when you deep clean your litter boxes how do you do it?

kilbycsr

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I'm talking about removing all the litter and scrubbing them down so they don't smell so bad. Do you use bleach or is there a special cleaner out there for this? OUrs have never been deep cleaned, which I feel terrible about, but I just had no idea how to do it.

TIA!
 

arlyn

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Our goes outside, it's about the size of a 50 gallon aquarium.
Water hose, dish soap, and a combination of bleach and uv rays to disinfect
 

hissy

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I soak my pans in a large garbage can in a mixture of hot water and vinegar. Then after about an hour's soak, I scrub them down with a toilet brush and some dawn liquid detergent, rinse them clean let them air dry. I then spray the inside bottoms with PAM cooking spray and let that dry before dumping in new litter. The PAM stops the waste from sticking to the bottom.
 

tourmaline

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I use dish soap and a brush to scrub it out and then some bleach and then I rinse well. Seems to get the job done. The litter I use seems to keep the smell down as well and the pan doesn't absorb all that much. I use a corn based litter called Scoop and Flush.
 

kittylea

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I also use a water and viniger solution. I fill up the litter box with it, let it sit and the scrub it down with a sponge/scrubbie and then rinse it off really really well. Then i dry them off with a paper towel and air dry them a bit too.
 

darkeyedgirl

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If it's warm enough outside -- I dump the boxes into the garbage, then take the boxes outside (all 6 of them at varying times), put VINEGAR in them and then fill with water; let them sit for a bit.

If it's wintertime / freezing outside: the bathtub is what I use. I just have to be real careful about the litter getting into the drain!

I just use vinegar & water; it seems to do a great job at cleaning!

Oh and, I also use Lysol wipes to wipe down the outside of the box. 3 of my 6 litter boxes are the hooded kind, so I wipe down the lids with the Lysol wipes, too.

I don't like to use bleach, can't stand the smell & I dunno what bleach would do to my grass out back! So vinegar is it. Cheap, good cleaner.
 

misscharlotte

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I usually soak my litter boxes in Oxi Clean for about one hour. It seems to work. What's the ratio of vinegar to water to use for soaking a litter box?
 

starlie

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I dump out the old litter (WBLC) in the back garden since it works as a good fertilizer. After that, I rinse the dome out with a water hose let it air dry in the sun, then wipe it down with Clorox wipes. I let it dry a little more then wipe it down again with Litterbox wipes (from Petkin).

I've never heard of the water/vinegar soultion until now. What is the water to vinegar ratio?
 

starlie

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Thanks! I'll try the water/vinegar solution the next time I clean their box.
 

sharky

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I use h2o and elbow grease ..... onece a month a vinger and h2o and once every 3-6 months ammonnia
 

petnurse2265

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I clean mine daily with clorox clean up spray. I only put enough cat litter to barely cover the bottom.
 

scamperfarms

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Once a month they get a good scrub, we soak with a mild detergent, than soak with a bleach/water mix, than air dry.. we clean everyday and out litter keeps the smell down real well
but that once a month scrub scrub scrub is good. we may move it up to. twice a month.
 

slitty_kittay

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I use hot hot water and some dish detergent to scrub out any litter stuck to the tray(I use the clumpy kind), rinse, and then put in some bleach and fill with hot water again and let it soak up to an hour. Rinse again really well and its done!!

I used to use a hot water, baking soda(not powder!) and vinegar system but it is really hard to find baking soda in a decent size box here... I always run out so I just use bleach - it kills the bugs and it breaks down into water, oxygen and salt eventually so I guess its not so bad, although I try to minimise how much I use.
 

lisalee

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I use very hot water and Ivory mild dish detergent and that's it. I do this once a week and then let it air dry for about an hour. Works for us and we never have a problem with odor.
 

juniper

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I dump out all the old litter into the garbage, spray the insides of the boxes with Simply Clean all purpose cleaner (same cleaner I use for everything, I don't use anything special, but it gets them clean), then fill them with very hot water (as hot as I can get it) and let them soak like that for 10-15 minutes. Then I dump out the water, spray them again and rinse them out under the tap in the bathtub, and rinse the tops (I have covered litterboxes) in the same way. Then dry them, and fresh litter. They look and smell clean after this, so I guess it works. I do this once a week.
 
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