Hi there, I have 2 indoor cats (who hate the outdoors and have no intention of going out anytime soon) Thomas is a 2 year old castrated male and Mia is approx 9 months old. I love my cats but I absolutely HATE the cat trays, the cat litter, the odour etc. But we have no choice but to use them. When we just had Thomas it was just barable but now we have 2 cats its twice as bad. Its not long after we clean the trays out that they need doing again because of the smell (our flat is quite small so it travels through from the bathroom) its really annoying and embarassing does anyone have any tips to eliminate odour? Because cleaning them out just seems endless at the moment! And we cant keep the bathroom light/fan on 24/7, plus we run out of litter much faster than usual :/ any help would be great!

Use a good quality litter. (World's Best (multicat)) Use a deep covering about 4 - 5 inches so they can dig and bury. Scoop out their business at least twice per day. Completely empty and disinfect trays once a month. Do not use tray freshners etc.

World's Best is expensive but I have found it's the best. Little waste, little tracking and it's flushable (in great big clumps).

Are you doing a full clean every time? This is likely to make matters worse because the first thing the cats want to do is resent it. Just spot clean, changing fully once a week at most, I'm pretty sure the scent will die down quick. You could also look into hooded trays with odour collector strips.

I always found that taking the poos and the wet patches out as soon as you can helps a lot. I also use shredded newspaper to bulk out the litter.

you can buy litter fresh in most supermarkets its just a powder that smells of pine that you sprinkle into the litter and also if your cats eat dry food at all you could try indoor cat biscuits, i honestly didnt think they were any different from any other biscuit but when i stopped using them recently i really noticed the difference in the smell...

Use Catsan. I live in a tiny flat, and no one ever complains about the smell

Do you have a hooded tray? I do find that these do minimise the odour, particularly those with filters built into the lid. My Millie uses her covered tray perioidically - sometimes she goes outside, sometimes she comes in from outdoors to use the tray. To be honest, I don't really smell anything and I only realise she has been by the trail of cat litter on the floor.
Catsan seem to be good at absorbing odours.

Hooded tray and CatSan = no smell.

Like another poster I tend to use Worlds Best mainly because its flushable and then its kind to the cats paws and they like it , and if I run out I use this one http://www.ocado.com/webshop/product...itter/75922011

again as the cats like it and also the odour is good.

Clean the cat tray with white vinegar, it is a deodoriser as well as anti bacterial

This.

I read that bicarbonate of soda sprinkled in the bottom of the tray helps with odour.

If you use the standard gravel stuff, it scrapes the bottom of the litter tray. In time, this take enough of the top layer of plastic off that cat wee soaks in and no amount of scrubbing gets it out. We replaced several litter trays before it dawned on us this is what was happening.

We switched to wood based litter (I use the Catsan one) and the problem went away as it doesn't scratch the tray.


I tried the "worlds best cat litter" stuff when my local Pets At Home helpfully decided to stop stocking the Catsan wood one. I wasn't impressed. Twice the price (to fill my tray 4-5 inches deep would cost £40-£50 using this stuff!!!) of Catsan and the bag barely covered the bottom of the litter tray. I've found an independent pet store now that will order me batches of Catsan (PaH tried and failed miserably) so I've switched back to that now.

A covered litter tray also helps. However, if you end up with a "side pee-er" (my cat developed this habit when she had a bag leg and never lost it. She now always pee's against the side of the litter box), there is only one covered box I've found that is totally leak-proof. It's a Gimpet one I got from ZooPlus.co.uk. I tried LOADS of other ones (mostly from PaH) and every single one of them leaked.