I keep two kitty litter bins, for my three cats, in an enclosed balcony that's off of my bedroom. So Every time I wake up, I have to step into little kitty litter bits that the cats track into my room. I keep a small broom to clean up, but it's annoying.
Makes me wonder how they deal having to step in it with their little paw pads...
#1 reason to get a covered litter box, and one of those little plastic mats that catches litter. At my parents we put the lid of a large cardboard box underneath it as well.
I learned from a couple I cat-sat for to put the litter box on the floor of a closet if you can and prop it open a little. I wasn't able to do it until my current apartment.
Our cat poops outdoors and doesn't know what a litter box is. She was hurt last week and we had to keep her in the kitchen, so set up a litter box and she just used it as a new place to sleep.
I feel your pain. I got the litter pans with the lids and doors but they won't use them if the door is on. So they still kick all the litter out the front anyway. Then I tried facing the openings towards the wall so it would at least not get kicked directly into the bathroom. Still no good. Then I crafted tray sort of to catch what they kick out but they still get it everywhere! >:O Need to teach my kitties to use the toilet
Ha! My catbox is in the bathroom too, and this is constantly happening. I had a few different mats for the cats to "catch" the litter when the cats come out, but the cats learned how to leap over the mat, and still deposit the litter on the floor.
As long as I've had cats, the litter box has never been in the bathroom but that doesn't mean I don't step on litter the cats have managed to mysteriously trek EVERYWHERE.
I don't mind stepping in the clay litter so much anymore, because a number of years ago, we tried out the silica litter - the stuff that's either little balls or little shards... SHARDS... NO fun to step on!! At least the clay doesn't make my feet bleed! I tell myself that every time I walk into the bathroom and get gritty feet (we keep a doormat outside the bathroom door now).
This is why in my tiny apartment I built a wooden box and have it in my living room. Hooked up an exhaust system using a server fan in the window and dryer duct hoses. It pulls away all of the smell and forces the death box air to the outside world, also it blends in decently with our furniture. The litter box only takes up half of the box itself, with the idea that the litter that gets kicked up will get stuck in the box instead of winding up on the floor. Of course our cats have learned how to foil this plot and still track litter into our living room. That is why our Roomba runs every morning.
One of my cats hates, hates kitty litter. Her mom covered her business with such enthusiasm that it would fly 5 ft and once filled her eyes when she was a kitten, which really hurt. So she would never step in the and would stand outside and hang over the edge. It was quite funny to see her then paw the air to cover her poo. Since it never got covered, she would air paw for a long time. Usually her mother would get disgusted (or guilty) and come in and cover it up. Oh, the drama of kitty lives. So for this one, I now use dog pee pads. She loves it; there's very little smell; and there a blessed absence of litter underfoot. I think it is comparable in cost and in degree of harm to the landfill as bags of litter.
Bought this for my kitty and omg does it work like a charm. We had a big problem with litter tracking and changing the box helped.
It's a bit big and bulbous, but the upside is my Maine coon can use it without feeling crowded. His paws are so furry between the pads he still gets litter the weirdest places. x_x
Basil our older cat goes outside, but he's been housebound for a few months while his leg heals from a break, and he's been using the litter tray. He spends hours in there digging and banging, makes a huge mess on the floor (even with the covered litter tray) and somehow still manages not to cover his business over. So Poppy our kitten goes in and covers it over for him. So cute.
Having a cover over the kitty litter helps a lot. Then you only need to clean the litter that gets transported in their paws - not the litter they have been digging out of the litter tray :)
LOL! My cat's litter box is right next to the kitchen. For no aparent reason, she always waits until everybody is back home so she can do her nasty things... it's like an imposed diet :P
I have vowed to never use gravel again. I use this neat pellet system (Breeze) that means MUCH less painful stuff to step on, although if you do, it's more painful. In the end, I love it. Actively. Like, gravel was so terrible, that I am constantly appreciating never using it again, even when the cats are making insane amounts of noise batting the pellets around and scratching for hours trying cover their poops up.
I went to a hardware store and got a very deep bin and cut down a doorway in it, so most digging splashes against the walls. a bit of carpet or those mats keeps the remainder close to the box.
I have a small place too. I put mine in the hallway. I had it in the bathroom but I had the same problem plus they would jump in the tub right after using so it was always dirty which grossed me out.
I have a covered litter box & I put a large rubber mat under it. Hardly any litter gets tracked around now because they love to scratch the crap out of the rubber mat. It's shredded up lol but it's worth it.
We have a really small place and a TINY bathroom. My husband hates litter boxes, and we recently started training our cat to use the toilet. Now the litter box is in the suuuper little bathroom (temporarily as the first part of the process) and we're constantly stepping around it and vacuuming litter up. On the bright side, some cat poop mysteriously appeared in the toilet today, even though we haven't gotten to the actual "going on the toilet" segment of the training? I'm posting about it on my blog; I'll let you know if it works. It would be awesome to have no litter box!
I had my litterbox in a closet in my old apartment, but now I have a house and a basement, so all of that mess is out of nose- and eye-shot. However, I have one of those hangs-over-the-edge cats. He's done it ever since he was a baby (I got him at 9 1/2 weeks). I guess he just never learned. This makes using those litter mats impossible unless you want to be outside spraying it down with the hose several times a day, so I use puppy pads (I call them "floor diapers"). They work really well when he does hang out and they're easily disposed of. A 100-count pack at Walmart is $25 and it lasts forever. I overlap two and stick part of them under the front of the box so they don't go anywhere. I still wear flip-flops around the house, even though there's no litter on the floor (basement, different story).
I'm in the same situation! I use flushable litter and a floor mat in my bathroom. Anything that makes it onto the mat gets shaken into the shower every morning, then washed down the drain. Anything else that makes it onto the floor gets cleaned up with a hand vacuum... It's not the best, but we make do...
Story of my life. And to make it worse the litter is in the bathroom which is in my bedroom, so i also step on it when i wake up... :/. We tried the covered litter box, but he wouldnt go in and started doing his business somewhere else in the house!!! After that we dont even dare to change the litter's brand ;)
This was my life for ten years until I got married and could afford to upgrade to a 2BA apartment. The cats now have a dedicated bathroom. We don't use it. *shudder*
We literally just moved into an apartment making the box in the bathroom necessary. I'm glad you didn't post this until now because before the awfulness of this situation definitely would have been lost on me. Ugh!
oh my god!!! i just loooove your blog! i also have a cat (crazy/lazy one) and 'she' acts exactly in the same way ! it's so funny reading your posts, they match Pisi's "timetable" :)))
I started using the natural litter that's made of ground up corn (cobs I think). It still gets places when my cat uses the open, raised sided litter box down in the basement, but that's why it's kept in the extra shower. The other litter box is covered with a shag carpet mat in front that catches the rest. Luckily, we have a laundry room where this one is kept. This litter doesn't hurt when you step on it, and it vacuums up nicely, when dry that is. Wish we had it in our old house where the litter box was in the bathroom. We always kept a bathmat under the box, and one for our feet in that house.
There's a top-entry litter box that had a lid with just a hole on the top. I had to get it because I have one cat that kind of obsessively kicks litter after using the box. It's WAY cut down on the amount of litter on the floor of the bathroom! I think the company is called SmartyCat.
Little whisk brooms & dust pans in all rooms with litterboxes=happier residents, feline and human. And then there's catpaper! Check it out at http://www.catpaper.com and order. It's an excellent product!
I use Rubbermaid totes as litter boxes. Cordelia Joy is (sometimes) an elevator butt pee-er. She loves digging too. Phoebe Layne is very standard.. I still sweep the floors ocd-ishly...Cordie gets litter trapped in her toe-tufts. I've trimmed the tufts before...I think she likes to grab paw-fulls of litter and throw them on the floor.
We got the top entry litter box which greatly cut down on the littered litter. That was just an added bonus, though, as our real reason for getting it was that our kitty *shoots* her pee--*horizontally*. When we first got her as a wee thing three years ago she had a regular litter box and her pee would hit the bathroom wall, then when we got a box with a cover but it would still drip out the seam where the top would clip onto the bottom. Gross. Now the top entry has solved that problem and cut down on, though not eliminated, little litter bits (said five times fast) on the floor.
We also just moved and our new bathroom is super tiny and I couldn't handle climbing out of the shower around the litter box. So, I gave up storing all my jewelery, perfumes and other toiletries in the small built-in bathroom closet with tons of shelves so she can use it as her private toilet and jungle gym. Now I have to step out of the bathroom get each thing I need from a set of shelves a tenth the size, but I'd say it's a fair trade in the end...
We too have a tiny place and have the litter box in the bathroom. While the cat has now gotten used to the shower going (though no less adverse a bath), we are not used to it at all >.>
Recycled litter doesn't smell and it's not as annoying if you step on it. Also petsmart makes these blue little mats that you put by the litter box to pick up the extra litter.
Just do what I did. Toilet train the cats. It was really easy. Mine were 6 and 9 when I taught them, so they don't have to be kittens. It is very much worth the small amount of effort and time it takes.
We have this same problem at our house. We finally solved the problem by placing the litter box on top of an old bath towel, that way the litter falls off of Jesse's paws before we have to step on it.
I have solved this problem and cheaply too. I use a door mat; the kind you see that are green and look like grass with the daisy in the corner. Only the one I have is tan (they come in lots of colors). It works better that those expensive litter mats. I find 5 or 6 pieces of litter a week on the floor. The plastic grass brushes it of their feet and falls in to the mat where it says tell I shake it out. I got mine at ACE http://www.acehardware.com/product/index.jsp?productId=2211833
Lol! I keep mine in the kitchen and I'm always kicking litter pellets off my socks.
ReplyDeleteHehe I love the kitty's face in the first panel :D
ReplyDeleteI deal with this on a daily basis. I haaaaaaaaaaaaate it! I have a small throw rug that I put out next to my bathtub before I shower.
ReplyDeleteLitter box issues are my least favourite :(
ReplyDeleteWhen I first lived with my now-ex, the litter box was IN the shower, since neither he nor his mom used it that much. *bad shudder*
ReplyDeletewow...i'd hate to be a drain in that tub O_o
ReplyDeleteI keep two kitty litter bins, for my three cats, in an enclosed balcony that's off of my bedroom. So Every time I wake up, I have to step into little kitty litter bits that the cats track into my room. I keep a small broom to clean up, but it's annoying.
ReplyDeleteMakes me wonder how they deal having to step in it with their little paw pads...
this is why i wear flip flops around the house.
ReplyDeleteI love the kitty's expression.
ReplyDelete#1 reason to get a covered litter box, and one of those little plastic mats that catches litter. At my parents we put the lid of a large cardboard box underneath it as well.
ReplyDeleteI learned from a couple I cat-sat for to put the litter box on the floor of a closet if you can and prop it open a little. I wasn't able to do it until my current apartment.
ReplyDeleteThis is me every morning!
ReplyDeletethat is so familiar!!!! i have a little broom to sweep the bathroom every morning to avoid stepping on it.
ReplyDeleteOur cat poops outdoors and doesn't know what a litter box is. She was hurt last week and we had to keep her in the kitchen, so set up a litter box and she just used it as a new place to sleep.
ReplyDeleteI feel your pain. I got the litter pans with the lids and doors but they won't use them if the door is on. So they still kick all the litter out the front anyway. Then I tried facing the openings towards the wall so it would at least not get kicked directly into the bathroom. Still no good. Then I crafted tray sort of to catch what they kick out but they still get it everywhere! >:O Need to teach my kitties to use the toilet
ReplyDeleteug! I feel ya! haaate when my cat poops while i am in the shower. poop steam! ew!
ReplyDeleteHa! My catbox is in the bathroom too, and this is constantly happening. I had a few different mats for the cats to "catch" the litter when the cats come out, but the cats learned how to leap over the mat, and still deposit the litter on the floor.
ReplyDeleteThank god for letting men invent flip flops!
ReplyDeleteAs long as I've had cats, the litter box has never been in the bathroom but that doesn't mean I don't step on litter the cats have managed to mysteriously trek EVERYWHERE.
ReplyDeleteThe concentration of the kitten in the first picture is great. Just like my cats!!!
ReplyDeleteI love your pictures and your blog.
Greetings from México!!!
That first panel is hilarious but my cat doesn't make a face like that at all. He just gazes in to the distance.
ReplyDeleteWe got a mat to put infront on the box. It actually works really well.
ReplyDeleteI don't mind stepping in the clay litter so much anymore, because a number of years ago, we tried out the silica litter - the stuff that's either little balls or little shards... SHARDS... NO fun to step on!! At least the clay doesn't make my feet bleed! I tell myself that every time I walk into the bathroom and get gritty feet (we keep a doormat outside the bathroom door now).
ReplyDeleteThis is why in my tiny apartment I built a wooden box and have it in my living room. Hooked up an exhaust system using a server fan in the window and dryer duct hoses. It pulls away all of the smell and forces the death box air to the outside world, also it blends in decently with our furniture. The litter box only takes up half of the box itself, with the idea that the litter that gets kicked up will get stuck in the box instead of winding up on the floor. Of course our cats have learned how to foil this plot and still track litter into our living room. That is why our Roomba runs every morning.
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteUgh! We are having the exact same problem and are about to move to a house with an even smaller bathroom!
ReplyDeleteNot fun!
One of my cats hates, hates kitty litter. Her mom covered her business with such enthusiasm that it would fly 5 ft and once filled her eyes when she was a kitten, which really hurt. So she would never step in the and would stand outside and hang over the edge. It was quite funny to see her then paw the air to cover her poo. Since it never got covered, she would air paw for a long time. Usually her mother would get disgusted (or guilty) and come in and cover it up. Oh, the drama of kitty lives. So for this one, I now use dog pee pads. She loves it; there's very little smell; and there a blessed absence of litter underfoot. I think it is comparable in cost and in degree of harm to the landfill as bags of litter.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.petmate.com/cleanstep-litter-box
ReplyDeleteBought this for my kitty and omg does it work like a charm. We had a big problem with litter tracking and changing the box helped.
It's a bit big and bulbous, but the upside is my Maine coon can use it without feeling crowded. His paws are so furry between the pads he still gets litter the weirdest places. x_x
I have it everyday! ;)
ReplyDeleteBasil our older cat goes outside, but he's been housebound for a few months while his leg heals from a break, and he's been using the litter tray. He spends hours in there digging and banging, makes a huge mess on the floor (even with the covered litter tray) and somehow still manages not to cover his business over. So Poppy our kitten goes in and covers it over for him. So cute.
ReplyDeleteHaving a cover over the kitty litter helps a lot. Then you only need to clean the litter that gets transported in their paws - not the litter they have been digging out of the litter tray :)
ReplyDeleteLOL! My cat's litter box is right next to the kitchen. For no aparent reason, she always waits until everybody is back home so she can do her nasty things... it's like an imposed diet :P
ReplyDeleteyasmin, why dont you buy a litter box carpet? arthur has one, the sand is kept there and will not go around :)
ReplyDeleteif there's a petsmart near you, there are some nice ones there :)
I have vowed to never use gravel again. I use this neat pellet system (Breeze) that means MUCH less painful stuff to step on, although if you do, it's more painful. In the end, I love it. Actively. Like, gravel was so terrible, that I am constantly appreciating never using it again, even when the cats are making insane amounts of noise batting the pellets around and scratching for hours trying cover their poops up.
ReplyDeleteI went to a hardware store and got a very deep bin and cut down a doorway in it, so most digging splashes against the walls. a bit of carpet or those mats keeps the remainder close to the box.
ReplyDeleteI have a small place too. I put mine in the hallway. I had it in the bathroom but I had the same problem plus they would jump in the tub right after using so it was always dirty which grossed me out.
ReplyDeleteI have a covered litter box & I put a large rubber mat under it. Hardly any litter gets tracked around now because they love to scratch the crap out of the rubber mat. It's shredded up lol but it's worth it.
@Vicki OMG that's so funny, one of my cats does that too. Sometimes he goes into the box & starts to scratch around when I am using the bathroom LOL
ReplyDeleteWe have a really small place and a TINY bathroom. My husband hates litter boxes, and we recently started training our cat to use the toilet. Now the litter box is in the suuuper little bathroom (temporarily as the first part of the process) and we're constantly stepping around it and vacuuming litter up. On the bright side, some cat poop mysteriously appeared in the toilet today, even though we haven't gotten to the actual "going on the toilet" segment of the training? I'm posting about it on my blog; I'll let you know if it works. It would be awesome to have no litter box!
ReplyDeleteMy cats don't like to use the tray around me because I laugh so loudly at the way their tails stick vertically upright like fuzzy antennas.
ReplyDeleteI had my litterbox in a closet in my old apartment, but now I have a house and a basement, so all of that mess is out of nose- and eye-shot. However, I have one of those hangs-over-the-edge cats. He's done it ever since he was a baby (I got him at 9 1/2 weeks). I guess he just never learned. This makes using those litter mats impossible unless you want to be outside spraying it down with the hose several times a day, so I use puppy pads (I call them "floor diapers"). They work really well when he does hang out and they're easily disposed of. A 100-count pack at Walmart is $25 and it lasts forever. I overlap two and stick part of them under the front of the box so they don't go anywhere. I still wear flip-flops around the house, even though there's no litter on the floor (basement, different story).
ReplyDeleteI wish I had a bathroom big enough to put the litter box.
ReplyDeleteYasmine, I love your comics! They are so cute and true. It's nice to see a comic that is so sweet and not mean or raunchy.
I'm in the same situation! I use flushable litter and a floor mat in my bathroom. Anything that makes it onto the mat gets shaken into the shower every morning, then washed down the drain. Anything else that makes it onto the floor gets cleaned up with a hand vacuum... It's not the best, but we make do...
ReplyDeleteStory of my life. And to make it worse the litter is in the bathroom which is in my bedroom, so i also step on it when i wake up... :/. We tried the covered litter box, but he wouldnt go in and started doing his business somewhere else in the house!!! After that we dont even dare to change the litter's brand ;)
ReplyDeleteThis was my life for ten years until I got married and could afford to upgrade to a 2BA apartment. The cats now have a dedicated bathroom. We don't use it. *shudder*
ReplyDeletebay area living O_o
ReplyDeleteI keep a pair of flip flops near the tub, so that doesn't happen :D
ReplyDeletejust think of it as exfoliation for your feet!
ReplyDeleteWe literally just moved into an apartment making the box in the bathroom necessary. I'm glad you didn't post this until now because before the awfulness of this situation definitely would have been lost on me. Ugh!
ReplyDeleteWe use those little wooden pellets and they are like stomping on a lego.
ReplyDeleteMy cats box is right next to my bathroom, but the space is soo small that this happens all the time, in fact it just happened to me!
ReplyDeleteWhat I hate most is litter in bed. Avalon does that all the time :-(
ReplyDeleteoh my god!!! i just loooove your blog! i also have a cat (crazy/lazy one) and 'she' acts exactly in the same way ! it's so funny reading your posts, they match Pisi's "timetable" :)))
ReplyDeleteyou made my day :D
I started using the natural litter that's made of ground up corn (cobs I think). It still gets places when my cat uses the open, raised sided litter box down in the basement, but that's why it's kept in the extra shower. The other litter box is covered with a shag carpet mat in front that catches the rest. Luckily, we have a laundry room where this one is kept. This litter doesn't hurt when you step on it, and it vacuums up nicely, when dry that is. Wish we had it in our old house where the litter box was in the bathroom. We always kept a bathmat under the box, and one for our feet in that house.
ReplyDeleteGreat comments indeed, Yas!!
ReplyDelete:D
Lot of learning here! =^;^=
ReplyDeleteThere's a top-entry litter box that had a lid with just a hole on the top. I had to get it because I have one cat that kind of obsessively kicks litter after using the box. It's WAY cut down on the amount of litter on the floor of the bathroom! I think the company is called SmartyCat.
ReplyDeleteLittle whisk brooms & dust pans in all rooms with litterboxes=happier residents, feline and human. And then there's catpaper! Check it out at http://www.catpaper.com and order. It's an excellent product!
ReplyDeleteLOL! The cat's face in the first panel
ReplyDeleteI use Rubbermaid totes as litter boxes. Cordelia Joy is (sometimes) an elevator butt pee-er. She loves digging too.
ReplyDeletePhoebe Layne is very standard..
I still sweep the floors ocd-ishly...Cordie gets litter trapped in her toe-tufts. I've trimmed the tufts before...I think she likes to grab paw-fulls of litter and throw them on the floor.
ain't good idea to put that litter on the bathroom
ReplyDeleteWe got the top entry litter box which greatly cut down on the littered litter. That was just an added bonus, though, as our real reason for getting it was that our kitty *shoots* her pee--*horizontally*. When we first got her as a wee thing three years ago she had a regular litter box and her pee would hit the bathroom wall, then when we got a box with a cover but it would still drip out the seam where the top would clip onto the bottom. Gross. Now the top entry has solved that problem and cut down on, though not eliminated, little litter bits (said five times fast) on the floor.
ReplyDeleteWe also just moved and our new bathroom is super tiny and I couldn't handle climbing out of the shower around the litter box. So, I gave up storing all my jewelery, perfumes and other toiletries in the small built-in bathroom closet with tons of shelves so she can use it as her private toilet and jungle gym. Now I have to step out of the bathroom get each thing I need from a set of shelves a tenth the size, but I'd say it's a fair trade in the end...
This is why I always take my slippers with me when I have a shower/bath.
ReplyDeleteWe too have a tiny place and have the litter box in the bathroom. While the cat has now gotten used to the shower going (though no less adverse a bath), we are not used to it at all >.>
ReplyDeleteRecycled litter doesn't smell and it's not as annoying if you step on it. Also petsmart makes these blue little mats that you put by the litter box to pick up the extra litter.
ReplyDeleteThis is sooooo Lizzy.
ReplyDeleteJust do what I did. Toilet train the cats. It was really easy. Mine were 6 and 9 when I taught them, so they don't have to be kittens. It is very much worth the small amount of effort and time it takes.
ReplyDeleteWe have this same problem at our house. We finally solved the problem by placing the litter box on top of an old bath towel, that way the litter falls off of Jesse's paws before we have to step on it.
ReplyDeletePrecisely what I have done for Bijou. His box is in a "dedicated" closet. He has privacy and I can close the door when guests arrive.
ReplyDeleteMine's in my room....... (nuff said.)
ReplyDeleteI have solved this problem and cheaply too. I use a door mat; the kind you see that are green and look like grass with the daisy in the corner. Only the one I have is tan (they come in lots of colors). It works better that those expensive litter mats. I find 5 or 6 pieces of litter a week on the floor. The plastic grass brushes it of their feet and falls in to the mat where it says tell I shake it out. I got mine at ACE http://www.acehardware.com/product/index.jsp?productId=2211833
ReplyDeleteIn my other place I kept her bathroom under the kitchen sink. It worked out so well. Now where I live I have it in the bathroom.
ReplyDelete