Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I remember months ago when a poster requested cleaning tips and we all gave some (I passed on my love of the Fuller Brush sweeper)... Well, I thought of another today I haven't passed on that is almost as awesome...

A paper plate. I keep a paper plate in handy reach (in my dish drainer) for when Stanley has a hairball. He has a long wind up period (gagging before the actual hairball), so when I hear him first start gagging, I grab the plate and put it under him. Keep ahold of it to follow his head... It catches the hairball. He tends to "throw-up" three times if he has a hairball, so I follow him with the plate. I then flush what is on it and throw the plate away. I started this a year or two ago and I rarely have a hairball on the floor to clean up. I hardly ever use carpet cleaner anymore.

He doesn't get sick too often, maybe once a week at most... Pookey never gets sick. If I do have to use carpet cleaner, I buy Dollar Tree carpet cleaner -- works the same as Resolve for 1/4 the price...

Anyway, a cheap paper plate will save you the hassle of cleaning up a hairball mess...

Anybody have any great time-saving tips out there?
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Tammy
Stanley and Pookey

no actual tip, just a war story.

A couple months ago I read somewhere that you shouldn't clean a litter box with bleach because it will cause some cats to refuse the box. I had just switched from Clorox to Target brand and Annie had pooped on a throw rug 2-3 times in as many days. Now I thought it was a behavior issue between her and Stink, but just in case it was the new bleach, I stopped using it when I scrubbed the boxes each week.

I do this in a half bath we have in the basement. There is a roughed in concrete shower built when the house was built, and a previous owner constructed the bathroom around it. So I dump the dirty water from the litter box down the toilet, and after the final rinse, set the boxes upside down to air dry in the concrete shower. No biggie.

Only after I quit using the bleach, there was enough urine scent left that one of my cats (don't know who) decided to pee in the shower several times. So I bleached the floor. Didn't work.

Concrete is porous. Bleach didn't clean it, petzyme didn't clean it, instead it got worse. I had some nasty chemical reaction going on in the concrete (it foamed up!) which was enough to knock the nose off your face. It was awful and getting worse each time I cleaned it.

So Thursday I petzyme one last time, Friday I set a fan in there to completely dry it out, and yesterday I painted the concrete floor with a thick coat of oil based porch and floor paint. Unable to clean it, I had to seal the floor. The stench is finally gone.

But as I left Lowe's yesterday with my non-refundable paint, I spotted their carpet guy - and remembered he told us to immediately use vinegar on cat urine stains to stop it's corrosive qualities. I wonder......

Yowza. Foaming concrete. Since the concrete is porous, the vinegar may have helped with the smell (I doubt it if the petzyme stuff didn't work) but you still would have had the stain... Sealing it up is probably the best idea...

Did stopping the bleach in the box stop the #2 on the throw rug?
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Tammy
Stanley and Pookey

Did stopping the bleach in the box stop the #2 on the throw rug?
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Really not sure one way or another, but given the choice, I'd say no.

Stink has had her ups and downs over the past several months, but generally I've discovered when she has had food with chicken or turkey in it is when she slides downhill. (last week I walked into the kitchen to find her eating Lizzy's cheap crunchies which I put on the back of the stove when I leave the room. Stink jumped onto the stove - and was unhappy and quiet for the next two days with stomach upset.) when Stink rebounds from these off days, the first thing she does is beat up Annie.

Annie has only missed the litterbox since I was married, and it seems to only happen when both Big Scary Man and Stink are on the rampage (felinely speaking)And I have no real idea which cat peed in the shower either...it's a mystery. The two may not be connected.

Big Scary Man has no idea what happened, he just thinks I didn't clean litterboxes last two weeks. We use the half bath shower so rarely I hope to have a few things other things changed in the bathroom (in an effort to sell our house faster, of course!) so I don't have to admit what one of my cats did.

"Just doing a general upgrade honey, I'd never hide what damage my cats did....."

"Just doing a general upgrade honey, I'd never hide what damage my cats did....."

LOL!!

I think in the first 13ish years with the boys, there was one accident (#2) outside of the box that I can ever recall... However, now that they are older and constipation/dry stools affect them, I find a piece of dry #2 outside the box every couple months or so... There is also some in the litter box, so I know it is simply it hits them after they have left the box and they can't react fast enough...

I shared this exciting story with you as I don't recall how old your oldest cat is... If 10 or older, dry stools can affect them and accidents happen randomly... Hairball treats/tube stuff helps the boys considerably (Stanley is actually on a prescribed stool softner as well). But accidents happen...
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Tammy
Stanley and Pookey

I shared this exciting story with you as I don't recall how old your oldest cat is... If 10 or older, dry stools can affect them and accidents happen randomly..
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Best guess, Annie was born late summer 1998 making her 8 1/2. Recently her bowels have changed - she gets runny stools if she is stressed. oh joy!

I've been faced with more litter box issues since being married than in my entire cat owned history, all which seem to be Annie's. I've added a litterbox, moved them until she liked the set up. She misses more fequently when they are clean then dirty(?!?!?!)

First misses on the throw rug I added a Feliway plug-in for 30 days. That was last year. Problem ended until I switched bleach brands.

Stink controls the basement, so on scrub the boxes day, Stink lies in wait for Annie and Lizzy. I moved a box to within a few feet of the basement steps, facing the steps, and that is where Annie likes to pee. Get in, get done, get out. But there are so many places for Stink to hide - one of the quirks of marrying so late in life is BSM and I each brought LOTS of household stuff into the marriage which we are still sorting thru. The basement is packed making lots of hidey holes for Stink to pounce from. With a roaming baby on the loose, putting a litterbox upstairs is not an option.

The Annie's misses also seem to follow Stink's illness and/or BSM's really loud days. Her annual is in June - it may be time for kitty prozac.

Back to the original thought of this thread - a girlfriend and I each got new vaccums this winter.

She got the $300+ Kennmore canister rated as the top pick by Consumer reports. Her 10 year old carpets in a multicat house haven't looked this good since I don't know when. Punky and I rolled all over them yesterday and came up clean.

I got one of their secondary picks, the $149 Eureka The Boss Smartvac upright. Big Scary Man's carpets haven't looked this good since I first met him. Punky and I roll all over them everyday and come up clean.

Interestingly, CR didn't rate the Dyson line very high. BSM's cousin owns a Dyson and one dog. Punky and I plopped down on the floor 30 seconds after he ran it for a second time in a single day - and came up coated in dog fur. Ugh.