Korean Job Discussion Forums

[Gatsby]

So I found this kitten, or this kitten found me, and now I have to buy kitty litter. All they had locally was a jug of Tidy Cat hard clumping litter. This is not my cat litter of choice, but not having a choice, I bought it.

I had used clumping litter some years ago, once. Terrible stuff. It stuck to my cat's feet and eyes, whatever was wet, risking an eye infection. And it hasn't gotten any better with the years.

Naturally, the cat box went into the bathroom. It's just a small box, as all I have right now is a small kitten. But the litter gets spread onto the bathroom floor. There it gets wet and forms a sticky sludge. And the litter and sludge gets tracked into the apartment.

I put some on the balcony, and now with the condensation from the AC, I have sludge out there.

I am trying to train the cat to use the toilet, so now I have a stainless steel bowl in the toilet, and some of it gets pawed onto the floor.

Meanwhile, instead of just scooping out the feces daily and dumping the litter after a week or two, I have to scoop out huge wads of wet sticky smelly litter several times a day. And I have to search through this mess for the feces, but is hard to find mixed into the small gray wet litter particles.

This stuff gets used up far faster than regular clay litter. For 12,000 won I am getting about two weeks of litter. One 20 pound bag of clay litter would last two to four weeks, depending on the brand. Shoot, I could get 10 pounds of Hartz at the dollar store.

What kind of fiendish marketing devil designed this shit and sold it to the public? It costs more, is more work, and it lasts shorter. Yet people buy it.

By the way, I got a 7 liter bag of some other litter from Lotte Mart and it turned out to be clumping litter, two. I think all the litter at Lotte and EMart is clumping.

Back home I was using silica gel cat litter. This stuff is truly amazing. One tray about one to two inches deep could easily last a month. No smell until it stopped absorbing after a month or so. And it was easy to clean. An $8 bag could last two to three months.

So why don't we see this more? Do the corporate marketing MBAs not want to sell something that is cheap and lasts a long time? Or do some people derive a perverse pleasure from digging into cat litter?

I plan to buy some gel litter off the Internet. But ultimately I am hoping to get the cat to use the toilet. So I am hoping not to invest in a lot of litter and a big litter box.

This stuff is disgusting. Surely this clumping litter has to be the worst consumer product every invented.

[maeil]

Agreed. Absolutely. I know your pain. The stuff is absolutely useless for odor protection after the first day or so.

I'm using the crystals now. Perhaps that's what you mean by the silica stuff. I can find it at pretty much any pet store here. I just moved my 2 cats into a home with 1 already, and with two litter boxes (in the laundry room), the odor is manageable, until we get lazy about scooping.

Yeah, get the crystals. So much better, and the cats seem to like playing with them. They don't scatter as easy as the clumping stuff, though, which is another plus.

[mumblebee]

I used Tidy Cats for a while, but it is not a great product. I switched to another brand...cat-san or something? It is from Japan, and I got it in Lottemart. It is a bit more expensive, but it makes really hard clumps that don't break up and contaminate the rest of the litter. One bag lasts a long time, cause I almost never have to dump the whole pan due to smell. It doesn't track all over the place, either.


I tried to toilet-train my cat. Good luck with it...I gave up after a month, cause my poor cat just got stressed from having to perch on the toilet...I felt like I was being a bit mean, making him do his business in that 'unnatural' way, just 'cause I wanted a litter-free apartment.

[Hopelessly Human]

I doubt you can get it in Korea, but in America I used something called Swheat Scoop. It's made of wheat, and it worked really well. It absorbed the odor quite well, there's no dust, and it's flushable. But it's expensive. And you have to be careful if there is a dog in the house, because he might try to eat it. It's wheat. My roommate's dog loved it.

[FistFace]

Ok, admit it...

How many of you have actually pee'd in the "clumping" cat litter to see if it works? I have. The cat box used to sit next to the toilet in the basement, and it was easy angle the stream over to it.

Always wondered if that made the cat angry?

[OiGirl]