We are a two cat household and I love cats. Yeah, I like dogs and have enjoyed owning dogs at various times in my life, they’re definitely fun and more interactive, but there’s something about the independence of cats that really appeals to me. Add the wackiness of kittenhood, as we now have with our new 4mo kitten, and it’s great entertainment too, with flashes of fur as our two mad felines fly through the house playing hunting and chasing games.
As with any pet, however, ownership comes with responsibility, and with cats the easy tasks are making sure that they always have food and water. The yechy task? Cleaning the litter box. As a savvy parent, I have assigned these chores to my children because, well, I don’t want to do ’em.
Which means that the litter boxes aren’t cleaned as often as they should be. My ideal would be 2-3 times/day, but realistically, at least every day or two helps keep the house from smelling and makes the job less disgusting and onerous.
Enter the Litter Genie. It’s basically a 16-foot long plastic bag that you seal section by section as you fill it up with litter and cat poop. Yeah, I never thought I’d be blogging about cat poop, but there ya go.
It’s actually a really slick idea and works well, making cleaning the litter box a really quick task. Even my 11yo is now cleaning the litter box every 24-48 hours without prompting because we have it adjacent to the litter box in their bathroom, as you can see:
That’s Ozzy the stunt kitten conveniently coming out of his fashionista litter box. As you can see, it’s rather cozy in the bathroom with everything adjacent to the toilet.
The grey tower to the right is the Litter Genie and it’s pretty darn easy to work with: You open the top lid to drop in the waste, then when you’re done cleaning, pull out the black handle on the front then push it back in. That’s it. When the bag’s used up — about two months, according to the company — you pop the entire assembly open and toss out the compartmentalized bag and drop in a new one.
Not bad at all, really, and while I wish the bags were biodegradable, they are at least antimicrobial. Most importantly, by making the process fast and easy, it means that you can keep the litter box cleaner — a good thing for your kitties! — and the house smelling nicer because one of the primary purposes of the Litter Genie is to seal away those yechy smells.
Now, as a reward for you having read so far into a post about cat litter boxes, a ridiculously cute picture of Ozzy:
As you can see, he’s way too cute for us not to want to keep him around and healthy. We don’t want to smell him, just enjoy his crazy, energetic company. Oh, and we love our other cat Kiwi too. 🙂
Now, I bet you’re asking “That’s really cool. We have 17 cats and it’s insane. Where do I buy one of these so people don’t think I’m the crazy cat lady??” The answer for us was our friendly local neighborhood Target store:
Even better, Target has a great promo going on: we bought the Litter Genie and a bag refill and got a free cat toy, a little bird (see pic, below) that actually makes tweeting sounds, which, retrospectively, is a bit weird to hear at 2am.
Don’t wait too long, however, the Target in-store Mix & Match promotion that gets you a free cat toy or Friskies “party mix” cat treat, a promo that works with both the Litter Genie and a variety of Fancy Feast cat foods, is only running until 4/11/15 while supplies last. So if tons of cat owners go wild, you might be out of luck if you’re shopping on April 10th. So sad for your kitty!