A house with cats can smell amazing, but it does require an extra effort into cleaning and extra cash for better litter.
What’s physically completely impossible is to have a house without fur. Just learn to live with the fact that there will be fur between your ass cheeks, sandwich, computer, eye balls.
It’s amazing what a roomba on a daily schedule can do for the fur problem.
Have Roombas gotten better? Last time I had one it was loud and just bumped into things. Are they smarter now?
Better? Yes. Perfect? No.
I had one of the first models and they were not good.
Now, I have the i7 and it is great at dodging items I leave out (shoes, random boxes, cat toys), but it obviously performs better when the floor is free of obstruction. I do not replace the bag as recommended and disabled the setting that prevents the tower thing from becoming overfilled. There are probably cheaper options around, but the official roomba works great these days. I have it do a deep clean (every room once and the heavy traction areas twice) on Monday and Thursday and then a quick clean every day. I haven’t had to spot clean since I got the schedule started, but I do occasionally randomly run a schedule if I have guests over. I even have a very long step it can fall off of but it hasn’t even fallen off once… well not completely true, it’s wheel has got stuck off the cliff a few times.
Tldr; it’s great. Much better than before. Get one.
That’s the reason I can’t have a kitty. Allergic to cat fur for some reason.
Check out Purina liveclear food and shampoo, I just moved in with a cat and have pretty bad cat allergies, but feeding the cat that food and occasionally rubbing on some of the dry shampoo seems to have mostly eliminated the issue. I can rub my face in the kitty’s belly no problem.
Its actually a misconception, its not the fur thats causing the allergic reaction, its actually a protein the cats produce that can be found in their saliva. So when they groom themselves, the protein gets onto their fur.
Interesting fact, intact males produce more of this protein compared to female and neutered males.
Also, you can buy certain cat food that will help manage the protein (it doesn’t eliminate or stop it being produced, it just deactivates the protein). So thats one possible solution for people with allergies. Though if you’re super sensitive, it mightn’t help much.
EDIT: here’s the source
What would better litter be? I’ve tried about every brand I’ve seen in the past 5 years and the ones that have worked best are just regular brand. Maybe faster clumping is helpful (currently using Tidy Cats Instant Action), but I’ve never seen a noticeable improvement on smell.
I’m Brazilian, so I can’t really help you with brand names or even availability.
But mine is made out of lemon grass, corn and cassava. It smells like lemon grass, urine forms almost perfect spheres, and you can clean it super easily. Nice bonus: you can flush it without issues, and if your cat eats for some reason, it’s actually helpful fiber.
Avoid silica based ones like the plague.
Is there a reason people like cats pooping and pissing inside their houses? I live in an apartment and my dog hits his button to tell me he wants to go outside. I open the door to the balcony, and he goes and does his business on an astroturf tray.
They are referring to the litter box you can’t smell anymore due to smell blindness. I love a nice cat, but it’s really frustrating how many people insist the litter box in their house doesn’t smell.
It’s entirely possible to have a cat without your house smelling but so many cat owners get lazy with the litter cleaning. We have one cat, use corn based litter (can’t stand the clay smell of the cheaper litters) and scoop it once a day at least. I’ve had guests multiple times confirm with me that I had a cat when they came over because they couldn’t smell anything and are used to that smell you’re describing. One friend demanded to see where the litter box was because they didn’t believe me lol. As long as you keep on the litter it only takes like thirty seconds to scoop it so there’s no hassle doing it once or twice a day. Also using the correct litter makes a big difference too.
We switched from corn (“world’s best” brand) because it started just turning to dust. There would be so much unfouled litter that was basically useless at the bottom of the pan that we were going thru a ridiculous amount of it for 3 cats.
We switched to the Arm & Hammer zero dust and holy shit it’s so much better. Like I’m kicking myself for not switching sooner.
I scoop every day, usually more than once. On the weekend I completely dump them and refill with new litter. Monthly I pull everything out and wash it down outside.
We bought two huge plastic totes and cut cat sized holes in one end. One jumbo litter tray goes inside each, and it goes on this neat pad I found online that traps the litter from their paws really well. I keep both in the closet in my office (not used for anything else) which has sliding barn doors so we just leave each end cracked open.
I don’t think my house smells bad. I hope.
I don’t think my house smells bad. I hope.
Best way is to ask guests imo, since we’re nose blind to it. That’s how I know my house doesn’t smell, guests who don’t own cats tell me so. We use world’s best though and have great results from it, we also only have the one cat so that might explain the lack of dust compared to what you were dealing with. There’s definitely some dust but not enough to cause an issue or get anywhere outside the box.
Yeah nah fresh litter is completely and overwhelmingly fragrant, and im not about to spring for litter that’s 3x as expensive to avoid that.
Unclean and fresh litter are both pungent. One is worse, for sure, but this is just finding an excuse to claim you’re better than others lol
The litter we use is unscented, you can only smell it if you stick your head directly in the open bag. It’s only like $5-8 more than the other bags too, well within reason for a home that doesn’t smell. If you’re interested this is what we use. Can’t recommend it enough, it completely eliminates the smell as long as you keep up with cleaning. But go off on how much better I think I am than others I guess.
It’s only a problem if you leave the litter box out. Ours are all in the master bathroom, so that the living room doesn’t smell. The bathroom certainly smells, I’m extremely sensitive to smell so I straight-up go in with my nose covered, but the rest of the place is fine.
I also recommend wax melters. Wal-Mart sells this “Orange Buttercream” wax that smells exactly like Froot Loops, it’s amazing.
Does that not sound crazy to you? You cover your nose in a room in your house?
I mean, I’m used to holding my nose going into (or near/past) the bathroom anyway, since I have the misfortune of living with other people… people who are smelly savages… with horrible diets…who don’t clean up after themselves properly… Blech. At least kitties are cute and fun. It’d be worth it to me.
Imagine having someone else live in your house and they shit in your toilet, god humans stink, does that not sound crazy to you? From your posts here, I think you have some issues. Did you grow up in a stank ass house with a million cats or something?
The effect that has on the animal population around your house is pretty devastating
That depends on where you live. Every ecosystem is different.
Australia or USA? Yes thats bad.
Central Europe? Not so much.
Clean ya damn litter boxes, people. Twice a day if you have to. Imagine if you only flushed the toilet once a week.
I fucking love cats but there’s no way I would own one of they weren’t allowed to shit themselves outside. Apartments are not the places for pet ownership.
apples, lemon, water, peppercorn, allspice, cinnomomomin, whatever clove or whatever bubbling on the stove makes the house smell better and then they knock that on the floor and melt the linoleum from your pan trying to set the kitchen ablaze so yeah “weird passive aggressive roommate that shits in a box” is what you got
The amount of people in this thread telling on themselves is staggering.
“I am to lazy to clean my cat’s shit and that’s their fault and everone is like that too”.
