Automatic Litterbox Central

[speaking about an alternative to the expensive solution]

I would not use Mr Clean. I buy the solution online at Petsmart. You can buy a 3 pack and it works out with shipping to about 16 a bottle. That is chepaer than I used to pay for litter. It is safe and I do not have to sit and waste time and energy to try and refill the bottles.

As if filling a bottle takes a long time and wastes hours... blah! It shines through I tell ya!

Just want to let everyone know my experience with litterfree. I've been using it for about 4 months. I put the box right into my bathroom vanity. I had to do some remodeling such as cutting the side off the base of the vanity and also part of the flooring of the vanity. I slid the unit in and framed out a hole to match the opening of the litterfree box. The vanity side attaches with magnets so I can take it off when I need to take the box out for cleaning. Luckily my bathroom wall is directly behind my washer and dryer. I put a hole thru the back of the vanity and ran the electric cord, water supply and discharge hose to the proper hookups. It took alot of planning but it works. Pros don't have to lug bags of litter every other week,don't have to scoop poop everyother day and wash out the box and dispose of old litter. The house smells better. The cons, it is noisy but I close the door. And yes the smell can sometimes make you gag. My solution, I light a candle or incense and close the door. Sometimes I put the exhaust fan on. In the summer I'll probably have the window open. I mean really whose poop doesn't stink? It's worth every penny.

Hi,

I invested in a litterfree about two months ago because i have 3 cats and i really dislike handling the used litter (don't we all ?).
I live in a loft, so "imprisoning" the cats in the same room as the litterfree was not an option for me. I spare you the details, but from the moment on i removed the old litterbox completely, it was quite messy. My cats where used to sharing the same litterbox before, but with the litterfree it's a whole different story. One cat (my eldest of course) desperately refuses to use it at all and she is very resourcefull in finding a new spot for releaving herself every day. Grr. Believe me, i tried everything. Main problems are the noise (people who have one can imagine the sound level in an open room with high ceilings) and the pellets. The pellets can be found everywhere - a dustbuster is the next investment- and the cats can't dig in them to hide their waste. Another problem is that the waste box is quite small with the motor at the back and a larger cat has to do some serious acrobatics to use the litterfree. Furthermore, once the darn thing starts stirring the smell is that terrible that a normal litterbox seems like sweet perfume. Near desperation i put the old litterbox back hoping that my stubborn cat would use that one and the others the litterfree, but the only result was that the "good" cats simply got back to square one; avoiding the litterfree and the "bad" one kept her new nasty habit. Options are running out. Back to the old litterbox and cattraining for me.

I think your full of it.. What justification do you have to "bash" other people or say its a joke or not.. I've had to confine my cats to one place or another for a period of time.. why not to force them to use the litter box?.. Or if he is part of the company.. so what.. - You obviously arn't a real cat person or you wouldn't be this stupid..

Army Turtle wrote:First off... is it me or did "Steveo" sound a little too much like he was throwing a sales pitch? Litterfree workers/makers... if you're going to post on here about how great your product is, do everyone a favor and don't be sneaky about it. It shines through - and through - and through. Just be honest and provide answers.

I know the steveo guy is going to come back and say "I am a real person not working for the company... blah blah blah." All I have to say in advance to that line of crap is - the writing's on the wall dude, read your last post - though you did state there's room for improvement (there is in everything - nothing new here) you still just had to counter everything/every complaint someone had about the product with the typical marketer answer.

Lastly, Wendy, that is just damn funny. I know people are going to take u seriously on here and get all pissy about 6 cats in a bathroom for days... but come on people, use your noggins - it's obviously just a joke. And a funny one at that.

You want something to be pissed about? I recently watched TLC Animal rescue or some crap like that, and this one guy had 250+ cats running rampid in his house. ALL WERE FERREL! The house was so messy and smelt so bad, the dude was living in his garage!! He was one of these sick and demented cat collectors. You should have seen the animal rescue workers trying to pull all these god damn cats out. LOL!!!

I'm so glad I found this discussion!! A friend at work and I have been talking about the Litterfree and whether or not to try it. We both have 5 cats. There's nothing like hearing everyone's first-hand experience.

I currently am on my 4th or 5th LIttermaid. The longest one seems to last for me is about a year. I was interested in the litter someone mentioned called "World's Best" which is made of corn??? Where do you get it and what Littlermaid problems does it solve?

As for freaky cats, I have one prima dona who has to have her own "old-fashioned" litterbox and treats the Littermaid with disdain. I have another who came to me with "post-traumatic stress syndrome" I swear!! There is NO WAY I would ever be able to give this cat a kitty-valium. And she will leave little lakes in my bed or wherever if she is dis-satisfied with the Littermaid in anyway.

I'm still uncertain about purchasing a Litterfree. It seems like it might not be suitable for more than 2-3 cats. Plus, I have 3 long-hairs (2 extremely long). I think the hair thing would gross me out. I don't do "scooping" - my stomach is too weak for that! Even with the old-fashioned box, I just bag up the plastic lining after a day or two and toss the whole thing out.

I know this is the "Questions for Jeff" section, but I'll have to do as his proxy. He's busy on another project, but I do talk to him every day (I'm his fiance).

First question: "World's Best Cat Litter" is actually litter made from corn. We imagined (didn't actually try it) in our research that it may clear up some of the problems with the clogging of the littermaid and the mud. It's been awhile, but we found a couple of sites on the web that came to the same conclusions. You may want to check google for more information.

The coolest thing about it is that it is flushable and it really does hide the amonia smell and its light. The negatives are: 1) Harley (one of our cats) wouldn't bury anything in it - we mixed it with clay to correct his aversion 2) it has its own weird odor that may or may not be a problem for you. Jeff doesn't like it, I think it's not that bad. We are going to use it in our next test (see "other units" below).

You can get the product online (check their site for a vendor list) and at Whole Foods in Houston (that probably won't help you if you're not in Houston or Austin or someplace like that). ******

Comment on the skitish cats: As we mention a lot on here, cats with problems don't seem to do well with the LitterFree. That's the general concensus on this site. You can make your own decision, but be ready for the thirty day trial return. Your cats may be little miracles when it comes to this. Please tell us if they are.******

Other units: We are waiting on a LitterRobot to show up. It should be here this week. We have abandoned the LitterFree b/c of Shadow (skittish cat). We are hoping this next device works. We are only looking at it b/c it uses litter. That's one less variable for Shadow and maybe it will work. Please stay posted for that review.

Good luck with your cats and thanks for posting.

In answer to Army Turtle's question "is it me, or...?", it's you. That's a pretty arragont thing to say about someone you have no clue about. I believe the comments from Steveo. Even if my trust is misplaced, I wouldn't make an accusation like yours which has no evidence whatsoever. This site is for constructive help/criticism about Litterfree, not for people bashing. By the way, clean up your speech, too.

We purchased the Litterfree on the recommendation from the breeder who sold us our bengal kitten. Thinking that our bengal kitten, Kimo, was already trained to use it, we figure we would give it a try. We also acquired a siamese kitten so we thought the LItterfree would come in handy.

Tried installing the Litterfree with the enclosed fittings, but it didn't fit. Went to Home Depot thinking I could fix it myself, but it didn't help. FInally, called customer service and was told that CA requires different fittings. Wished they had told me that before I wasted 2 hours at Home Depot. Hint: they ought to include an instruction in the manual or box.

After figuring out the problem with the Litterfree, we tried it out. Initially, we placed the litterbox into the litterfree with regular clay and pine litter. They appeared to adjust to it, but the problems we found are as follows and are echoed by others:


1. there isn't enough of the granules for the cats to bury. Hence, they poop on top.

2. consequently, the area smells.

3. because there aren't enough granules to bury, it also has the effect of deterring the other cat from using a "dirty" box

4. we figure that we press it into service 4-5x a day - which doesn't do much for saving water.

Its only been less than a week, but it looks as if we'll be returning it within the 30 day trial period.

It is you Army, I do not work for the company. I am in NY and they are in California. I just love the product. I am a technical person and went to the ends of the earth to hear what people had to say before I purchased it. Once I did purchased it I read everything. Yes you are correct about one thing, I am a marketing person but I work in the music biz.

Army Turtle wrote:First off... is it me or did "Steveo" sound a little too much like he was throwing a sales pitch? Litterfree workers/makers... if you're going to post on here about how great your product is, do everyone a favor and don't be sneaky about it. It shines through - and through - and through. Just be honest and provide answers.

I know the steveo guy is going to come back and say "I am a real person not working for the company... blah blah blah." All I have to say in advance to that line of crap is - the writing's on the wall dude, read your last post - though you did state there's room for improvement (there is in everything - nothing new here) you still just had to counter everything/every complaint someone had about the product with the typical marketer answer.

Lastly, Wendy, that is just damn funny. I know people are going to take u seriously on here and get all pissy about 6 cats in a bathroom for days... but come on people, use your noggins - it's obviously just a joke. And a funny one at that.

You want something to be pissed about? I recently watched TLC Animal rescue or some crap like that, and this one guy had 250+ cats running rampid in his house. ALL WERE FERREL! The house was so messy and smelt so bad, the dude was living in his garage!! He was one of these sick and demented cat collectors. You should have seen the animal rescue workers trying to pull all these god damn cats out. LOL!!!

Listen Army- I know what you think about me, but lets be serious, Mister Clean for your cat? I also tried to refill, it is not as easy to do as you think. If you are not careful when refilling you lose the rubber stopper. If that happens the solution will completly drain out all over the floor. I decided that buying a safe solution and refilling the bottle was not worth the time and energy. Ibought the unit to save me time not create a new job for me.

Army Turtle wrote:[speaking about an alternative to the expensive solution]

I would not use Mr Clean. I buy the solution online at Petsmart. You can buy a 3 pack and it works out with shipping to about 16 a bottle. That is chepaer than I used to pay for litter. It is safe and I do not have to sit and waste time and energy to try and refill the bottles.

As if filling a bottle takes a long time and wastes hours... blah! It shines through I tell ya!

First off, thanks for having this forum. I just bought and installed the Litterfree unit in our downstairs bathroom. I've had this unit for less than a month.

The previous unit we had in the house was the Littermaid which our 2 cats have used for 3 years. Like a previous poster, I found that I have had to replace the littermaid each year which is a pain. I bought my first one on eBay which I had to replace after 4 months, then the next unit lasted about a year before it just went kaput and then I bought the last one from Costco which is still fairly new. We have the same complaints about Littermaid: litter getting stuck in rake, smell, noise, needs attention every other day to keep area clean and the smell down....So anyway, there was a sale at Petco so I decided it was time to try the Litterfree. Here are my questions/observations:

Water usage: Seems to use up alot of water. Has anyone paid attention to their water bills or water usage to see if it's significant?
I'm curious about that.

Noise: The noise is really crazy.javascript:emoticon(':roll:') When I went to "flush" the unit the first time, the noise scared the bejesus out of me. Not to mention, my younger kitty freaked and became a puff of fur and ran out of the room. It's so loud I can hear it upstairs with the door to the bathroom closed. To be fair, the noise only last a few minutes at a time during the water cycles.

Smell: the smell is really bad during the dry cycle. Yick! Someone wrote bouillabase (sp?) which is really funny because that's a perfect way to describe it. I don't think the smell is any worse than how bad the littermaid got between cleanings which also depended on the type of litter we used. But it is pretty bad. Anyone who is thinking about buying Litterfree should know this. Eeew!

Overall impression: I'm not fully convinced this is the best thing out there. I'm still not used to the noise and I don't think my cats are either. My older cat is really easy-going so he took to the box right away. But he is a big kitty at 20 lbs and he barely fits in the Litterfree with the top off. My younger kitty seems to hate the Litterfree but does her business there anyway. With the littermaid, she used to hang around and watch the rake action. Go figure. With the Litterfree, she turns into a big puff ball and runs upstairs when the unit comes on. The good thing is with each time I flush it, she seems to freak out less and less. In the meantime, I'm wondering if I spent a little more money for the LitterRobot, it might be a better solution for my cats. I wish there were more user experiences on the LitterRobot.

Totoro:

We are still waiting for the review unit to arrive. (I am actually waiting on a call from the Litter-Robot people this morning as I write this.)

You mentioned in your post that you have a 20lb cat - that may be a Litterrobot problem. They mention on their site that cats over 15 lbs may not be comfortable inside the unit. We have a 13lb cat and are a little curious as to whether or not he will have problems.

I just wanted to point that out and to let you know that we will write specifically about Harley's size to comfort ratio if we can. Although he's not 20 lbs, it may still shed light on the issue of big cats and the LitterRobot.

For now, all I can say is stay tuned and good luck.

Thanks for your tip about LitterRobot. Yes, I think kitty is going to be uncomfortable in LitterRobot since it is recommended for 15lbs and under. I'm still looking forward to your review.

Update on LitterFree: The noise isn't as bad anymore. I think we all got used to it. I still run the unit manually because the little kitty is still not taking to it. Funny story, I discovered she is wasn't using unit like I thought. she was using the Japanese Zen Garden!! ha ha ha. I just got rid of it this morning, so we'll see how she does the rest of the week. I just hope I don't find any accidents.

beckinwolf wrote::) I got the LitterFree for X-mas this year (2002) and my cat and I love it. Chester is 14! and he didn't have any problem getting used to it. I actually put the LitterFree in the bathroom, all set up and ready to go, right next to his old litterbox. He chose the LitterFree! I stopped using clay a few months ago and switched to pine and paper pellets, but even they took a lot of work. I do understand about the hair issue. It does float, but after it dries out you can just pick it out and throw it away. And if you have a short-haired cat like I do, its not much of an issue anyway. The only thing I have a problem with is the smell. It doesn't smell between flushes, just during. Here's what I've found works for the smell. Air freshners of course, but they just cover up the smell. I have a small box of baking soda beside the box, that seems to help, but one of the main things I do is turn on the bathroom fan. That seems to suck up the odor. We've had it for about a month now, and I wouldn't trade it for all the old litter pans in the world.

now i just improve my bathroom fan..

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Bathroom fan