I’ve been contemplating a Littermaid for my kitties. I’ve heard conflicting reports about their effectiveness. Some say they are miserable failures, some say they are godsends. I also get the impression that the Littermaid company has made several new models as in order to cover defects in the old designs.
So, what opinions do any Littermaid users have about their purchases?
I had one that lasted a couple years until it died with the rake mechanism halfway through a cycle. The problems I had with it other than the dying was that the sides were too low. Some of my cats like to pee against the sides of their boxes, since this isn’t enclosed (and you can only get a silly little tent thing to cover it) I often had pee over the sides of it. I think this may have also affected the mechanism.
It was good if I was too busy to scoop litter boxes for a couple days but I have too many cats and it still needed tending every couple days or the collection bin overflowed. I don’t think I would get another one unless they raise the sides and get much cheaper.
I’ve heard there’s a couple other brands that are better but they are much more expensive and I really don’t want to spend that kind of money to try them out. I think one is called the Performa or Purrforma, it does look like it has higher sides.
I have a Littermaid, and I love it. See my post here.
They SUCK.
Problems: The plastic collections bins are too small - clumped litter winds up all over the place if you don’t empty it after the cat uses the box once. If you have more than one cat you are flat screwed.
The rake gets hopelessly gummed up, resulting in the clumps sticking to the rake and the dry litter all over the place.
My cats never peed over the side, but they did pee ON the side, resulting in pee that was not visible trickling and collecting underneath the Littermaid. This resulted in a rather large and unsightly black stain on my wood floor that can only be repaired by stripping and sanding the floor.
Advantages: Absolutely none.
We bought the Littermaid because my wife refuses to empty the cat box and I am tired of dealing with it on a daily basis. The bottom line is that I had to do just as much work (and should have done more if I had known about the trickling pee ruining my floor) as with a conventional, enclosed and watertight cat box. It is high on my Top 5 most disappointing products list (slightly above the X-Ray glasses I ordered from a comic book as a boy).