Litter boxes are definitely the worst part of owning cats. With three kitties in the house, litter boxes are an issue. I’m constantly in search of the “perfect” box. Now, going from two cats to three, we’ve had to adjust, bigger food bowl, more water refills, more cleaning, and more litter boxes.
For the two cats, I had two litter boxes downstairs. We have a finished basement, and the stairs between the first floor and the basement have an open area under them. It is the perfect spot to have litter boxes out of the way. I keep a basket of bags there, and it is easy to clean the box, and step into the garage to put the dirty bag directly into the trashcan. When we got Bean, I added a third litter box downstairs with the others.
Little Bean started at our house without full freedom. I set him up in our laundry room which is actually an extra bedroom that we use as a laundry room. He had everything he needed in there, and it gave him a smaller space to acclimate to our home for a week or so until he was ready for run of the whole house.
As Bean gained his freedom and we started leaving him loose in the entire house while we were home, and then finally just all the time, I left his food, water, and litter box set up in the laundry room. Our older female cat, Logan, discovered this, and made herself at home.
Logan is kind of a weird cat. She spends a lot of time in our bedroom, and gets super nervous when extra people are at the house, or really there is any kind of change. I noticed that she really liked having the laundry room litter box, so I left it set up.
I don’t mind having a litter box there, the space works out, but after a few days I noticed we were starting to track litter all over the place. I bought a litter mat which is supposed to help catch and contain the litter, and it does help, but it doesn’t solve the problem.
I had heard of the Breeze litter system, and it seemed interesting, but with four litter boxes in my house, it seemed like it would be an expensive endeavor to keep up with the pads and special litter that go with it. Amazon had a deal I noticed over Christmas for the new covered Breeze box. For $23.99 I could get the box and a starter supply of litter and pads.
The timing was right. I needed a better solution for our laundry room litter box, and maybe Breeze was it.
The new box arrived just after Christmas. It took about a minute to set up, a pad goes in the bottom drawer. The drawer slides into the base, the top snaps on the base, and then you fill the base with the big, pellet litter.
Design is really excellent. I love that the top flips back and doesn’t need to be removed for cleaning. Such a simple and useful design. There is even a spot on the outside of the box for the included scoop to hang from. The drawer slides open and closed easily. Changing the bottom pad that collects urine takes less than a minute, just pull it out, fold it up, and place a new one in the drawer.
After having it for about 5 days, the cats are still trying to figure it out. They have peed in it, but they are definitely using it less than they were using a traditional box with regular, clumping litter.
The big, chunky litter definitely doesn’t scatter around the house as badly, although occasionally Bean thinks the pellets are toys and I hear him batting one around the upstairs hallway. Even with Bean using the litter as a toy, it is still much less messy than traditional litter.
So far, I’m not noticing any odor from the pads. I did find generic pads on Amazon, so I’m less worried about the price, and since this isn’t a heavily used box, I can probably get away with changing the pad once a week even though we have multiple cats.
First impression is that this box may be perfect for my laundry room. It doesn’t smell, it’s easy to keep clean, and most importantly to me, the cats aren’t tracking litter everywhere.
I’ll update again in a couple of weeks as the cats continue to adjust to the new box and litter.
How are you going to celebrate the holidays with your pets?
