What is that smell?

There are currently three cats in my household.  Doyle, my "baby" who is three years old; Charlie who is two years old (my 7 year old niece's best friend); and Nigella, a one year old former feral foster kitten who never really socialized enough to go up for adoption.

Doyle

Charlie

Nigella

I am an animal person and if my life and energy level were different, I would probably have dogs or bunnies or any number of other types of animals.  But life being what it is, cats are the best possibly pet for me.  Good thing I love them so much.

I am a big believer in the health benefits or having a pet.  They truly do help improve your state of mind and over all well being.  This is especially true for anyone with any sort of chronic illness, disability or anxiety.  Thankfully, I am one of the lucky few that still has the ability (and family support) that allows me to have my animals around me.

That being said - kitty litter stinks!  I would never put my cats outside, it is just not safe for so many reasons.  And since two of my three cats were born outside and were on their own for a few months, they have no desire to go out.  In fact, Nigella (who was outside until she was 4 months old) runs and hides when we open the door.  Since I do not believe in outdoor cats, I am stuck with the litter box.  Or litter boxes in my case since we have three (one for each cat).

The problem with litter boxes is that they smell no matter how careful you are about cleaning them.  The scooping and disposing of the clumps is annoying.  Even if you scoop the box every day (which is recommended) you still have to find a place to dump the clumps until trash day.

If you put it in your regular trash inside, the whole house stinks.  If you put it in the garage, the garage stinks.  And if you put it in the outside trash can you have to run outside in the freezing cold once a day (at least during a New England winter).  And for someone with severe asthma like me, this is always a problem.  The end result is that, although my foster's litter boxes are always 100% clean because they are babies and make a huge mess all the time, my own adult cats' litter boxes did not always get scooped as often as I would like.  My cats did not seem to mind, but I did.

Then, as I was roaming around the pet section of Target on Christmas Eve while waiting for my prescription for prednisone (severe asthma flare up on Christmas Eve, oh joy). I came across a solution.  The Litter Genie.

The Litter Genie is a litter disposal system that you can put the daily clumps in until trash day and according the the box, there is no odor and it is very easy to use.  I was skeptical to say the least.  It looked very like the diaper disposal systems we had when my niece was young that was annoying to use, did not contain the smell and that we stopped using way before she was out of diapers.  I also knew there was a similar product out there called a Litter Locker that had gotten reviews for being expensive, annoying and hard to use.

But it was Christmas Eve, I was short of breath and my niece would be heartbroken if "Santa" forgot to bring the cats something for Christmas.  So instead of spending $10 on cat toys that we so did not need (we have tons), I took a chance and spent $15 on the Litter Genie instead.

So what do I think of the Litter Genie?  I think it is a little Christmas miracle.  I love it!  It did take me a bit to figure out how to set it up initially.  But truthfully I do not know if that is because the instructions were confusing or if it was because I was doing it when I was lacking oxygen due to my breathing problems.

Once it was set up, it was small enough to fit in between two of our litter boxes, and so easy to use.  You scoop the mess, drop it in the top, pull the handle, the mess drops down and DOES NOT SMELL.  And since everything is contained in the litter genie, it means no ice cold trips outside which my asthma really appreciates. 

So far the only drawbacks I have seen is that at some point I will need to buy refill bags for the systems since like the diaper genie and the litter locker, it can not just use any bags.  But Target has a two pack of the refills for around $15 which is not too bad.  I have three cats and it has been two and a half weeks and I am still on the refill pack that came with the system so the bags do seem to last for a bit.  The second drawback may just be specific to my house.  Since I am now scooping every day (sometimes more) I am going through litter faster.  But that is primarily because I have a 19 pound Maine Coon cat who is not all that agile.  I have to make sure the boxes are weighed down with enough litter at all times or he tends to accidentally knock them over.  What can I say - he is not the most graceful guy but I love him.  :o)

Anyway, like I said, I am skeptical of all the "make the litter odor go away" tricks on the market.  My general feeling is, you have a cat, it has a litter box - deal with it.  And if you don't want to deal with it, you should not have a cat.  The love they give is well worth the hassle of the litter box.  But so far I am really pleased with the Litter Genie. It does make dealing with the litter box easier.

In fact, I plan to go out and buy two more for the areas in my house where I keep foster kittens.  Note:  you do not need multiple genies.  It does have a handle that makes it easy to carry from box to box and it is not that heavy.  But since I found a coupon for $10 off the system on the Litter Genie Website (making it only around $5 for the whole system) and carrying anything can be hard for me when my health conditions flare up, it is just easier to have more than one. 

The best indication to me that it works was a conversation I had with my roommate the other day.

She said, "What is that smell?"
"The litter box", I said. 
She replied, "But the litter genie thing stopped the smell."

Well yes, but only after you scoop it.  So I went and scooped. Bye bye cat box smell. 
Hello Litter Genie.