Written on July 8, 2009 – 12:50 pm | by maxine |

Our first foray into a homemade water based and litter free toileting system was with a vinyl laundry tub.  It turned out to be a very easy and economical project which is very popular with many of us felines.

A littler box should be at least as long as one and a half times the length of your largest cat.  So, the laundry tub is ideal for most felines, unless of course, you have a lion or panther or . . .  It is also excellent for small dogs.   At the very least, if you insist on using some sort of kitty litter, you really can’t go wrong with the size of a laundry tub.  And, if you just have to have litter — use a flushable litter.  The World’s Best Extra Strength Kitty Litter is by far the very best for your money.  The Multiple Cat formula of The World’s Best Kitty Litter is absolutely excellent and lasts much longer than the regular formulation.

Now, about getting this simple, and economical system created.  What you will need:

— One laundry tub
— Three black report spines from office supply store
— Small electric jig saw
— Small, shallow pot  to hold at least one quart

First, a standard sized laundry tub was purchased.  It had removable legs which were discarded as they weren’t needed.  Using a small electric saw with a blade that cuts plastic, our person cut out a good sized entrance into one side of the laundry tub, leaving a little lip of about 2” high that we have to step over to get into the tub.  This keeps everything contained within the tub and, during the training stage, litter doesn’t get kicked out easily.  The rough cut edges of the entrance were sanded as smooth as possible and then covered with those black spines that you slip over the pages of a report to hold them together.  You can get the spines at an office supply store.

They put bricks under each corner to raise the whole shebang up off the floor.  Then they put a 3/4 inch to 1 inch thick piece of wood under two corners under the bricks on one side of the tub so that the tub slopes down towards the hole in the bottom of the tub.  The slope allows liquid to automatically drain towards the regular drain hole.  Directly under the drain hole there is a small pot to catch whatever goes down the hole! Some of us cats are excellent at directing both solids and urine directly down the drain hole directly into the glass pot that is below to catch such things.  We might some day make a larger hole in a second laundry tub system and see how that works.

For the first while there was The World’s Best Kitty Litter in the bottom of the tub and the drain hole was covered with duct tape.  Then, after a few weeks, there was less and less litter in the tub and the drain hole was uncovered.  Finally, now, there is no litter at all.

If you have a cat that walks in the pee before it gets down the drain, you can put a vinyl kitchen sink drain mat that has raised ridges into the bottom of the laundry tub.  The little troughs in the mat will guide the urine away towards the drain and keep kitty’s paws high and dry.  You may have to trim the mat a little to fit the size of the laundry tub.

Simple Cleaning:  You just have to scoop out any solids, wipe down the inside of the tub down when necessary with a bit of soap and water, empty the pot into the toilet, add a couple of inches of water into the pot again and place it back under the drain hole.   You are all ready to go again!

With the pot of water collecting the urine, there will be no strong urine odour  Urine actually only has that distinctive and disgusting smell as it dries on a surface.  A chemical reaction occurs as it dries, leaving the odour producing components behind to irritate and disgust you!  When urine is collected in water, there is less opportunity for the distinctive odour to develop.  However, if there is a stale odour to the water after urine is in it, you can completely eliminate that stale odour with Odor Xit.  There are other products out there for urine/odour removal, but, trust us, most of them them cover up the smells with a strong, disgusting fragrance.  We have tried several and they have left us gagging and unimpressed.  Some of them take LOTS of work to make them work even a little bit.  And as we have mentioned before, whether you spell it odor in the U.S. or odour in Canada, you don’t want it!  So, use Odor Xit.  It does the trick and its affects far outlast other products we have tried.

For soap we use Miracle II — an all natural, no chemicals soap which is fantastic.  It is so great we are bathed in it too!  But, more about bathing in another post.

The Odour and Litter Free Cat Clan.