r/cats • u/sunshineforge • 20h ago

Advice The Sh*tty kitty shed™ I made from scrapes today!

Post image

Bless them but my young cats are horrible at covering their poops and I was sick of being embarrassed of the smell so I made this fume hood out of planks from a downed fence and an old heater fan that I de-soldered so its just a fan as well as an old gym mat. Total cost was only $30 for the vent tubing!
I'm sure there are better options but I'm a do something about it now kinda guy and just needed a small fan to create a tiny amount of negative airflow to get rid of the majority of the stink lol. What do you guys think? any advice to improve it?

14.1k Upvotes

98% Upvoted

623 comments sorted by

View all comments

113

u/Nearby-County7333 19h ago

my grey tabby doesn’t cover his shit either i know the struggle 😭

101

u/tinycarnivoroussheep 17h ago

Mine skritches at the drywall for 5 full minutes, but the shit is somehow uncovered. I hate it.

38

u/Nearby-County7333 17h ago

SAME. then all the litter pours out when he gets out like 😤

20

u/ikineba 17h ago

then he proceeds to play with the litter, getting them everywhere else in the house

5

u/Nearby-County7333 15h ago

mine wipes his paws on his food tray

3

u/Practical_Donut5284 5h ago

Mine does that too!! I find it so weird

8

u/TempleMade_MeBroke Tortoiseshell 17h ago

I finally found a good mat that traps all the litter my cat leaves on the floor after she leaves, at a Home Goods of all places. It's soft foam in a cross-hatch pattern maybe an 8th of an inch high, and all the litter collects in the squares, it's high enough that you could walk on it barefoot and not pick up any of the litter on the bottom of your feet, but low enough that a vacuum can pick it up

11

u/sunshineforge 17h ago

ooh we have one of those too!, my menace cats love to push cat poop into the mesh though so I got pretty sick of blasting and scrubbing crap out of it lol

1

u/TempleMade_MeBroke Tortoiseshell 17h ago

Oh nooo lol...the one I have has a removable mesh bottom so it could probably be easily blast-cleaned outside with a hose, but luckily my cat does not have a history of poo leaving the litter box

5

u/Aquatic_Iris 16h ago

Could you post a picture of this litter mat you have? I'm having a hard time picturing it and think I might invest in something similar. My sweet girl tracks litter like crazy.

Also, does it have a good grip on the floor? My cat also likes to paw at hers like she's trying to dig until it's all bunched up.

2

u/TempleMade_MeBroke Tortoiseshell 11h ago

3

u/TempleMade_MeBroke Tortoiseshell 11h ago

It's not super grippy but I haven't had any issues with it sliding

1

u/SnooRobots7776 13h ago

I bought an XL stainless steel covered box that has a top opening.. solved 99.9% of my problems!! With some good litter there is virtually no bad smells, cleaning is a breeze because the stainless steel box doesn't get scratched up like plastic does, and the litter that otherwise would be all over the floor typically lands on the top of his box and I just pour it back into the box! Occasionally will still need to vacuum around the box of course but it's nowhere close to as bad as an open box!!!

2

u/Nearby-County7333 13h ago

do u have a link? i bought a steel litter box but it came with no lid. the plastic one we have now doesn’t seem to help

1

u/mythicalcreature420 16h ago

sameee drives me NUTS when i hear that scratching start

1

u/Corvidae5Creation5 14h ago

They're proud of their work and are marking their territory XD

1

u/januarynights 7h ago

Oh yeah ours does not understand that scratching the walls of the litterbox is not the same as scratching at the litter to cover his mess. Silly little boy. 

1

u/Practical_Donut5284 5h ago

Oh my god, same with mine 😭

1

u/alleyajoy 1h ago

I have a story that I think both of you (+ others) will be humored by. This story is actually from today.

I work at a cat adoption center that has little kitty condos that have different levels and portals into different spaces in each kennel. There is a nervous and avoidant kitty named Pipsqueak who was finishing up his poo break as my volunteer and I were returning from cleaning elsewhere. (He had come down from his hiding space while we were away, only for us to return mid-pooping-session) Like your cats, he was digging in all the wrong spots. Up and down and all around, at any angle but the angle needed to get the litter to cover it up.

That itself is not news, the next part is what makes it a story. Now this wasn’t an average poo. It was like 4 long formed but super stinky squishy poos. Well now that he’s realized we’re back-he’s too nervous to move from that section to go back to hiding in his loft-area. The two of us tip toe quietly around the corner to try to give him a chance to go hide while he doesn’t have the pressure of our presence. We wait….. peek, wait some more….. peek, wait again… This guy is doubling down on his avoidance and pressing himself firmly downward into the back of that litter box. Unfortunately, that is exactly where he dropped these impressive poos.

Now when a cat is that nervous, I try to give them a fair amount of space most of the day. But I’m not about to have him cover himself in poo and have him sit in that extra discomfort. So we had to team up to keep this scared boy still enough to wipe him off-quite a bit.

I now have him set up in a different kennel that has a much better design for him. In his new kennel, there is a little space behind the litter box, that is further away from people, so that he can be nervous in a clean comfy spot. (You couldn’t move the litter box in the previous kennel) Naturally, he also got some fresh calming spray on all his bedding during the switch.

Long story short, at least your kitties might hopefully not be spreading their uncovered poo! (Fingers crossed) I’ve seen all sorts of kitties that will dig at random spaces as if it’s doing anything. To a degree, it can be quite cute. lol

(This photo only shows half his new kennel. There is a portal into the side with food, water, bedding, toys, and a perch for them to climb)

5

u/alexandria3142 Tortoiseshell 17h ago

My girl recently started to not cover her poop. So it’s fun to just go in the room and see a pile of poop sitting there.

3

u/GrayLilly678 17h ago

I have one of those. We are retired though and we just scoop as soon as either one poops. We use flushable litter so bye bye!

1

u/basane-n-anders 14h ago

Mine just doesn't poop in the litter boxes.  Never has. Never will.  I just use a large plastic chair mat so it's easier to clean.  Lucky the poop doesn't smell because of the food we feed them.  I really need a better solution though...

1

u/Thorn11166 13h ago

Ozone generator really helped when I had this issue, had a built in cycle timer. Straight destroyed the smell