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Comment by gnulinux | Hacker News Reader

I'm a cat owner and never had a problem with smell. No one coming into my house mentioned anything about smell. I circulate air in my house every day and clean the litterbox ever day. I'm not sure why cats would cause any smell.

And to add to this: yes I think cat ownership is very worth it. It's basically an on-demand pleasure source that you can use as long as you want, whenever you want. Just curl up into the soft kitty and feel him purring, awesome!

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I've been to a few friends places where I've smelled it. I would never tell them.

What's the smell, is it urine or poo, or the smell of litter? I would guess yeah it'd probably smell a little like the litter, but I can't see why it'd smell like urine or poo, I can't even smell it when smell the litterbox itself. Maybe depends on which kind of litter you use, mine definitely masks smell. I use Arm&Hammer litter.

urine mostly. the poop dries up pretty quick. but urine scent sticks around. my downstairs neighbour is bad at clean-up routine, you can smell it on the hallway outside of the apartment…

If you're as diligent as you say then it's probably not an issue, but hearing people state this so confidently always reminds me of the Febreze story: https://priceonomics.com/americans-thought-they-smelled-fine...

> And to add to this: yes I think cat ownership is very worth it. It's basically an on-demand pleasure source that you can use as long as you want, whenever you want. Just curl up into the soft kitty and feel him purring, awesome!

If your cat is anything like mine, it is on demand for them...

When they don't want to play they climb in the highest place that they can and look down on me and my frustrated attempts to convince them to get down for play or food.

My cat used to do this (but with low places, he hides in places like cupboards etc, he always figures out a way to open them) but he sorta stopped doing it once I started playing with him during the day too. We used to play only at night, because you know I had to go to work during the day. But due to COVID I started playing with him during my lunch break and he usually hangs out next to me the entire day now.

It goes without saying they might wanna be alone every once in a while... I think that's normal cat behavior.

> I circulate air in my house every day

Might be hard to do that in really cold weather. I live in a place that's very warm and the windows are always open, so I can't relate.

Two box fans + windows (ie, apartment) or a whole house fan in a larger house can circulate air quickly in 15m.

I find useful to do that even in winter (maybe not in North Dakota winter).

Energy recovery ventilators make this possible. There are even inexpensive window-mounted units.

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