Self-Cleaning Litter Boxes - Feedback?

I like having mine. I have two cats. It's great to not have to clean the clumps myself three times a day/ I have the Littermaid box, and I've had it for about two years- although it doesn't want to work today. I'm not sure whether to recommend that brand or not! It has done very well over the past two years- but it just isn't working today, so who knows. I saw a really neat one at Petco, but it was really expensive- $230. I paid $80 for my at Target, while it was on sale.

I used to have a Petmate Purforma Plus and it quit working within the first week--I had to turn it off and on again to get it to sweep. Then within a couple weeks after that, it quit working entirely.

I called them and the lady said it was a common occurrence, and to cut off a piece of the belt and send it in, and they'd send me a check for what I paid for it. I did that, and haven't gotten a check yet! It's been about a year and a half.

I don't know how they work for most people, but that was my experience. After that, I just decided I'd scoop.

I tried the Littersweep after hearing several people here say they were pleased with it. I found that when it swept, it only picked up half of what was in there, and when it dumped, it only dumped half of THAT. I felt like I was spending just as much time with it as I did with a regular box. Plus most of the time the weight distribution of the litter wasn't satisfactory to the sensor and the red light came on, indicating it wouldn't work until the weight was redistributed. I returned it to Petsmart and they didn't make any fuss about returning my money.

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We had a LitterMaid, which we ended up discarding. We have not used other brands. We hardly qualify as "experts," but we can venture a report on our own limited experience with this brand.

While we, too, have known catpersons who found these quite successful, ours did not work out well for us, but it is possible that having three cats sharing the box contributed to our problem.

First we had the A.C. power supply fail. As our son was not happy with his LitterMaid, we can't remember why, he threw his out and gave us his power supply and we gave it another chance.

We found that occasionally the "comb," which brushes the litter into the little tray in front, would manage to get litter behind it and push it to the rear. It could not go all the way back and stop but would recycle -- over, and over, and over -- literally forever unless someone stopped it and cleaned it out or it burned out (the poower supply became quite hot during the recycling).

Needless to say, when the comb is going back and forth endlessly our cats daren't use the litter box, leaving the poor dears only one undesirable option, for both them and us, for which we could not blame them. This would invariably happen when we were asleep or away from home.

While we cannot personally vouch for it, you might want to take a look at this website for several reports by dissatisfied LitterMaid customers, while at the same time keeping in mind that there have apparently been many satisfied customers.

Ya' pays yer' money and ya' takes yer' chances----

Cheers,

Jim & Ann

If your kitties don't bury then it is way messy!

I personally think the self cleaning boxes are worth it. We have one self cleaner and one regular. Patches and Beauty use the regular (since its bigger) and Luna more or less goes back and forth between the two. But it is SO GREAT not having to clean twice a day for 3 cats. Plus since it doesn't use as much scooping litter it does save on the cost of litter. Although the cost of the containers does make up for it (we do use Target though, they have some brand with Garfield on it that you get more for a little less, plus I love their Target Brand scooping litter!)
DarciFinn is right though, if they don't bury it does get messy. Patches and Beauty couldn't fit in the one we got (this is why we got the second), so I was constantly cleaning the outside.