The Deadly self-cleaning cat litter box

Murrmurr

Murrmurr

SF VIP
Location
Sacramento, California
There's a self-cleaning litter box that is killing cats. It was most recently sold through a company called Amztoy, which has simply renamed the killing machine and still sells it. They've even changed their company name a few times, and they delete negative reviews that get posted on Amazon and other online stores. This death-trap sells well because it's quite a bit cheaper than self-cleaning litter boxes that don't kill cats.

This guy looked into into it....


and this guy, who reaches a much wider audience, also posted a warning....

 

LoveTulips said:
Why is this not taken off the market??? Anyways, we would never buy anything like that. We're old school. We just have a regular not covered litter box, clumping litter, and hubby just cleans it every day.
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If I remember right, the guy in the first video I put up there said he emailed Amazon asking them to stop selling it and explained why, but nothing happened, and he gave it a review saying it's deadly, which the selling company deleted. No company should be able to do that, especially since he actually bought one and tested it.

The guy in the second video says the company that sells it paid Google to keep it in the top 5 on their search list for key phrases like automatic kitty litter box and robo litter box, etc. That should be a crime, imo.
 

I'm going to skip the videos, probably too upsetting. But this is a broader example of what is wrong with the world. Greed and true reviews allowed to be deleted like that for nothing more than profit. How terrible that it comes up in Google searches at the top.

I know some people can have trouble bending over to clean a box on the floor. Getting a side table the height of a sofa table would help. Cats will use an elevated box.
 
Remy said:
I'm going to skip the videos, probably too upsetting. But this is a broader example of what is wrong with the world. Greed and true reviews allowed to be deleted like that for nothing more than profit. How terrible that it comes up in Google searches at the top.

I know some people can have trouble bending over to clean a box on the floor. Getting a side table the height of a sofa table would help. Cats will use an elevated box.
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Yeah, the videos are heartbreaking and would probably upset you. Upset me enough to post about it.

I don't even like self-cleaning litter boxes. You need special litter, replacing it is kind of expensive, and the boxes themselves look too small. And some of them are really noisy.

A raised litter box is a good idea. I wish they made a bagging liner that didn't tear when cats paw at. Then you could just remove the bag and toss it out. Or dump it out, if it was good for at least a few uses. But they're made of thin plastic. My cats shred that stuff.
 
@Murrmurr I was thinking about litter box cleaning after this post last evening. I used to use non clumping but I can't lift and empty the whole litter box anymore. It was less dusty.

I have heard those long handled litter scoops don't work great. I don't know, this one looks decent:
https://www.amazon.com/Yangbaga-Det...88608976022883030-B07RHSJ3FP-&hvexpln=73&th=1

I was looking at small garden rakes but they are too open I think. I'm fine now with cleaning the box. Don't know what the future holds. As long as I can, I will not be without cats.
 
Remy said:
@Murrmurr I was thinking about litter box cleaning after this post last evening. I used to use non clumping but I can't lift and empty the whole litter box anymore. It was less dusty.

I have heard those long handled litter scoops don't work great. I don't know, this one looks decent:
Amazon.com

I was looking at small garden rakes but they are too open I think. I'm fine now with cleaning the box. Don't know what the future holds. As long as I can, I will not be without cats.
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The hard part for me is lifting the dang box. Sounds wimpy, but it causes sharp pain in my back and sometimes numbness in my rt leg. If I sit down for a while afterward, the pain usually subsides within 20 minutes but I still hate it.

This is the best method for me: I slip a 13-gal trash bag over one end of the box and slide it in until about 2/3 of it is in the trash bag. Then I lift the other end of it to let most of the stuff fall into the bag. That lightens the load by like 85%. Then I just hold that other end up and scrape the rest of the stuff into the bag with a 3" putty knife (before I used a putty knife, I used those newspaper ads that come in the mail). Then I hose the box down, dry it off, and refill it.

Basically, I don't do any scooping; I do a complete change once a week. I don't use clay litter alone, I mix it with hardwood pellets - 2 parts hardwood pellets to 1 part clumping litter. The wood pellets absorb odors way better, last longer, and don't stick to the bottom and sides of the box like clay litter does, and it costs about the same....a little less when it isn't BBQ season.
 
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hawkdon said:
I had purchased a small table, about 18x18x12, from amazon,
then put my hooded litterbox on top of it, then a 3-step plastic
stairstep for my cats, sure made a world of difference for my
very bad back....still got the stair and table in fact....
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A neighbor lady has her cat's litter box on a table, too, and it's in a corner, so she had her son mount a couple of nice-looking shelves on the wall so the cat could use them like stairs to get up to it. He hung a couple more shelves that go from the litter box to a window sill that the cat likes to lounge on. It actually looks pretty cool.
 
Pepper said:
Watched 3 minutes of first video & could not continue. I always had a worry that these self cleaning litter boxes were not safe. :cry:
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I hesitated to post Charlie's video because he's kind of liberal with certain cuss words. But he has a cat, and he adores it, so he's outraged over the whole issue. He'd be outraged whether he had a cat or not, but he was really feelin' it..
 
PeppermintPatty said:
Oh my. This is terrible news. I can’t imagine losing a cat this way. Like @Pepper I could only watch about 3 minutes of it. It’s literally horrific. This is the first I’ve heard about these cat litter boxes. How very sad.
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All self-cleaning litter boxes are a scam, imo, but I hope the prices come down on the ones that are 100% safe. Then the truly scammy ones will disappear from the market, along with the ones that do actual harm.
 
LoveTulips said:
By the way, I didn't watch the video, I could not.
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Then I'm glad you didn't. Neither of them is graphic, but the personal stories they mention are heartbreaking. The first one even has a clip of one of the cat owners talking about what happened. It's brief, but the poor woman looks and sounds devastated. Made my eyes water.
 


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