfect litterbox design!

Review by firefly:

It really is easy to clean… assuming your cat is small enough to fit inside.

I’ve tried several different litter boxes over the years, and this is the best design I’ve seen so far. Too bad, it doesn’t come in a larger size.

Pros:

- The hinged top means no more fumbling around with latches and removing a giant lid every time you clean the litter box.

- The handle on top makes it easy to move around, and the latches are strong enough, that the whole thing can be lifted, even when full of sand.

- The rounded sides means no more scraping clumps out of corners and edges.

- The grate really does trap sand. There’s still sand that escapes, but at least this cuts down on the tracking.

- Good construction. Made of high quality plastic that will probably last years without breaking. The bottom is made of glossy plastic, which is easier to clean if it gets soiled.

- It looks great. Most other litter boxes on the market are eyesores.

Cons:

- Only comes in one size: Too Small. My cat is fairly large (12 lbs). She can use the box two or three times. But after that, there isn’t enough clean space for her to dig around in, and then she winds up peeing on the grid, or outside the litterbox altogether.

- Maybe the grid should be positioned outside of the hood, so cats aren’t tempted to pee on it.

- There’s a nifty slot to hold the litter scoop on the inside top of the hood, but would you want a dirty scoop hanging over your head while using the bathroom?

- You might want to buy a scoop with narrower slots, because the included scoop can’t remove the smaller pieces.

I’d give this box 5 stars if it were bigger. But since my cat occasionally refuses to use it, I have to give it 2 stars.

So, I’d highly recommend this litter box for small cats. But if your cat is large, I’d recommend the Cats Rule open litter box. That one is also easy to clean because it has rounded sides.

Review by Phillip Roncoroni:

Prior to buying this litter box I had a big Rubbermaid one without guard rails or any kind of enclosure, but it did have a litter reserve tank. As a result, my cat, Garfunkel, would kick litter all over the place, making a huge mess and sometimes miss and crap down the side of the box which was disgusting.

Therefore, in a “4 for 3″ shopping spree, I decided to buy this, thinking the enclosed area would solve my problems. It does, for the most part.

First, Amazon ships this in a massive box without any protection. The litter box isn’t boxed, they just throw it along with an invoice into a massive Amazon.com box. My first one arrived cracked and it was a pain to return. My replacement litter box was fine.

The enclosed box keeps Garfunkel from crapping down the side (so far) and from kicking litter all over the place. However, this box is annoying to clean. I tried opening the side clamps to lift the enclosure off the first time, but found it to be a huge hassle, which just made a mess.

Instead, now I just leave the top on and poke around with the litter box shovel until I find things, which can be cumbersome if they’re towards the back, but it’s much less messy.

Also, the litter reserve tank really should have some kind of latch or gate control to flow it in and out of the main box.

Review by Judee Anthony:

This litter box is really good as far as the size goes but, there should be a door or something on the additional tank to keep the litter back while cleaning the box.

Also the tank won’t fit snug if disturbed and litter goes onto the rim. The litter box is quite nice to clean and great for multiple cats, we have three.

Review by R. Kiddell:

I never write reviews, but I was so impressed by this product I wanted to encourage more people to purchase it. I have put together dozens of pieces of furniture before, but this cat washroom was one of the best designed and highest quality pieces of furniture, in the do-it-yourself assembly category. The materials are well made, all the pieces fit perfectly, the door aligns great to close properly (usually a nightmare with self-assembly products). Not to mention that my cats adjusted in no time to it, having never used an enclosed litter box before. It has amazing head room for them, they can turn around completely inside, cover everything and leave no litter tracks outside. I have a 16 pound cat and he fits just fine. My cats appear to prefer this box since it’s provides privacy. Reduces odor by 90+% too. They knock litter around inside the cabinet, and it gets a little messsy, but it beats it being all over your floor. Excellent product. A cat lover must have invented this.

Review by Ali:

I moved from a large house in the country to an apartment in the city – meaning closer quarters for my kitties, their litter box, and me. So I ordered this for my bathroom to make things prettier and tidier.

I’ve always used hooded litter boxes since the kitties love to throw litter across the floor by the way.

This was pretty easy to assemble, does a GREAT job keeping the thrown litter off the floor (probably twice as good as any hooded litter box I’ve used), and handles the traffic really well. One of my cats is 17lbs, and he fits just fine too. I also think it is so much better and cleaner looking than an exposed plastic litter box.

One thing about any hooded litter box: you MUST clean out the litter frequently. It is just like a port-a-potty in that there is very little air circulation, and you’re cats don’t want to be grossed out

I’d buy another one if I had the room!

Review by susan saint-pierre:

You get what you pay for, I don’t think the designers of this box considered how we’d have to clean it. The two front inside corners of the box aren’t square, they are indented about 1/2 inch, so if your kitty’s pee is in the corner the scooper isn’t going to fit to get it out! You can see in the picture itself that the corners shown on either side of the scooper have indentations that the scooper clearly won’t fit in. So if your kitty likes to pee in the corners of the box as mine does, good luck getting the wet litter out. Bottom line, unless you use a liner and dump the whole box often you’ll constantly be battling the saturated, smelly litter that is impossible to get out of the corners.

Review by Bulma:

I thought this litter box worked very well. My cat likes to throw the litter everywhere and this keeps him from doing that except he still throws it out the front which is why we got a kitty mat. Its easy to snap together and snap apart to clean. Corners are a little hard to scoop but with a clumping litter, cleaning is easy. Love the litter scooper that comes with it. It snaps onto the side very easily so you dont have to set it on the floor.

Review by REAGAN2:

I bought this mat because my male cats have a tendency to sometimes wet over the side of the box. Now, I have no more worries because if they accidentally go over the side, this mat catches the urine and does not go through to my carpet below. This mat washes easily in the wash machine when soiled. The only draw back I have is that if you throw this mat in the dryer, the mat will pill. Overall, this mat has been a life saver for my carpeting and I actually purchased more to have extras.

Review by N. Gargano:

This is the second time I have bought a batch of these mats, they work out great for the litter box. They have a little padding on the bottom which is good for accidents, my son has a cat that has accidents, and when they visit, I feel comfortable using these mats.

Also I want to point out the mats came very fast after ordered. Way faster than I expected them, so thank you!!

Review by A. Milne:

Life in my 1B/1B apartment is much better since we got this litter box. Previously, I had an uncovered, rectangular, jumbo-sized box. (It was jumbo-sized to keep my two cats from “tossing” litter out as they were digging and from spraying the wall since they like to get as close to the back of the box as possible.) I hated looking at the litter all the time and stepping on scattered litter when I got out of the shower. I was worried that a covered box would be too small, but after reading the reviews, decided to give this a try.

Wow, am I glad I did! This box does it all… between the steps (which catch most) and a litter mat underneath to catch any extra, I barely have any scattered litter on my bathroom floor now. The box also helps contain the smell much better and it’s wonderful that I (and my guests!) don’t have to see what’s inside! As an added bonus, it helps muffle the sound of the cats digging/scratching at night which used to wake me up. And the pearl color helps the box blend in between the tub and the toilet.

I highly recommend the Booda Clean Step for anyone who doesn’t have a good way to hide the litter box!

Review by G. Secrist:

This litterbox is fantastic! We have a 20 pound cat who is so tall he can grab stuff from 4″ in off of our kitchen counter. Normal covered boxes barely fit his head, much less his entire body. He can get into this box no problem. On top of that, the steps catch a ton of litter which would otherwise wind up on our floor! I highly recommend this box.

Review by K. Hazenfield:

Nov ’06–My cat is a 13 pounder, poops about 5 times a day–and boy does it stink! I feel that cleaning a cat box several times a day is a real pain, but then so is cleaning it up off the basement rug every day if I dont clean the box soon enough for “his highness”! This thing is GREAT! Ok, I’ve only had it for 5 days now, and it specifically says on the box that for larger cats or multiple cats, the cartrige will NOT last 30 days–the container is full (like I said, he poops A LOT) BUT!! I really dont mind taking the scoop and scooping out the container once a week–I have to do this because replacement cartriges are or so (that’s the really bad part) I still have to see if it will take all his urine for 30 days, but in the mean time: The smell is gone, he doesnt track litter everywhere (I used clumping before and he left a real mess–along with the smell) just a few of the crystals get on the floor, I dont have to clean the box daily (as well as the basement carpet), and it works. One thing to note, I did not realize how BIG the thing is, and I also didnt think about plugging it in–so you may have to revise where you put it. Also, it’s not perfect–some of the poop got behind the rake, and got stuck, but whoopie, no big deal to take a piece of toilet paper, and pull it off. I may look into reusing cartriges (waxed cardboard boxes with scoop free crystals dumped into it) and adding crystals from a bottle, but that may not be possible, because waxed cardboard can only take so much wetness–but that may be an option. I think a bottle of the stuff is around too, but you may get 2 or 3 uses out of it, rather than just the one.

**update**1 1/2 months–I still love it. It lasts about 14 days, with a once per week clean out of the poop trap. The crystals never smells like urine, but there is a smell after that amount of time (big cat). cant use a litter liner as the rake can get stuck–or kitty’s nails, so I’m still working on a way to refill more cheaply–but no more “accidents” on the carpet.

Review by Joe Vanderbilt:

I bought this as a replacement of my first automated litterbox, the Petmate Purrformat Plus XL. That one was awful, this one is great.

The rake on this litterbox actually switches the direction it points as it moves to the front and back to the rear of the box. The net effect is that, unlike the Petmate, you don’t get a wall of litter at the rear of the box. The litter is evenly distributed along the bottom every time and the rake is able to return to its starting point every time unlike the Petmate.

As it sweeps forward, the purple part rises up and the rake pushes anything it has caught underneath it. Underneath the purple part is more Fresh Step litter, so when it closes down it traps the odor so the Fresh Step can absorb it. Simple!

Furthermore, this one is much more quiet than the Petmate. The Petmate sounded like a remote controlled tank but this one just has a gentle hum to it, and it completes the task of sweeping in about 1/2 to 1/3 the time the Petmate takes, too.

My 2 1/2 month old kitten took to it like a duck to water. She kind of thinks it’s a toy right now but she also knows what it’s there for.

Review by M. Chen:

So the big question I had when purchasing this system was whether or not I could lower my cost by refilling with crystals I buy at Wal-Mart. As a graduate student, I really don’t have the money to buy cartidges every couple of weeks (I’ve got two cats). This review is basically here to tell you that I’ve done it, and it works for me. YMMV.

As a first attempt, I simply threw away the old crystals and poo, and then filled it up with ~4 lbs. of fresh step crystals purchased at Wal-Mart (~$[...] for an 8-lb bag or two refills).

Problem #1: Wet Cardboard. This is a documented problem with the system, as noted in reviews for the litter box, but I basically could only get two uses out of the cardboard box before the cat claws could pierce the bottom and cause soaking of the box in urine.

Solution #1: There is no solution for the wet box problem, unless you can tolerate an impressively disgusting urine stench. Luckily, Scoop Free improved their cartridge systems! Note that new cartridges come with a slight change to the cartridge that has improved its sturdiness. They have added a plastic sheet to the bottom of the cartridge to prevent cat claws from piercing the bottom and having the pee soak through to the bottom.

Great! Problem solved, right? Well, I then started experiencing Problem #2: a screeching noise during the raking that really sounded quite awful. At first I thought this was my fault, possibly overfilling the box and causing the machinery to operate with too much litter. That wasn’t the problem. The problem was that as the cats continued to use this cartridge (with plastic sheet), their claws would occassionally get under the plastic sheet and lift it up, causing litter to get underneath the plastic sheet. This plastic sheet would bulge up at the sides, and the raking mechanism would then start scraping the plastic surface as it raked, causing the screeching sound.

Solution #2: Now, for each new cartridge I use (I still use a new cartridge after about 2 or 3 refills), I use mailing tape (or duct tape) to tape down the edges of the plastic sheet. This takes some practice, but I have not experienced any screeching noises since.

Anyways, I hope this review helps! I also find this 3-pack to be great because it qualifies for amazon prime 2-day service. Thanks, Amazon!

Review by Anonymous:

We’ve tried absolutely everything and our older cat just wouldn’t use the litter box. She hated it. Clumping litter, clay litter, pine litter, grass litter, deep boxes, shallow boxes, hoods, no hood, Litter Maid (quite possibly the WORST product of ANY kind made by ANY company EVER), scooping constantly, nothing worked. Vet said move the box to where she pees. So, she found new places to pee. Anywhere but where the box was – usually about three inches to the side of it, so the pee ran under the litter box. If you don’t notice this is happening, you will figure it out fairly quickly because the stench is really impressive as the pee never completely dries and just gets stronger and stickier. Scoop Free to the rescue! The instructions that came with it didn’t work for jack. They say to put it next to your old litter box (which you stop cleaning) and let the cats adjust on their own time as the old box stinks worse and worse. After 3 weeks, the old box was overflowing and the entire house smelled like a toxic waste dump. The Scoop Free box was completely clean and hadn’t been used once. We couldn’t take it anymore and threw out the old box, hoping for the best. The cats both immediately started using the Scoop Free and my peeing cat problem is solved. With our two cats, we change the cartridge every other Sunday, just like they promise. There’s a bit of odor starting about the Thursday before changing day, but nothing like the old litter box, even with regular scooping. Never had a problem with leaking or the cats scratching through the tray – and they REALLY dig. A lot. For about 10 minutes every time they use it. Yeah, it’s expensive, but it’s much cheaper than replacing carpet, hardwood, and baseboards. After the stinking, breaking, jamming, breaking, screeching, breaking, overheating, breaking, filthy nightmare that was Litter Maid, the Scoop Free is a miracle. We’ll never use anything else again.