"Hide-in-plain-sight" Cat Litterbox

Step 4 Final assembly

You'll need to make some adjustments depending on your materials. You don't want the canopy to move! I bolted it to the shelf on one side and to the L brackets on the other.

Be sure the litter tray can easily slide out for scooping and cleaning.

Hmmm. Looking at this photo, I may yet add another shelf at the entrance for the cats.

Comments

[popproject]

Just a thought, might cats find the wire mesh uncomfortable on their feet? seems like a great way to keep litter in the box. but, if my prissy-sissy-spoiled cat doesn't like the wire on her feet then i'll be cleaning her "business" off of the floor. anyone have any insight on sensitive cat paws?

[pokemon2539]

umm try a piece of wood that fits the drawer, or some plastic?

[deepelemgirl]

Can someone please explain to me the purpose of the wire on top? I can't figure out why lowering the hole in the wood to be level with the top of the plastic litter box wouldn't work and be even easier to put together.

[mickeymousey]

The wire on top is so the cats have to walk over it when getting out, so that any litter that is stuck on their paws will fall back into the litterbox. This helps the litter not get all over the floor! :)

[TEXACA]

hello, nice Instructable... something like this could also be built into existing cabinets, like in a workshop area, or mud-room. As far as kitty "smells", I have found that the majority of smells in a litter box are due to urine. I neutralize the urine by soaking old towels with Vinegar, placing them at the bottom of the litter-box, cover the towels with thick paper towels or several layers of newspaper. Also, drenched with Vinegar, and I pour litter on top of the paper/towel material...the vinegar neutralizes the Ph in the urine. No SMELLS, its urually the container that smells at the bottom.....works great.. --- Alfredo ps: the layer of paper keeps the litter material from away from the towels, after you dump out the material you just throw-away the paper material, resoak the towels in Vinegar. I usually keep two separate sets of towels, while one is used in the box, the other set is soaking in water/vinegar solution...

[LiaLinda]

You said, "vinegar neutralizes the PH in urine". I'm sorry to tell you that urine, which is uric acid, cannot be neutralized by vinegar, another acid. To neutralize an acid you would need it's chemical opposite - a base / alkali.

This is why you would use Baking soda (an alkali) on a Bee sting (which is acidic), and you would use vinegar (an acid) on a wasp sting (which is alkali).

In other words, you would be wayyy better off putting a layer of baking soda (an alkali) down under the kitty litter... and since the feline sense of smell is 30 times greater than our own, I'm sure kitty would be much, much happier without it's nose being stung from vinegar (the poor cat!).

While on the topic of pet urine, to get rid of urine smells altogether (ie. the dog / cat keeps peeing where they shouldn't) or any organic stains at all (ie. food, blood, grass), try using a living enzyme, which will feed on the organic matter. Some enzyme products are considered "specialty items" and are over-priced, but one of the best & cheapest can be found in the laundry soap isle at most grocery stores -- a box of dry powder called Amaze (it's often used as a laundry booster). Just dissolve a little into a bucket of warm water (not hot - the enzyme will die), and rub a paste of Amaze powder directly into the stain too before leaving the garment to soak for 2 or 3 days. By day 3 the solution will start to smell bad due to enzymes dying off / the solution stops working. If the stain doesn't come out with some light rubbing with a finger nail brush under running water, then rinse out the garment and repeat the process. And if it's for a section of carpet, make sure to cover it with a damp towel and maybe add a layer of plastic over it so that it stays wet (it won't work if the enzyme dries out).

So, use an alkalyd or an enzyme on urine - not more acid, which is what urine is.

[Purkinje]

Sorry to tell you. Cats don't excrete uric acid, they excrete nitrogen waste under the form of urea. You would be right to say that fish excrete uric acid or a chemical close to it, but mammals unlike fish use their bladder to store urine and storing uric acid would burn through the bladder. Now you are right to say that urine is acid and not alkali. This is because the kidneys excrete excess hydrogen (or acid, H+) into the urine. This extra hydrogen binds to the urea (which is alkali) and makes the urine mildly acid. The question of the smell of the cat urine is slightly more complex than a base-acid reaction. The origin behind the cat smell is a molecule named felinine. This molecule is in fact a carboxilic acid combined with an amine, a sulfuric group and an alcohol. Felinine breaks at the sulfuric group into 2 molecules, MMB (mercapto-methyl-butanol) is one of them that are volatile and propagate the smell from the cat urine. To add an acid underneath the litter makes sense. By adding an acid with a lower pKa than felinine's pKa you are neutralizing the amine and preventing felinine to work as an acid. This I think prevent felinine to break at the sulfur branch and prevent MMB formation.

[codesuidae]

Remember, cats have very sensitive noses, and can sometimes be picky about dirty boxes. Enclosed litter boxes can trap odors and discourage a cat from using a box that they might have used if it was in the open. If your cat doesn't seem to want to use the enclosed box, see if a slow vent fan helps (a noisy fan may frighten the cat though). Also, some cats (particularly older or heavier ones) may object to walking on widely spaced wires. If so, try some 'hardware cloth' square wire mesh. This comes in a variety of mesh sizes, the smaller ones should be comfortable for sensitive paws but still easily large enough to allow litter to fall though.

[BranchMonster]

A good tub o' carbon will help with the odor problem. I have one of those and a commercial "air sponge" near my litter box and they work wonders.

[cheftpm]

(removed by author or community request)

[LiaLinda]

I bought mine at a dollar store. It's a margarine container with holes in the lid, covered by a piece of sticky paper that you peel off. Inside is some waxy, spongy stuff.

[BranchMonster]

Air Sponges can be found in most department store "air freshner" aisles. I got the carbon filter from a store called Grassroots. Google them, they deliver.

[clark]

woooaaah, mellow out. try bumping the caps lock again.

[Kiribub]

Ooo- great idea. I'll be adding that this weekend.

[Detroit wagon]

Overall I think this is a nice invention! You could make this for less money by using 1/2" wire cloth (wire screen) from your local hardware store or home depot. It's not quite strong enough on it's own to support a cat, but the addition of a couple wood cross members would fix that. klee27x - putting a mat on the top would diminish the boxes ability to keep litter in the box. The uneven surface of the mesh flexes the cats foot pads and lets the stray litter fall back into the box. As a future mod, maybe using a fan to draw air through a carbon filled chamber before exhausting would be effective. You'd need to build a baffle to do this I believe.

[klee27x]

The design of the wire ramp is genius! So, uhh, post this time next week on how it actually works. If it doesn't, then maybe you could try adding a small piece of carpet or artificial grass on top of the cage for a place they can sit comfortably while shaking out their hind paws, which seems to be the first thing my cats do once they get out the box. I hope it works!

[Kiribub]

This is actually the second version of this design. I've used one very like it for the better part of ten years. It works. :)

[davidbuzz]

nuf said. fantastic +1.

[xenobiologista]

Hm...small apartment, check. Cat who likes to kick litter around, check. Bolt cutters, check. I think I'm going to try this in the future (after my city's "homeless night" in August when all the apartment leases end and people throw away furniture) Nice instructable, thanks.