Litter box / cat doors

[kirstyjoanne]

Couple of questions:

1) Where in your home do you keep your litter box?

2) Do any of you have those pet doors for a cat? What are they like, how do you go about getting one, do you like it, do your cats know to go in and out of it?

3) Do/would you keep your litter box in the garage and have a pet door for your cats to get to it?

Just thinking of some options for our new house. Trying to figure out where to keep our litter box, and I just wondered if the garage would be an option. Not many other convenient choices in this house as we had in our last house, so I don't know what to do yet.

TIA!

[KarenS]

Currently we live in a townhouse and the catbox is in our upstairs office bathroom. But several years ago I had a house that had an inside door to a garage and did exactly what you're describing. I put the catbox in the garage and installed a cat door from the house to the garage. There are a few things you *have* to be careful about: If you don't want your cat to be an outside cat you have to be very careful about opening and closing the garage door. Since the cat can be in the garage any time, if you come home and open the door, the cat can slip right outside. Also if you come home and the cats are in the garage, you have to be careful about pulling your car int othe space (if you park in your garage). If you keep your garage door open at all for any length of time, other cats can come in, so you need to make sure that you don't habitually leave the garage door open (or that it always closes all the way).

Other than those things, it really worked well for us.

Karen

[Tonysweetie]

Our litter box is in our bathroom. We had it in our laundry room for the longest time but then we got a washer/dryer and it took up all the space, lol. Now we have to look at it everytime where in the bathroom, it's lovely, lol. But we live in a 1 bdroom apt. so it's really our only choice for now. :cool:

[houseblend]

We actually do just what you are talking about - we keep our litter box in the garage. We have a half bath that is adjacent to the garage, so we put the kitty door in there. We were originally going to put the kitty door in the door to the garage, but it was too thick and made of a heavier material that we couldn't easily cut through. The garage has worked out great and I absolutely love having the litter box out of the house. We had to show my cat how to get in and out of it at first, but she learned very quickly.

We also have a LitterMaid and my husband rigged it to go directly into a garbage bag. We only have to mess with the litter box every few weeks if even then. I love it!!! :D

BTW, my cat was 8 years old when we first did this. She happens to be very afraid of the big world outside, so we don't have to worry about leaving the garage door open, but Karen is right that this is something to be aware of.

[PinkMartini]

We live in a house that had a cat door already put in, when we moved in. We have a 2 year old cat named Annie who since we got our yorkie (who went in to her lb & actually ate her turds :eek: ) has been going to the bathroom outside. I hate litter boxes, so I love that she doesn't need one with the cat door, and Bailey doesn't getty kitty turds anymore. We live far enough from the road and she stays in our backyard anyways, so I don't have to worry about her. She learned to use it pretty quick once we showed her what it was. A cat door will be a definite must have in our next house!

[kirstyjoanne]

a few comments to add....

We have two cats, both are indoor, so I am worried a little about them getting outside. But on the other hand, I would expect my cats to run and hide when they heard the garage door opening, so I almost wasn't worried about that part. The idea of other cats coming in didn't occur to me, though, hmmmm. I'm also not entirely wild about putting a cat door in our new house, but obviously I'm thinking of considering it.

We are building our home and still couldn't really come up with a good location for the litter box. We changed the structure of our laundry room to be a room rather than have the w/d in the hallway/ walkthrough from the garage to the house. We planned on putting the LB in there, but I'm now second guessing that decision- as I'm now trying to figure out where to keep the dog/cat food. Our new house has hardwood throughout the entire first floor except the carpet in the family room, and the vinyl in the laundry room. I didn't want the food in the kitchen to be easily visible to everyone, easy access to my toddler, and to damage the floor from my messy eaters (as they damaged the wood baseboard in our last home from spilling water). Right now, in an apt, the food is in the laundry room (same size as our new house will have), and the LB is in the linen closet in the master bath. It's not fun having it there, but I would be fine with it if we had a linen closet or a place like that for the cat's LB.

Or, would you consider putting the litter box in the master closet? Ours is going to be HUGE. So big that we won't use all the space, so we could conceivably create an area in there to keep the LB (over some sort of plastic protective cover for the floor). The only thing I'd worry about is the smell and the clothes. Although we have switched to useing Feline Pine, and it is so much better for the smell. I could always keep air freshners in there. Would any of you do that or have you?

[Sabrina]

We have 2 cats in our 2BR/2Bath apartment, right now we have 1 covered litter box in each bathroom. If we lived in a house, I would keep the boxes in the basement and/or the laundry room. I would not put the boxes in the garage for a few reasons, some already mentioned:

1. It gets very cold here in the winter, and I wouldn't want the kitties to have to go out in the cold garage to get the box (I would also be concerned that the cold garage temps may cause them to mess in the house to avoid going out to the garage).
2. They are indoor only and I do not want them getting outside.
3. I wouldn't want other cats coming into my garage.

I wouldn't put the litter box in my master closet...it just doesn't seem "right" to me, KWIM? FWIW, we have 2 covered litter boxes with little swinging doors and charcoal filters, and they do not smell at all.

[Sarah051504]

In my condo I had a large closet that I put the litterbox in BUT the closet was open to the bathroom and the master bedroom. If it was closed off like most closets I'd be worried about the smell and probably wouldn't have done it. When my DH and I moved in together, we had a problem with the dog "snacking" out of the litterbox so we put it in the crawl space/basement. We were planning on moving soon so instead of installing a cat door in the basement door (that most buyers lookin gat my house wouldn't want) we cut a hole in the wall (drywall) and trimmed it in oak :p That was if a potential buyer didn't like it, it would be an easy fix. We didn't have to show the cats how to use it, they actually liked to, used it as their "safe space" when the dogs would chase them or they got in trouble with us.

We are building a new house now and going to do something similar in the basement under the stairs.

[Lanapoo]

I have just one more thing to add about cat boxes in the garage. My co-worker lost her kitty because it tried to go outside and squeeze under a closing garage door at the last second. She didn't make it. My co-worker came home that night to an awful sight :( and she was completely devestated. It was an awful thing and I just wanted you to know that there is a risk that a kitty might try to dart out at the last second. And having the sensors may not help because a cat can be pretty low if it's trying to squeeze under something. It may help to put the sensors as low as possible, I'm not sure about the height of my co-workers sensors on her garage door but I do know that she had them.

[Freckles]

We have 2 cats in our 2BR/2Bath apartment, right now we have 1 covered litter box in each bathroom. If we lived in a house, I would keep the boxes in the basement and/or the laundry room. I would not put the boxes in the garage for a few reasons, some already mentioned:
1. It gets very cold here in the winter, and I wouldn't want the kitties to have to go out in the cold garage to get the box (I would also be concerned that the cold garage temps may cause them to mess in the house to avoid going out to the garage).
2. They are indoor only and I do not want them getting outside.
3. I wouldn't want other cats coming into my garage.
I wouldn't put the litter box in my master closet...it just doesn't seem "right" to me, KWIM? FWIW, we have 2 covered litter boxes with little swinging doors and charcoal filters, and they do not smell at all.

ITA with this response. I would be worried that the cat could get injured/lost etc. by putting the litterbox in the garage. The only way that would be an option for me would be if we used the garage only as storage, thus rarely opening the garage door/no moving cars, etc., and if all the dangerous chemicals etc. were HIGH off the ground. Just my opinion.

I wouldn't want the litterbox in a closet either. I would choose a bathroom if I didn't have a laundry room or basement. Our cat's litterbox and food/water are in our laundry room, which works wonderfully. The LB is a covered condo box with the charcoal filter. No smell issues.

[fuzzy]

Ditto what everyone has said about the garage. We did install a kitty door, but that was installed into the basement door. We wanted the basement door closed to prevent odors from creeping upstairs.

[kirstyjoanne]

Thanks for everyones responses. You've given me a lot to think about. Some of the comments have easily convinced me not to put the LB in the garage. Not that I really wanted to anyway - but I'm definitely not up for it now.

As far as the master closet. It is huge, and I would almost say it's about half the size of our bedroom. You can access it from the master bathroom. As far as the smell, I'm not TOO worried about that, as it's in our small apartment bathroom's linen closet and I it hasn't made our towels smell (not that I can tell). I think we may go this route as it makes the most sense in the limited areas I have to work with. I would have loved to find an area under the stairs like in our old house, no place to cut out the walls. I wish we had a large enough linen closet in a bathroom, but we don't.

For easy access for the cats, but not the dog, as we have now, we use a safety foam thing (child-proofing) block to keep it from closing, but keeps it open enough for them to get in. The dog doesn't touch doors and won't pass through one unless it's wide open anyway.

We also have an unfinished attic that we will finish later as usable space (instead of a basement), that maybe we will create a 'kitty space' when we finish it. Right now, it's not safe to allow the cats up there b/c they can get through the insulation, etc. DH though wanted non-cat friendly furniture in there when it's finished (since it can be closed off), but we may not have that option if we need to find a new area for the LB.

[Fluffy Bunny]

We have the litter box in the garage and it works very well. To keep the cats from escaping to the outside through the garage, we built a cage that is open on the side that is flush with the wall. To clean the litter box, I just push the cage away from the wall and return it when I'm done. One thing I really like about our setup is that we placed door mats on each side of that cat door, and they do an excellent job of trapping the litter so it doesn't get tracked into the house.

[ObscureDame]

We bought a regular litter box that had no cover, that was a mistake. Bailey would always create war in his box. Litter was every where almost except in the box...lol. So we bought him one with a lid and a door...well he didn't really know how to work the door so we took it off to make it easier on him. Also we bought a litter mat and placed it right infront of his box so the litter on his paws can fall off there and not on our carpet.

[Ole Miss Bride]

We have two indoor kitties, and we keep our litter box in the laundry room. We installed a cat door in the laundry room door, as the laundry is right off the kitchen, and I don't particularly care to have that door open all the time just so the kitties can get to their potty. Plus, it never fails that I'm cooking dinner and one of them decides it's time to poop and stink up the joint. Not so welcome an aroma when one is about to eat.

I think DH got the door at Lowe's...? It was really easy for him to install. Took maybe an hour. Here's the finished product:
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v220/umbetsy/maceyatcatdoor.jpg

It took the kitties a little while to get the hang of it, but they eventually caught on. I love my cat door, and I think it will especially come in handy once our baby arrives and starts becoming mobile. I'd hate to leave the laundry room door open all day, giving the baby access to playtime in the litter box. Ugh.

-Betsy

[sublime311]

A friend's DH created a garage set-up. He put in a kitty door in the laundry room into the garage, built a wooden box with a door in the garage and put the litter box in there. When the kitties need to go they just hop through the kitty door into their litter box-box. When it comes time to clean the box, they just open the hinged door (on the garage side) and pull out the litter box. I think it's a genius idea!

Our litter box is in the laundry room between the washer and dryer. The LR is in the back of the house.

[greenbunny]

We have one box in the basement and one in an upstairs bathroom, but the one cat has been locked in the bathroom with it for a long time now. I plan to toilet train her in a few weeks, so that will eliminate that litterbox.

The basement one is a problem because we can't cool the house efficiently, all the A/C slips down the stairs with the door open. We thought about a cat door, but the door closes right at the edge of the first step, so the cat would go through the door and fall immediately, there's no level surface for her. We haven't come up with anything better than just leaving the basement open all the time.

As far as a garage, both our cats are white and they would get filthy out there. Plus there's so much they could get into--tools, wood, batteries, chemicals of all kinds. The garage is the one place we keep everything we don't want them getting into, I can't imagine where we'd store that stuff if they went out there. Plus the one cat is desperate to escape, and we have to keep her far away from all doors at all times.

[Ole Miss Bride]

As far as a garage, both our cats are white and they would get filthy out there. ... Plus the one cat is desperate to escape, and we have to keep her far away from all doors at all times.
You and I must have the same cat! My strictly indoor white cat is forever trying to escape, and if he ever manages to make it outside, the first thing he does is roll in the dirt. It is so disgusting.

Here’s the little punk:
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v220/umbetsy/sleepytad.jpg

-Betsy

[greenbunny]

Betsy, I actually have Birmans, which have dark points (ears, face, tail, paws) with white bodies. Your baby is gorgeous! Mine are way too prissy to roll around in dirt, though. :p

[BTB]

1) We live in a flat, and keep the litter box in the pantry. If we had/when we have a mud room, that's where it would/will go instead. The pantry is a walk-in, about 8 feet long by 4 feet wide, and all the food containers are up high in sealed containers so it's not as icky as it sounds. ;)

2) No pet doors - we don't let our cat outside, ever. She doesn't mind, even though she was an outdoor cat when we got her.

3) Nope - see above. :)