Automatic Litterbox Central

After trying everything I could to make the Litter Robot II a permanent fixture in my home, I have finally given up. It's packed up and ready to be returned after nearly 60 days. Here's what I've been through:

It should first be mentioned that I live in an apartment in New York City. I say this because I believe someone with a larger house with an out-of-the-way space for the Robot, and a backyard + garden hose for cleaning the globe, would be much happier with the product. The only place for my Robot was in the bathroom -- a sensible place as any; the whole household can rid their bodies of waste all in one room.

In the first weeks of owning the Robot, my focus was on eliminating the odor coming from the drawer. As mentioned numerously in other posts, there are holes in the top of the drawer intended to catch stray litter and send it into the waste area. However, it serves more to allow the smell of your cat's poop to drift out and co-mingle with the very air you breathe.

I eventually settled on putting tape over all the holes, switching to Fresh Step cat litter, and lining the bag in the waste drawer with Fresh Step crystals to absorb moisture and eliminate odor. This worked reasonaly well as long as I emptied the drawer every 2-3 days. It's not a perfect solution and it's hard to say what could be. The closed drawer isn't very well sealed. It's just a big plastic piece that keeps waste out of the open air but it's by no means airtight. Frankly, I expected a bit more from the drawer -- especially for a $300 item. My DVD player was only $120 and it's far more technically advanced than any part of the LRII. If there was something like a door you'd find on a microwave for the drawer area, or anything with a lining that trapped in odor, maybe it'd be more effective. As is, it's just a drawer made out of plastic. For such an expensive item, should I have to modify the drawer with tape and separate crystal litter to not even completely eliminate odor but merely make it tolerable?

Regardless of these concerns, I thought maybe I'd keep the Robot since I had things reasonably well managed. Then came time to replace the litter and clean out the globe.

I hit the "Empty" button designed to automatically remove old litter. It sort of worked. It basically turns the globe upside-down and opens holes under the litter to allow it to fall into the drawer. But the holes aren't very big compared to the amount of litter that has to go through them, so I had to get a scooper and push it through myself. Not such a big deal, but I couldn't quite get it all out using this method. So now I'm picking the entire globe up and trying to shake what remains inside into the garbage. It doesn't come out of the kitty-entrance hole very easily, and what does come out might not go where you want because the globe is so bulky and cumbersome, it's hard to tell where the hole is when you're holding it upside down. Plus, there's lots of crevaces inside where bits of litter can get stuck. In addition, there may be litter that clumped up and stuck to the wall depending on how well your cats aim while urinating. If they tend to go closer to the edge rather than the middle, it could make the interior globe messy.

So this is the part where I need a backyard with a high-powered garden hose. For people with this now-taken-for-granted luxury, I imagine cleaning out the globe would be a lot easier. For me, I tried to put this thing in the shower and clean it out by hand. The globe is too big to fit under the faucet, and aiming the showerhead inside the hole is like trying to rinse of a greasy baking pan by holding it out in the rain. The entrance hole is so small in comparison to the vastness of the globe that reaching an arm in to clean it proves very difficult. Perhaps someone with experience in giving colonoscopies would find this part easier than I did, but I could only reach blindly into what could be the world's largest (and most unpleasant) gumball machine and hope whatever I make contact with is getting somewhat clean. This step could also be helped if you're able to hyper-extend your arm or have any kind of bionic or shape-shifting abilities. Certainly if the globe came easily apart, even into two halves, it would be tremendously easier to clean the interior globe.

After dealing with all of this, my globe started to smell again after 2-3 more weeks. Maybe the litter needed to be changed again, maybe one of the my 2 kitties sprayed some urine onto the wall of the interior globe, maybe this, maybe that. Whatever it is, the odor is unbearable; it's the smell-equivalent of having your head run over by a Greyhound bus going 72 mph. I couldn't bare the thought of having to take this thing apart every 3 weeks and clean it (the manual suggests every 1-3 months). The effort involved far exceeds any inconvenience I experience by merely scooping out waste manually from the old litterbox. In fact, there is no other household chore that requires the amount of labor the LR needs -- and I still can't get it 100% clean. Maybe if I bought a handheld device for the shower and some different cleaning tools with longer, bendable handles...but you know what? I'm tired of buying stuff specifically for this god-forsaken contraption. I use 2 different kinds of litter, tried Ammo-Carb (didn't work as well for me), rolls of tape, its own box of sturdy 13-gallon bags, and various other products that proved ineffective to make the machine operate better.

I surrender. The LRII was supposed to make one aspect of my life easier but it's made it more of a hassle -- not to mention more of an expense. Plus, even at the height of my finest attempts at odor control, it never really smelled clean -- maybe for day 1 after emptying the drawer. For the price of this item, it should not only be a lot easier to use/clean than a manual box, but it should cause less odor. I understand that we're talking about a box of crap and pee here so no matter what, it's impossible to expect it to ever smell 100% odor-free. But my old manual box smelled better and that didn't cost anywhere near $300 (plus tax and shipping).

I need to get this thing out of my home. I'm going to sternly push it out onto the front porch like Craig T. Nelson did with his TV at the end of "Poltergeist". I may investigate another automatic box one day if I hear of something revolutionary, but for NYC apartment living, the LR is too big, too smelly, and too much of a hassle to deal with.

Sorry for the long post but it's designed more as a warning for folks considering to buy this item rather than a rant. To be fair, please consider your living space in comparison to mine. A big house with a basement and a backyard might be the perfect home for this sort of thing. Even if it smelled a little, it'd be out of sight and out of mind. And you could just take the globe out back and hose it out. If you don't have those things available, think twice before you invite this monstrosity into your home.

Citycat -- Sorry the LR has not worked out for you. I,too, hate a smelly litter box -- in fact hate having one in the house at all but its the price I pay for having the Bengals.

I posted a reply to your post, yesterday, but for some reason it didn't take. My main point was I thought (and I could be wrong about this) that the Litter Robot folks recommend a weekly wipe-out of the LR globe. This is not an-empty-the-whole-litter-box-and-drag-to-the-shower thing, but a simple wipe out with soap and water -- some people use those disinfectant disposable wipes. I just brush down the inside of the globe with a whisk broom (the LR unplugged with the waste door open to the drawer), then I wipe out the inside and sanitize with hydrogen peroxide or rubbing alcohol (takes ten minutes or so). I empty the drawer daily (usually once in the a.m. and once in the p.m.)-- have a plastic tub in the drawer to catch the waste and dispose of down the toilet - rinse out, sanitize the tub with the rubbing alcohol, sprinkle the bottom of the tub with a little baking soda, and put it back in the drawer. Since starting this routine (and doing an-all-clean-out-and-change-the-litter at two month intervals), the odor problem has been solved with the exception of right after the cats poop. It took a while for me to find a solution that satisfied my picky nose...

Good luck with the litter box mission...

I'm not 100% sure if the LR manual recommended a weekly wipe down, but I'd say it's an absolute requirement nonetheless and something anyone shopping for this item should know. In addition, I found it rather difficult to get my arm in there and wipe the interior without either losing my balance or hyper-extending my arm. I'm in pretty good shape, too!

For me, if I'm going to go with the automatic litterbox route, I need it to be significantly less effort than cleaning a regular litterbox with the good ol' scoop. The LRII was actually more difficult for me so that's why I had to send it back.

That being said, the best thing about it is that it indeed successfully separated the waste from the litter and disposed of it properly into the drawer. The cats always had a fresh bed of litter.

Thanks for your response. It sounds like you have your system pretty well down to a science. I'm glad the machine works for you and your cats! I'm back to manual scooping for now. Hopefully I'll discover something that'll fit my setting better soon...

citykat wrote:The closed drawer isn't very well sealed. It's just a big plastic piece that keeps waste out of the open air but it's by no means airtight. Frankly, I expected a bit more from the drawer -- especially for a $300 item. My DVD player was only $120 and it's far more technically advanced than any part of the LRII.

Your DVD player is more technically advanced than your car. Did you pay more than $120 for your car?

Yes the LR is hard to clean although I've been able to clean mine in a utility sink. The best thing they've done is make the LR2's base very easy to clean.

If your cats stick up a regular litterbox, they'll stink up the LR too. I have humans in my house that stink up the bathroom but I don't blame the toilet.

I'm not 100% sure if the LR manual recommended a weekly wipe down, but I'd say it's an absolute requirement nonetheless and something anyone shopping for this item should know. In addition, I found it rather difficult to get my arm in there and wipe the interior without either losing my balance or hyper-extending my arm. I'm in pretty good shape, too!

Yes, the LR is more challenging to clean then maybe all the other auto boxes. For me, the relatively quick cycle, the use of multiple kinds of litter, and its reliability outweighed the challenge of cleaning -- and cleaning isn't an issue for me. I'm sorry it didn't work out for you. Perhaps you'll find an auto box that will. I was scooping up to 12 times a day. It was a relief to stop doing all of that... and the LR allowed me to do that and still use the litters my cats prefer. (I'm starting to sound like a commercial!)

Best wishes--

Here's another issue about odor. The reason cat waste stinks is because it contains moisture. As the moisture evaporates, it carries malodorous particles into the air. Once cat waste is completely dehydrated, it no longer stinks.

Cat litter accelerates the dehydration process. Even the sand, straw and newspaper that cat owners used before commercial cat litter became available worked on this principle: get the moisture out of the cat waste and it becomes inert.

With this in mind, the worst place I can think of putting the LR or any other litterbox that will be containing cat litter and waste for any amount of time is the bathroom. This is by far the most humid place in a house. Every time you turn on the shower you're sending humidity into the air which will condense on the cat waste and restart the stinky dehydration process again. Even worse, the cat litter will become saturated with moisture in the air making it less effective at dehydrating cat waste when it comes in contact with it.

I'll tell ya, if I had a utility sink, a basement, a garden hose...any of these things, I'd probably still have the LR. The difficulty cleaning the thing in a New York apartment was the ultimate deal-breaker for me.

I had the daily odor thing somewhat under control after some modifications, but when I noticed that it had to be quite thoroughly cleaned inside and out every week or so, that did it for me.

And sure, the kitties can stink up a regular litterbox, but I just scoop it away and the odor is gone. The total amount of effort I'd have to spend to keep the LR clean and odor-free is equal to or greater than the amount of effort I'd spend cleaning the regular box, so what's the point? If I had to scoop it out 12 times a day like spaceshare, that'd be a different story.

I'm sure that the bathroom is a terrible place for a litterbox, but it's my only real option -- unless I want it in the kitchen, living room, or bedroom (which I don't). The manual box fits in there easily and, if I scoop it out twice a day, there's no odor. I actually had to go away for 2 weeks. (Our neighbors took care of the cats daily and tended to the LR adequately.) No one used the shower. When I came home, the LR -- and the whole apartment -- smelled horrible. The reason was the inside of the globe needed to be washed again and I had just done it before I left. I'm sure there may have been other instances previously where the humidity from the shower "re-activated" the scent, but I guess that's just one more reason the LR doesn't work for me here.

Overall I'm not trying to say you're wrong for liking and using the LR. If it works for you, that's great -- in that sense, I wish I were you. But for me, in an apartment in NYC, it's just not very ideal. You really need more space and more tools to keep it properly cleaned.

Do you have a washing machine? If it's cold or nasty outside, I'll set the globe in the washing machine and wash it down in there. It catches everything that pours out of the globe. When I'm finished, I set the washing machine to the end of a cycle which drains it or a rinse cycle if the globe was really dirty.

citykat wrote:I actually had to go away for 2 weeks. (Our neighbors took care of the cats daily and tended to the LR adequately.) No one used the shower. When I came home, the LR -- and the whole apartment -- smelled horrible. The reason was the inside of the globe needed to be washed again and I had just done it before I left.

The litter that was in the globe may have already been saturated with moisture. A problem with keeping any scoopable litter exposed in the bathroom is that it will absorb moisture from the air and become less effective at clumping and dehydrating waste. I once accidentally left a box of A&H scoopable litter out on my porch during some humid rainy weather. I found that while the litter never got wet out there, it didn't clump very well and the globe turned into a smelly horrible mess within a week. I'm sure the humidity in the air didn't help either.

That's one reason why I've switched to litters that come in plastic jugs. The drier I can keep the stuff while I'm storing it, the more effective it will be in the LR.

Probably too late to help at this point, but I read somewhere on the board that using 13 gal plastic bags (someone else recommended odor neutralizing bags, but I haven't found that necessary yet) and completely covering the drawer and the step with the bag would help with odor. My cats don't seem to like to step on the plastic bag, so I twist the excess and tuck it into the front of the drawer when I close it. That seems to help keep the odor in the box. But, with five foster cats, I still change the bag at least daily, usually twice a day. LOTS of poopin' and peein' going on 'round here! Donna B.
PS--The trick when using the bags this way is to check for holes when emptying the bag....the corners tend to rip.

Hi, I know it's too late for you and this is an old post, so what's the point? But I did want to say the Litter Robot company made some changes to the product recently. We got rid of our old Litter-Robot and have the new one now. The new odor control features dramatically improve the odor situation.

Now there is a carbon filter at the front of the drawer. There is also a brush ring on the base that seals the air gaps around the globe. It's also much quieter than before, which make me think they either got a new motor or the brush ring helps insulate the sound. Anyway, we've always loved our Litter-Robot and really believe it's an awesome product.

I did a quick search and Paradise Robotics stocks the one with the new odor control features.

Thanks for your response. It's good to hear that they're constantly finding ways to improve the Litter Robot because it has the potential to be a stellar product. In fact, as I can see by reading here, plenty of people consider it to be a great product already.

For me, it'll have to get a little smaller and a little easier to manipulate in order to justify having it in an apartment. The overall time saved and total lack of odor I'm experiencing using an ol' fashioned manual-scoop litter box still outweighs my decison to try another automated box for now. When auto boxes get closer to turn-it-on-and-forget-about-it, my interest will perk up again.

If they can put a man on the moon.....!!

Citykat, I live in a house, but I certainly can understand your apartment issues with the LR! In your situation, have you checked out the Omega Paw yet? I just got one and you can read my review of it over there. You may want to get the "regular-sized" one as opposed to the large as I got, but check it out. It's not automatic, but I think it IS better than manually scooping.

Hope this helps,
Lisa