I was going to just use the answer box, but didn’t have enough characters. Hopefully UfYH will see this, ‘cause I fail at Tumblr.
Here is the answer to your problem, superdarkfuntimes: first, dump all of the current litter in a bag. There is no nice way to do this, I’m…
Nooooooooooooooooooooooooo
No Liners Ever!!! They just make more mess, because cats shred the liners, making it impossible to remove the litter in one fail go.
The biggest key to keeping your house from having a pet smell is quality food. The best you can buy, grain free for cats and dogs, will save you money because they eat dramatically less, keep your pet happier and healthier, and make their eliminations smaller and less stinky. More on that here.
But for general litter cleaning this is everything that you will need:
- Good cat litter.
- Enough hard plastic litter boxes for your cats (1 per cat + 1)
- Jumbo garbage bags, a dust mask
- A good poop scoop
- Dog poo pick up bags
First step: Use. Good. Litter.
Use a clumping litter like the OP suggested but stay away from heavily fragranced clay litters. There are lots of reasons here. First, covering up a stink isn’t unfucking. It’s hiding your dirty secrets and facilitating your worthless excuses. You want to smell it, so you remember to clean it. But I think the most important is that they are terrible for your entire family. Clay litter is DUSTY, even the “low dust” formulas are major dust bombs and that’s bad for folks with asthma and allergies and fragrance sensitivities (including kitties). Last— dusty litter makes your house dusty. Why do that to yourself?
I like a grain and wood-based litter like Worlds Best Cat Litter. It’s virtually dust-free, sustainably produced, and an $8 bag lasts me an entire month with two cats.
Next step: use your litter box properly.
Having enough boxes lets your cats pee in separate boxes. Lots of terrible smells happen when two cats (especially two boy cats, even fixed) piss in the same box. Cats know this. Let them keep that stuff separate.
Fill your litter pans with two inches of litter. No more. No less. Add 1/4 cup of baking soda into each litter box to help keep urine pH from going wacky and being a bacteria breeding ground.
Scoop daily. Put the waste in a dog shit bag, tie the top, put it in the trash, never smell it again. Add more litter to maintain the two inch mark.
Change all the litter monthly: open a jumbo garbage bag and roll the top back. Place it open on the floor. Stick on a dust mask (remember how dust is terrible for you?) and pour it into the open bag. Scrape out any stuck on stuff (but since you scoop daily, there shouldn’t be any) Grab the rolled back top and close it. Take it outside. Ta-Da.
Rinse your box monthly and let it air dry. Hot water, in the tub, will work fine and give you an excuse to scrub out your tub. Never ever use bleach in a litter box because cat pee has ammonia and ammonia + bleach = terrible idea.
Finally— get a new litter box every year. Just. Trust me.
My cat is a jerk and will only use the most disgusting, perfumed clay litter. When I tried The World’s Best Cat Litter (which worked great for my last cat,) Professor refused to use it and Xanadu wouldn’t stop eating it. Ugh. Such a mess.
I have tried every kind of litter, and Professor has made it very clear he will only use the blue label Tidy Cat, so my house always smells like that gross litter. :( And it doesn’t even clump that well. Good thing Professor jerk-face is so danged cute.
