Hacker News Reader

Comment by r00fus | Hacker News Reader

Regarding the litter and smell - being a relatively new cat owner I did a lot of reading and I came to 2 conclusions (note: I only have one cat, and she's < 1 yo):

1) Litter needs scooping every day. Otherwise cat will rightfully be upset and do poop in the wrong place just to let you know. Recommended to have N+1 litters for the N cats, but small apartment = difficult to place/clean all of them.

2) According to many cat books (notably Jackson Galaxy) litters are a prime scent-soaker and major signpost that lets cat mark their territory. So venting them outside may cause other confidence issues.

Could the smell issue be resolved by simply scooping regularly?

View on HN

I don't really understand smell complaints with litter. I have a cat that has VERY stinky poops and the litter box is in my bedroom (it's in a closet area that I removed the door from).

If he poops then I remove it immediately. Otherwise I collect any urine deposits at night before I go to bed.

Obviously the poop itself smells but I've never had a problem with litter smell and don't understand what people are doing wrong. Surely they just aren't cleaning the litter box enough.

People vary widely in their sensitivity to particular smells.

My kids made a "compost jar" for a school project a few years ago. They took some soil, a bunch of rotting food waste, and earthworms and put it all in a jar. At some point, the jar was accidentally got left too close to a window and the worms got crisped and died. It took several days for us to notice. I threw that rotting dark concoction out in the garden.

Unbeknownst to me, the dog got out and—like dogs do—decided to gulp that whole pungent witch's brew down. It became very beknownst to me about ten minutes later when she threw the whole thing up on the brand new rug. We're talking a large puddle of hot garbage, rotting earthworms, dogfood, and bile. It was vile. The smell was heart-stopping. I have never cleaned up a mess so fast in my life.

Even so, cat poop is worse for me. It will make me gag instantly. Something about the fishy meatiness of it turns my stomach.

Pine litter completely removed the smell for me.

Unfortunately it turns out that after years of use cats can develop an allergy to it, which one of my cats did, so I had to stop using it.

But it is by far the best litter at odor control. The bathroom basically smelled like a forest.

In my experience, it's 1). scooping regularly, and 2) change the litter when it first starts to lose the potency.

The only time I had a cat smell problem was at the start of the quarantine, and my litter delivery got delayed. I still scoop regularly, but the remaining litter had obviously been less effective in containing the odor.

Since then, I've had a double-buffer for cat litter supply.

> So venting them outside may cause other confidence issues

This seems like perverse logic though. You're venting toxic ammonias and spores to the outside...where they're supposed to go in the first place.

So the litter acts as a trapping agent by desiccating the waste. Only occasionally (usually when we're lazy about cleaning) does the litter stink.

The smells the cat cares about are its pheromones/scent. Cats are highly smell-oriented (they don't taste food as much as smell it), so venting all that cat-smell outside could cause the cat to find other places to mark.

I get what you're saying, but IME cats are more likely to start hunting for shoebins and handbags to pee in when the litter box is too dirty...not when it smells too fresh. They're pretty anal about keeping clean.

In any case, there is more at stake here than scent-- do mind that the ammonia vapors from cat urine are toxic and can lead to hard-to-diagnose respiratory and psychological issues. A dirty litter box will also breed toxoplasmosis spores (dessication actually makes this issue worse-- dry spores are more easily spread when disturbed).

You really don't want standing organic waste in your home if you can avoid it. It doesn't benefit you or your cat.

> 1) Litter needs scooping every day.

Blows my mind how many people let it go for days and days and then complain. Literally sub-20-seconds every morning to scoop into a small office garbage can (with a foot pedal) fitted with a plastic bag. The garbage can controls the smell, and every few days you toss the plastic bag in the garbage. Done and done.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com