2009.02.24
Littermaid problems
In my last column I wrote how we were not pleased when the LitterMaid self-cleaning litter box we purchased a few of years ago quit working after only about six weeks of use by our two kitties.
We cleaned the rake and it never worked again, despite our relative certainty that all the moving parts were put back where they belonged.
Blog reader Peggy sent me this e-mail:
"Concerning the LitterMaid, I have had 2 of them in the past four or five years. The first one just quit one day. At the time it was serving three cats. I loved it so much that even though it had stopped working and [was] no longer covered by any warranty, when I called the company since I had bought one before they offered a new one for $115.00. That one stopped working on auto. So we hooked it up to a timer. Also it has as laser beam that that detects when an animal has been in it, if the laser spot gets covered with the dust from the litter it may not work trying wiping it off. I do know that if you don't snap it back together it will not work properly."
Sounds like Peggy had a good experience reaching out to the company, which I admit we did not do. Perhaps the product has improved since we tried it in the summer of 2005. We were very pleased with it until it went kaput.
Anyone else have any experience with LitterMaid or other self-cleaning litter boxes?
I have, and I hated the thing with a passion. It seemed like a great idea at the time since we had indoor/outdoor cats that we kept inside when we were at work, but it would rake through the litter before the clumps would be solid enough to scoop cleanly, so the rakes were always fouled up with clumped litter. Then it would constantly rake back and forth because the clump would bulldoze litter and it would not stop. Our cats wound up just using the floor in front of it while waiting for the darn thing to stop. We tried about 10 different types of litter and all did about the same. It was a bear to clean and always smelled because of that. We finally got tired of it and switched to Booda Domes with the ramps. Granted, we have to manually scopp them, but the cats love them and they don't malfunction. Some other friends of our have had similar bad experiences with their litter maid, but they use them simply because they work too much to be around to manually scoop the litter as often as needed. It's a great idea in principle, but I found that it was more hassle than it was worth.
Comment by Other John — February 24, 2009 @ 1:31 pm
I bought a ScoopFree a couple of weeks ago. It's like a LitterMaid except that it uses crystal litter. The lack of clumping means less volume in the collection area, nothing sticking to the rake, and no stuck-to-the-bottom clumps to strain the rake motor.
The only downside in my opinion is that it uses disposable trays that you have to replace, as opposed to just cleaning & refilling with litter. I haven't had mine long enough to experiment, but there are a couple of different workarounds for this that I'll be trying eventually.
At first the cats were a little freaked out when it started moving and making noise. I think they're ok with it now, though I still have the old boxes set out just in case. We'll see what happens once I start removing boxes...
Comment by Mark — February 24, 2009 @ 3:09 pm
We have too many cats now to use any of the motorized boxes, we'd have several just to have enough. If we just had 1 or 2, I would be willing to try out some other brands, but for now it's just not worth the cost for us. Also on the LitterMaid...we found that the option have it run by battery was a complete waste. The battery power would dwindle so fast that the rake couldn't even move through the litter after a week. We wound up having to run an extension cord across our floor to the litter box to power it. I can't tell you how many times we tripped on the thing, but I am surprised we didn;t destroy the power outlet, brak the adapter plug for the box, or hurt ourselves by falling into a wall.
Comment by Other John — February 24, 2009 @ 4:01 pm