Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

Moving from a townhouse into a small apartment creates many problems -- the one that's relevant to you is that my tiny roommate still refuses to flush the toilet. She somehow believes this is my responsibility, and so, in capitulation, I made this purchase to prevent odors from readily permeating our shared living space. It's fortunate that I made a profit when I sold my house, as I was then able to afford throwing money at this problem. Unfortunately the first week was a complete disappointment -- I felt like I had just thrown the money out the window, except this apartment doesn't have any windows that open. The initial problem was the litter itself. You see, I installed the new raking robot in the bathroom thinking that we could both take care of our bodily functions in a room that's not the sleeping/living/eating room. The very next morning as I shuffled toward the shower, the weight of my body was channeled through my right foot, which at that moment was coming down over a stray piece of the special silica-based litter. That name does not properly connote the pain that I felt in that moment. As my foot was registering an alarming amount of suffering, my brain came up an explanation that would only makes sense if I was still dreaming... I envisioned my cat clutching a baseball bat, standing on the hood of my car, and swinging through the windshield, breaking its tempered glass into tiny pieces. She then takes picks up one piece and delicately places it in front of my shower door. That's what I stepped on. I don't know how, but I keep finding this "glass" all over the apartment. I still think she's deliberately planting these for her own continued amusement. The following day it was my sense-of-smell that was set to take a beating. Despite the claim that the waste compartment effectively traps odors, I can tell you this is as effective as closing the toilet lid over a floater and expecting the problem to magically disappear. Replacing the disposable tray was like lifting the toilet lid -- I nearly died there. The crystals do not cling to and entrap the solids like a clay-litter would, so your best hope is that the lack of moisture causes it to form a crust so that it stops contaminating your air supply. The result is that there is a constant stench that slowly seeps out the gaps in the waste compartment. I tried to mitigate this problem by purchasing the "Forever Litter Tray" and emptying it daily, but then I realized that I had just reinvented the most expensive litter pan. I felt like a complete idiot, but decided that I needed to do something smart, like copying an idea from someone smarter: I found a webpage that demonstrated a genius modification to the machine. This person elevated the machine a few inches off the ground to allow a small bucket to easily slide under the waste compartment, and by cutting the tray across the width at that end, all of the waste would fall into the garbage-bag-lined bucket for easy cleaning. I was able to replicate the mod, and in the end my techno-frankenstein device saves me from scooping everyday in exchange for using up more litter than normal. The added bonus with this method is that litter is raked over the waste, which is great because my cat never in her life covered her own mess. If this turned out fine, then why two stars? Well, this piece-of-cat-shhh company should have designed this product with a bagging-system instead of trying to getting their greedy paws on your wallets through their disposable tray system.