I'm getting ready to surrender - I live in an apartment with wood floors and two cats. This means that I have dust bunnies the size of Texas and cat litter everywhere. I can't keep up with the mess - and even when I try, 30 minutes later, more dust bunnies, etc.

I have a normal vacuum sweeper but I think it's better suited for carpets. I have a dust mop but it doesn't keep up with the litter and other stuff that ends up on the floor.

Can anyone recommend a way to deal with this - be it a different kind of vacuum or putting rugs everywhere?

Thank you.

-- Anonymous, September 22, 1999

Answers

We have all wood floors, plus three cats, a dog, and a long haired boy who sheds more than the other four combined. Frankly, our floors are always a little gross, but they aren't as bad as our carpets used to be.

We do have area rugs which take the bulk of the shedding, etc. But for the floors, we use a broom and a dustmop, the latter with a little Endust. Ideally we'd sweep a couple times a week and use the dustmop once a week, but ... well, that just never happens. But I would think that a routine like that would keep the problem under control.

Warning: if they're nice polished wood floors, use a new broom and change it pretty often, or you'll eventually scratch the floors.

And don't get a puppy. Lord, just don't get a puppy. I don't want to talk about my floors.

-- Anonymous, September 22, 1999

Have you put a rug/rubber mat/etc around the litter box? Theoretically that would help concentrate the litter remnants in that area. Of course, my last place had carpets and litter still got tracked down the hall, through my room, and to the window.

And look on the bright side: your dust bunnies will coem up of their own accord, and you don't have to scrape them out of the carpet. (A cat shedding blade works very well on the carpets, btw)

-- Anonymous, September 22, 1999

This doesn't work for litter flying around (I think you need a mat or confining the litter box to a closet for that) but the dust bunnies *will* succumb to the swiffer, or its rivals. It's all we talk about on the DECLUTTR list these days.

it's a flat rectangular mop-head type of thing, with little magical disposable cloths. you poke the corners of the cloth into the appropriate corners of the "mop". the dust and hair just flys on, and clings, with no residue.

Check it out!

Anita of Anita's BOD and Anita's LOL

-- Anonymous, September 23, 1999

The swiffer looks awesome! (I just wish the cloths were recyclable or something.)

Plus, the site has humor! Not intentional but still - scroll to the bottom of the FAQ page and read the "Now a word from our lawyers. . ."

http://www.swiffer.com/faqs.html

I would LOVE someone to explain that.

-- Anonymous, September 23, 1999

Hmmm. Well I've noticed that since we switched the bulk of our kitties to Feline Pine instead of the regular clumping/clay whatever type litter, that there's far less random junk from the litter box tracked all over the house.

We also keep the litterbox in the bathroom where the floor is tiled so that it's easy to simply vacuum up what sawdust does wind up tracking out of the box once a week or so.

I also bought one of those little mat thingies and put it down in front of yon box and that helped cut down on the sawdust tracking even more.

Unfortunately, the stray that we're fostering, can't seem to adjust to the pine chips, so we have to live with the problem of little bits of clay litter all over the floor and ground into the carpet and stuck to the bottoms of bare feet in our bedroom at the moment.

So in general I think that trying out "alternate" litter methods, such as the pine chips, cedar chips or newsprint flakes, might help a bit.

And man, would I ever LOVE to have hardwood floors. It's always SUCH a joy to clean up cat puke from the carpeting, or discover the occasional cat turd that got stuck on a cat-butt and then dropped off behind, say, the TV and promptly ground in.

Yech.

-- Anonymous, September 23, 1999

Vis-a-vis the litter problem, there's this new miracle litter out called Crystal Clear Litter Pearls that hypes itself as "The Litter of The Future!" (TM) It's made of those little silica balls that you find packed with moisture-sensitive products such as leather goods. The dessicants suck up all the moisture and odor from cat whiz IMMEDIATELY; you just use a slotted spoon to scoop out the "solid waste" (cat shit) every couple of days. Their motto is "One bag, one cat, one month", meaning that you can leave it go for a month with one cat but if you have more than one you need to do a little primitive math to figure out how much those little silica bits can absorb before they're plum tuckered out, e.g. change it every two weeks with two cats and every ten days with three. This stuff doesn't track or stick to fur because it dries almost immediately after the cat pees on it. (Should you leave it too long, the silica becomes overtaxed or something, gives up the ghost, and turns into this yellow sludge that emits the foulest of foul odors, so don't be chintzy about changing it.)

This concludes my unpaid product endorsement. Remember, that's THE LITTER OF THE FUTURE (TM)! Mention this ad and receive fifty cents off (or get a blank stare from the clerk!)

And gabby, if you own your home instead of renting, you might look into a Swedish finish. You can entertain clydesdales in your living room without worrying about your floors provided you've got one of those babies. The only drawback is that you have to move out of your house while it's being put down because otherwise you'll asphyixiate on the fumes, but the risk of death is a small price to pay for a really nice Swedish finish.

-- Anonymous, September 23, 1999

It is an interesting and unusual fact that if your cat throws up on the carpet/sofa/spare blanket/etc., and if you don't find it until after it has completely dried, it can be easily brushed off, or knocked off with the little pointy vacuum attachment.

And if they throw up, say, on the base of your halogen torchiere and it dries, you have to scrub like crazy with actual cleaning products to get it off. My vote goes to carpet for the cleaning up cat vomit race.

-- Anonymous, September 24, 1999

Re: the silica litter... My cat grooms his toes, a bit obsessively, and I'm quite certain that part of his attention is because he gets litter caught between them. Wouldn't it be dangerous if he ate one of the silica balls? Is there any caution against doing so or is it just assumed that the cat would never ingest one?

I don't really know if he would eat one, maybe he spits out the litter he finds between his toes but it seems a big risk to take.

-- Anonymous, September 24, 1999

Re the little pearls litter. Wonderful stuff and it wouldn't hurt if ingested. Mr. Blue (ate three of them and it didn't bother him). Besides, I asked and they said it wouldn't but ya know. It did work at eliminating odors and all that. One other thing I've noticed I feed him that Special Care Cat Chow and he doesn't have as many bowel movements AND they don't smell as bad.

But back to the litter. I also put the litter box in a laundry room with linoleum floor with a large rug directly in front of the box. I never have litter tracked through the house.

-- Anonymous, September 26, 1999

Yeah, we don't have very many problems with litter anymore, either. We use Everfresh, which clumps but isn't that annoying sandy stuff that gets everywhere. Plus it has charcoal and doesn't smell as much as other litter. I think we're going to try the pearls, but I don't know how it will work for us -- Sally really hates change!

We have one of those plastic litter pads, which does help some. I keep the litter on the back porch and sweep up around it every day. I used to keep it in the bathroom when we had less space, and then I swept it twice a day -- I kept a little whisk broom on top of the litter box, and just swept it up whenever it got too bad. We still had litter everywhere until we switched to Everfresh, though.

-- Anonymous, September 26, 1999

And this thread just reminds me once again why I do not now, and never will at any time in the future, own a damn cat.

Blech.

But I second any and all votes for the Swiffer (I believe that Pledge has a rival product out, and there are knock-offs available at Wal- Mart and Target and such places.) because it kicks butt. Gets lhasa apso sheddings (which are very few) up from my ceramic tile and parquet flooring with great ease.

Plus my four year old thinks that it is magical and wants to use it for mommy because it is fun. You can't argue with something that makes a kid want to do housework.

-- Anonymous, September 27, 1999