I understand that cleaning the cat's litter box is a chore I completely get it but I only spend
about five minutes a week scooping and cleaning Jericho's litter box and he never has any issues
and the first cat litter box hack that saved my life is using a stainless steel litter box did you
know that plastic traps bacteria even with regular washing most of us use plastic litter boxes I've
used them with all the cats that I grew up with when I was a cat sitter a lot of cats use plastic
litter boxes but plastic is an issue for multiple reasons so it traps bacteria even with regular
washing which means that you'll never actually get it clean which means you need to clean it more
frequently which also means that you would need to replace it frequently at least once yearly so
this puts a strain on you when you clean it puts a strain on your wallet because you have to buy
a new one every year it also puts a strain on the environment because you're buying this plastic and
then tossing it once a year whereas a stainless steel litter box might be more costly up front
but in the long term you're saving a lot of time and money because it's easier to clean it doesn't
Lodge bacteria in the material it's a one-time purchase and you don't have to replace it so
again it's a one-time purchase you buy it once and that's that the next cat litter box hack I have
for you is a DIY Litter Genie if you're unfamiliar with the Litter Genie it's essentially a garbage
bin for litter waste and it separates the top from the bottom so that it's kind of like a a garbage
Chute where you just you put the waste in and then it there's a slider that closes so that the waste
is on the bottom but a big con is that the Litter Genie itself is made out of plastic so again it's
going to trap bacteria I've used many of these when I worked as a cat sitter and they stunk
really bad it is nice to have a separate garbage for your cat litter but it's it's not that easy
to clean because it's plastic but there's also a lot of parts to it so the DIY Litter Genie you
can use a stainless steel mini garbage bin or a glass jar so I actually bought a candy jar it's
like a gallon jug candy jar and that's what I use for the DIY Litter Genie but just make sure that
the opening the mouth of it is wide enough so that your litter scoop can fit because you don't want
a very very small tiny mouth that you can't even get the clump of litter and that kind of defeats
the purpose you would have litter everywhere and then I used the doggy waste bags or I just reuse
plastic bags like if I order food but I have also used these recyclable plastic bags I have tried
the Corn based and plant-based bags Unfortunately they don't work the clumps of pea will burn a hole
through it so you do have to use plastic but the Litter Genie uses plastic sleep bags anyway the
next litter box hack I have for you is to use a metal or a ceramic glitter scoop and this is for
the same reasons again plastic traps bacteria which means you're never going to get it clean
you have to replace it and it's much harder to clean whereas these ceramic glitter scoop I've
had the same one since 2017 when I adopted Jericho and it looks spotless I clean it once a week and
the litter just slides right off of it it's very very easy to clean by the way I'll put all of
the links to everything that I use for Jericho's litter box area in the description below the next
litter box hack that I have is to use a Ripple rug bottom only for trapping track litter so
the Ripple rug is in a fantastic activity mat I highly recommend it but you can buy the top
and the bottom separately So when you buy the bottom only I like to use this as a liner mat
because it's soft on pause it does trap the track litter and it's easy to clean I can just throw it
in the washing machine on cold delicate cycle and then hang dry it's also so very large it fits the
stainless steel box perfectly if that doesn't work for you I would suggest a double layer litter mat
this is what I used before I used before I bought the Ripple rug bottom only the double layer litter
mat is large and it traps track glitter but it's also very easy to clean so the litter
falls through the holes and then you just slide it out and it's easy to wipe in between compared
to those mesh litter mats that are smaller number one but they're also good at dropping track litter
but they're not easy to clean so that shrimp that litter gets trapped in there and it's difficult to
get out and if you try to wash it in warm water and soap it's not going to dry out completely so
there's going to be some moisture in there which can promote bacteria and mold growth so in the
long run it's it's again it's never going to get 100% clean the next litter box hack that I do is
to scoop the litter box after Jericho uses it and clean it out once a week so I scoop after Jericho
uses it every single time he uses it peas twice a day poops once a day so I scoop three times a
day then I also clean out the box completely once a week and the trick here is not to fill
up the entire box floor just to put a big mound of litter in the center of the box so instead of
using the entire bag of litter I just use about a quarter of the bag so the same bag even though I'm
cleaning it once a week and putting new litter in it still lasts a month so rather than dumping the
entire bag into the box and cleaning it once a month I dump about a quarter of the bag into the
box and clean it once a week and I reshape that mound after Jericho goes and when I've described
my cleaning routine somebody commented that it takes them 45 minutes to clean the litter box
as I mentioned in the beginning it takes me five minutes and you know I know it sounds like a lot
of work up front scooping multiple times a day and cleaning it once a week but just keep in mind that
the longer you let it sit the longer it's going to take you to clean the more bacteria is going to be
there this stinkier it's going to be when I worked as a cat sitter there was one client that left the
litter box untidy to be nice about it not to judge you know I'm just illustrating the story when I
got there I had to clean up the entire litter box and there were litter clumps caked on the bottom
of the litter box and I felt like I was mining for gold but it wasn't gold and it took me 30 minutes
the entire visit to clean the litter box so again the longer you let it sit the longer it's going to
take you to clean it so I like to scoop multiple times a day and then clean it out once a week
and again I only spend about five minutes total in the next cat litter box hack that'll make cleaning
much easier is to use unscented and naturally clumping litter so unscented is important because
the cat's nose is much stronger than ours they're also only inches away from the litter box so those
very strong perfumey smells actually can cause stress and irritation and naturally clumping is
important because you don't want to have that all these synthetic ingredients in it but you
also want to be able to remove the waste from the box because cats don't want to walk around on pee
pee and poopy clumpy litter and you can check out the litter that I use in this video right over
meow and it Compares what I use to all the other litters that are on the market thanks for watching