Christina Loves… The Litter Robot

I am going to be one of those crazy old cat ladies – I know I am.  If you happen to keep an eye on my Flickr feed, you know that we have *a lot* of cats.  We do live on a ranch, so I can get away with telling you I have 18 cats, however, my true confession is that they are all indoor cats.  I know, I am crazy.  They do go outside, but they mostly lounge around in the house, where the air is conditioned to be comfortable, the food is a-plenty, and there are sufficient restrooms.  My cats are too foo-foo to use the public restroom outdoors, I guess.  So, pardon the disgusting topic of this post, and if you do not have cats, just move on to something beautiful to read about. 

I have had cats since I was very young, and believe me, I have maintained more than my fair share of litterboxes.  More than.  Early last year, after having had my eyeballs on robotic litter boxes, I finally tried one that was around $70 – the Littermate.  It is a round litterbox with a big fork thing that comes through and rakes the litter into a bag (specially designed for the Littermate) for easy disposal.  It worked pretty well, but the rake tines rusted pretty quickly, and then litter got stuck on them and it was a mess that had to be taken apart and cleaned pretty regularly. I did manage to find bags that would work pretty well without having to buy their special bags though.  Not bad, but not ideal either.   The one I really had my eye on was the Litter Robot.

The reason I didn’t go with the Litter Robot first was the price point.  The sucker is $329.   But – it has some fantastic features that would never leave my mind:

• Saves time and money
• Patented litter sifting system
• No rake that can jam or clog
• No special receptacles or bags
• Works with any clumping litter
• Large capacity waste drawer
• Reliable and safe
• 90 day Money-Back Guarantee
• 18-month full warranty

They also have refurbished models for $269, and they have a 3 payment plan as well.  So, last spring I got crazy and ordered a refurbished Litter Robot.  And I love it.  It is so easy to clean, totally not disgusting.  Just open the huge drawer, pull out the bag (a cheap kitchen size bag – just the thin ones that come in a roll), tie it up and put a new bag in.  Done.  No nasty periodic rake cleaning, in fact, as long as I am regular about dumping the waste, I don’t have to do a bit of cleaning.  The design of this robot is really simple – it has one moving part – a little gear that rotates the big ball that sits on the base.  Every part I can see is made of an incredibly durable (and easily cleanable, non rustable!) plastic.  The cats aren’t bothered by it at all, and had no problems getting used to using it.  The waste is totally sealed, doesn’t smell at all and you can’t just see it sitting there like an ugly old litter box.  Folks ask me all the time what it is.  I love it so much that I ordered a new one this summer. 

My experience has not been without problems – I have had a couple of occasions where I had to call customer service and get some help, but the customer service was incredibly good.  One problem I had they were able to walk me through to fix, and the other problem was electrical (on the new one, incidentally – I have had zero troubles with the refurbished one), and they very quickly sent me a replacement part.  I don’t expect things to be perfect, but I do expect decent customer service, and they went way over decent.  No waiting on hold, the person who answered my phone call was the person who helped me fix it.  They were American (I don’t want to sound like a racist pig, but its refreshing, as a geek, and as a geek who has suffered with Dell customer support, to speak to an American customer support rep – it just is!), and friendly, and they knew their product – they were not reading from some stupid script.  It was great.  They followed up a few days later to make sure all was well too.  So nice.

I expect I will probably buy a third one at some point.  We are getting ready to tear down our old house and rebuild from scratch (doesn’t THAT sound like fun! UGH), and when we are recovered from that, I think there will be definite room for a third Litter Robot.  As far as I am concerned, this is just about as perfect a solution as we will ever find for cat waste management.  I admit I have been a little tempted to try out the Cat Genie (self flushing, self washing cat box), and maybe I will someday, but for now, the Litter-Robot just works.  If you have been thinking about it, I highly recommend you go for it – it is well worth the money.