Life for the kitties goes on much the same as it ever does – morning tuna – run around like a crazy thing for a few minutes after the tuna then find a nice spot to sleep the daytime hours away – rationed kibble during the day if one can be bothered waking up for it – see if you can sneak onto a lap at lunchtime for an extra warm nap – human sleep time AKA annoy the humans by first chasing each other around the house, meowing loudly at random intervals during the night, try to find a spot on the bed which keeps the humans awake.
Snoskred, as accustomed to living with a kitty as she is, always manages to fold herself around the sleeping kitty even when leaving the bed for a bathroom stop and returning to the bed folds herself into place perfectly, according to Happy Cat who never has to move. The Other Half is not so good at this trick and a kitty choosing to sleep on his side tends to get jostled a lot.
The past couple of weeks have been a time of much cleaning, decluttering, and general upheaval here in this household. We’ve gone all “Marie Kondo” even though I haven’t read the book, it was time to declutter. The house now positively sparkles and everything has a home to return to once it is used.
But one thing remained annoying to both of us – the kitty litter corner. First of all nobody likes to look at kitty litter. Secondly it tends to kick up some extra dust whenever it gets used. Thirdly the kitties were sometimes so intent on their burying of items that they managed to send kitty litter flying across the floor.
Fourthly we wanted to design a special kitty litter box and eventually move that out into the Nirvana permanently but were not sure what the perfect design would be, so The Other Half made a few possible designs and we thought more about how it would work. Then we procrastinated, until we decided to JUST DO IT. And here is what he made. We’re calling it The Kitty Litter Pod.
The door opens up for scooping but remains closed the rest of the time. Fans for the top are being printed on the 3d printer and will have charcoal filters added. But for now even in this format the Pod works a treat.
The kitties seem perfectly fine with The Kitty Litter Pod. Move their feeding stations though, that causes them to freak out and lose their minds. We did that too, and we have a design for building them a feeding station next!
I would certainly jostle any cat out of my position. Good work on the litter box but won’t the litter fly out the ends?
Surprisingly not, the walls are a little bit higher than the tray inside, so it seems to keep it in. Thus far we are having far less scatter than the previous box. :)
This anecdote amused me because we had thought of designing something like this for Freya but never got around to it.
Freya was quite a big cat and used to sleep on the end of the bed, on my side. For a long time after she died, I missed feeling her weight on my feet in the night.
Some nights now I get both the cats one on each side of my legs, it can be quite a challenge to navigate but my asleep self is very good at this.
Happy tends to be a bit of a sandbag, she’ll curl up right next to you and it feels like you have a warm doorstop sleeping there. You can’t move her at all.
I think everyone who has a cat thinks of the perfect kitty litter solution but we rarely implement these things. ;) The Other Half has a great mancave he can disappear into to create these kinds of items. I suppose one has to have a reason for all those tools he bought! :)
I love that litter box and would love one like it. Our cat Moose won’t sleep with me for long. I’m dangerous. Dudo will sleep with me and will push me if I push him.
We’re making a design now for a safe box which will go on the front porch and it will have a flowerbed on the top, and a lockbox section on the bottom with a padlock so the postie can leave packages ;) It will be unlocked until he needs to leave something, then he just needs to close the lock.
I was thinking you could make something like that for your balcony area – cactus on the top, kitty litter on the bottom? :)