Recommend your litter box please

[wellyes]

DH is not doing a good job of keeping up with the cat's litter, and I sure as heck don't want to do it, so I want an automated system.
What works?

[BunnyBee]

Are your cats at all...mental? Mine seemed perfectly well-adjusted until we got a Litter Maid. It started years of pee issues with our male cat. Buspar, special litter, "reprogramming," all kinds of headaches that popped back up when we moved or did anything remotely stressful. One of my best friends has a cat who refuses to use the automatic kind, but another one who loves it and won't use a regular one. She now cleans two boxes.

[Momit]

My in-laws had trouble with one of the automatic ones. It started the clean function while the cat was still in there and totally freaked out the kitty. He then started peeing on the floor right outside the litterbox. Oops. So I have stuck with doing it the old fashioned way after hearing that story.

[tabegle]

This is the one we have and had this same one for 5+ years: http://www.amazon.com/Littermaid-Classic-Automatic-Cleaning-Single-Cat/dp/B003NNVMOE/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1398171004&sr=8-2&keywords=littermaid+box

I love that it works and I only need to clean it out once a week. (one cat).

We also have this: http://www.amazon.com/LitterMaid-LMT100-Cat-Privacy-Tent/dp/B00005MF9V/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1398171027&sr=8-1&keywords=littermaid+box+canopy

It forces the cat to use the one entrance to the litterbox, so if there is any trailing of litter, it goes in one direction. Mine never fully zipped on, and it really is just a cheap piece of plastic (ours is broken in a few places thanks to mil putting a laundry basket on it), but it is still fully functional and serves it purpose.

I don't necessarily change the receptacles every week, I just dump it out and reuse, but DH does. It works out to about $1-$1.25 a receptacle. I buy them at walmart.

ETA: My neighbor bought hers local and was able to return it when her cats wouldn't have anything to do with it. That never occurred to me, but if you are worried the cat won't take to it, buy local and hopefully they will take this kind of return. Also, the recommendation was to put the new auto-box by the old box, and not clean out the old box. The cat should naturally want to go in the new clean box which will help him/her get used to the new box that is always clean.