Looking (again) for plastic!

I'm once again looking for a plastic product. And yes, I'm once again looking for it to address a cat issue

I'm attempting to address the issue of litter tracking, which I've become fed up with. One of our litter boxes is in the bathroom, and I'm tired of stepping on litter when I get out of the shower everyday, or walking over the pieces that have been brought out onto the carpet of the room.

I currently have a mat, but it only does a mediocre job. I've long thought that a great idea would be to have a grate that had big enough openings to allow litter to fall through, but small enough so the cats don't mind walking on it. I've found two solutions, but they both have problems:

Paw Path looks like a good product, but it's really expensive and seems a little overdone. I don't need those barriers on the sides, for instance, as I already have a narrow path to the litter box.

Welcome Litter Mat is, unfortunately, exactly what I want in every way, but apparently it's no longer on Amazon and the company that makes it no longer exists, as even though it says their site is under construction, any attempts to contact them using the information on other pages on their site are fruitless.

So what I'm looking for is really nothing more than a plastic grate of a certain size with a somewhat small size for the openings. I can put that on a plastic tray or something. I've done hours of Googling, but can't seem to find anything. If you guys are able to, I'd be grateful (sorry). And if you can think of some way I might be able to get in touch with that Group One Pet Products company, that would be amazing too.

Sorry for another very weird, esoteric post

Seems like a piece of egg crate light diffusor would work. Home Depot or Lowes has what you need. It's the white grid you see covering fluorescent lighting in many offices.

Image: http://www.collins-consulting.org/orchids/eggCrate.jpg

I have two of those, one currently in use, the other sitting in my garage, because I don't have space in the current set-up for it. They work okay-ish -- certainly better than nothing -- but are not a panacea. A single one doesn't cover enough of an area. Litter is tenacious, and will cling to the cats long enough for them to step past the mat. I have a small dust-mop near the litter box area, that every now and then when I go past, I sweep up the litter into a corner for vacuuming.

I've also tried this mat, which was reasonable for fine-grained litter, but not so good for things like litter pearls. The cats also seemed to try jumping over it, too. After giving up on that one, I found a small ribbed entrance mat at Home Depot, and cut a swatch out of that. This worked quite well, but it was made to sit on top of carpet, and has little rubber nibs on the bottom to grip the carpet to keep it from sliding around, which wasn't so good when we moved to a place with hardwood floors.

I don't think a cat is going to like walking across that. The desired mat has plastic ribs that are 2-3mm thick, spaced to give holes roughly 5mm x 5mm.

Bruno, unfortunately that grate looks like I'd end up with four stuck paws. It's a little hard to get scale from that photo, but I'm guessing the holes are pretty large.


Wow! I didn't expect anyone here to actually have one of them! Thanks for the feedback. It's good to know how effective it is, though I think it would be better than what I have. I just wish the company still sold them. I'd be happy to take your spare off your hands Name your price! (actually, I don't even know how much they cost when they were for sale, so you can gouge me here ).

And you're not kidding about the tenacity of litter in its ability to cling to the cats' paws. It's ridiculous! If anything, I would have thought that slightly larger-grain litter would track less, but apparently there's really no difference, as I have a pretty high-quality litter and it tracks just as much as the next brand

Maybe something like this?

Heh, I found those too, and they look like a possibility. I don't know why, though, but I get this feeling like it might not work. It's difficult to get an idea of how wide the ribs or the openings are, and so it seems like they'd be walking mostly on surfaces that didn't remove any litter at all.

It would be worth a shot, but it's pretty expensive. Plus it's actually way too long for my purposes, and I question whether my jigsaw (my one power tool) could get through that material...

I got mine about 10 years ago, IIRC.


I'll have to think about it. I've been holding on to it with the intention of using it when I upgrade the litter box from what was supposedly a temporary location.


It does track less -- you just aren't thinking large enough.

I use wood pellets. $4 for a 40lb bag. It starts to track more as it breaks down, but after a freshly changed box, it doesn't track at all.

For what it's worth, all the cats I've ever had would go far out of their way to avoid whatever de-littering pad I put in front of the litter box, up to and including not using the litter box, if it became impossible to get into the litter box without stepping on the pad.

Wow! Now that's picky! Mine seem okay with the pads I've had so far, and we've had about 4 different kinds. I've certainly had other litter box issues, but the mats have never been one of them. And with at least one of the boxes, there is absolutely no way for them to leave the box without putting every paw down at least once.

Wouldn't a piece of carpet work ? or http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_ug7WEUxH68

More links:

http://www.pawpathlittermat.com/

That's really going down the river(s).

Haha, yeah, I wish. I don't think I'd ever be able to get my cat to do that. I don't think a regular carpet would be any better than the mat I have right now.


Yeah, that was one of the two options I linked to in my first post. It's probably what I'll end up with, but it's very expensive, and I'm not sure it would even fit in the areas I'd need to put it.

Guess I missed that you found that one.


Have you looked for welcome or door mats ?

This is even more expensive

Another one

Another one

You can buy this kind of stuff by the foot for cheap at home improvement stores. I had some in an entry way and it trapped a lot of dirt. I would get a big pile when I took it outside to shake out. Link

I use that light diffuser. The grid is like 1/2" squares, and the cats don't mind it at all. Mostly. I turned the litter box so the opening is towards the wall, so they have to walk across the diffuser to get there and out. It works quite well. It was also like $1.

At that price, you might as well give it a shot.

True, though I'm still concerned. 1/2" seems a bit wide to me... If only they had something slightly smaller...

Which light diffuser? I can't find one for anything close to $1, and the site that contains the image that Bruno posted at the start of the thread does not seem to be in the business of selling them (and they only seem to work with IE5? huh?).

I got mine from Home Despot or Lowes. Don't stress over the size, it works fine.

Where are you guys finding these things for $1? The lowest they had it ad Home Depot was $11. Considering I don't know how I'd cut one of those up, I'm not sure I want to spend $11 on something that I might need to by a backup for. I'm also still not convinced that the cats would like walking on that, and I don't want to turn them off the litter boxes...

I don't recall exactly what I paid, and it would have been a decade ago.

I cut mine into an L shape with wire cutters. These things readily break (they wanna break), but it was easy to do and I cleaned up the sharp pieces with pliers.

As I say, none of my five cats ever minded it.

I have a theory about the spacing... I think it was wide enough that it flexed the cat's paws, causing the gravel to fall out. I think if it supported the paw too well, the bits would stay between their toes.

Hmm, well maybe I'll give it a shot then I wish I could find it cheaper, but it's not terrible so I'll buy one.

Besides, I think I should trust you on this, given your avatar

I rather thought it an indication for his affinity towards schizophrenia.

Or it could be I like Oingo Boingo...

Talk to the building maintenance guy when you end up in an office building maybe they have some old ones ?

If you buy one at home depot and the cat won't walk on it return it.

Okay, I didn't remember that in the least.

My daughters are big fans of Louis Wain's later stuff...

Yeah, the avatar kind of says it all...

Art, Music, Cats, Insanity...