Five Years, Three Cats, and One Litter Robot Later: I’m Still Not in Charge Here

Pumpkin

Five years ago, a mouse slipped into our house and changed the entire trajectory of our lives. I didn’t know it at the time, of course. I thought, “Oh, a mouse. Annoying, but manageable.” What I did not think was, “This will eventually lead to three cats, a small fortune in litter, and me becoming the kind of person who checks an app to see who pooped today.” But life is full of surprises. Honestly it was me that wanted a cat for our house since I really don’t like mice in the house.

It all started when my middle son asked for a kitten for his house because he had mice. Reasonable. Then he worried the kitten would be lonely, so naturally he got two. Naming them Pumpkin and Spice… Also reasonable. Then he decided two kittens were “too much work,” and somehow — through a series of events I still cannot fully explain — we ended up with all three cats living in our house. I didn’t adopt them. We had gotten one of our own to stop mice. The other two simply arrived, unpacked their emotional baggage, and declared squatters’ rights.

To their credit, they do seem to be on constant mouse patrol. They also seem to be on constant “cause chaos” patrol. They break things. They knock things off shelves. They weave around our feet like furry landmines. They have shredded all the furniture and carpets and they have opinions about everything, especially breakfast. They are, in short, cats.

Somewhere in the middle of this feline takeover, I realized that scooping litter for three cats was not a sustainable lifestyle. We had a self-cleaning litter box that used crystal litter and needed weekly cleaning, but the cats staged a quiet, unified protest and refused to use it. They wanted clumping litter. They wanted comfort. They wanted luxury. They wanted… a spa experience.

A friend suggested the Litter Robot, and because I value my sanity, I bought one. It was magical. It cleaned itself. It dumped everything neatly into a drawer. All I had to do was pull out the bag every couple of days and replace it. No scooping. No scraping. No crying in the laundry room. It was glorious.

Of course, the cats were convinced it was a rotating death trap. The first time I tried to put one in, they spread themselves out like flying squirrels and clawed their way to freedom. Eventually, I bribed Spice with a treat, and once she survived the experience, Pumpkin decided it might be safe. Socks, naturally, waited until the others had thoroughly tested it for danger before even considering stepping inside.

Once they accepted it, though, they abandoned every other litter box in the house like they’d never seen them before. They love that it’s always clean. They love the regular litter. They love the prestige of having a toilet more technologically advanced than most of the appliances in the kitchen.

And when the drawer gets full and the Litter Robot stops cycling? They come find me. They meow. They stare. They follow me like a tiny, judgmental parade until I empty it. I am, apparently, the designated maintenance worker for their automated bathroom.

We’ve even upgraded our Litter Robot once — because of course we did. When you have three cats and a device that prevents you from having to scoop litter like a medieval peasant, you protect that investment.

The WiFi feature is a bonus. I can check usage stats, get alerts when the drawer is full, and monitor which cat is the overachiever of the week. It also uses less litter overall, since I’m just topping it off instead of dumping everything weekly. And did I mention the joy of no more scooping? Because truly, that alone is worth a parade. The new one even uses weight to identify each cat. The app is named Whisker, and though it’s not perfect it does try to track every use of the litter box. Can we all say information overload? I tend to not look often, but it is really interesting for a data geek like me.

Five years later, the mouse is long gone. The cats are still here. The Litter Robot is still spinning. And I’ve accepted that I am no longer the head of this household — I am simply the staff. In reality we are hoping our youngest take the cats with when he heads out to school. I’d love to keep Socks with us, since I don’t really want to deal with all the mice again.

Updating the original post that was I posted on https://kidskouponsandkrafts.com on October 18, 2021.