Petmate Purrforma XL Automatic Litter Box

When we got Dipstick, our sweet kitten, my husband arranged for my sister and mother to buy me a "self cleaning" litterbox for my birthday. He thought it would smell better in the house, and prevent us from having to deal with the litterbox every day.



We have had it for about 5 months now, and I have to tell you, while it is nice at times, it totally not worth the money and is pretty much a piece of crap.

The first problem is that it is incredibly loud. We live in a 70's style split level house, and the box is in the lower level. Every time the motor grinds itself down the track moving the rake to push the clumped litter into the bagged reservoir, I can hear it upstairs, even if I am several rooms away. It can even wake me up at night when it goes off. I would never recommend it for anyone living in an apartment or smaller home.

The second problem is that it is exquisitely sensitive to the proper set of the cover apparatus. Even if you think you have seated all of the plastic parts correctly, it still jams an alarmingly frequent number of times, requiring disassembly, adjustment, and reassembly.

Third, the rake frequently breaks the clumps instead of pushing them along, leading to a bunch of pieces of debris too small to be pushed, so that they have to be sifted manually with a little scooper anyway.

Fourth, the box isn't really enclosed, so puppies looking for treats can stick their bodies into the box, get their delicacies, and then come and lick you.

Fifth, you have to buy special bags provided by the company to put in the machine, grocery bags don't work because the cover to the collector has holes in it that are only covered with their special bags. The bags are $3.00 for 4 at Petco, and $1.99 for 4 on Amazon.com. Plus there are also pan liners for the bottom of the machine that they "suggest" be changed monthly, but I have taken to cleaning and reusing since they are $10 apiece and Petco doesn't even carry them, they need to be special ordered and shipped.

Sixth, they advertise that the bags only need to be changed once a week, but my single 9 pound kitten fills the reservoir in about 4 days, so I go through 2 bags a week.

I am probably forgetting more problems, but my irritation was brought to a head at about 2 AM today when the damn thing got stuck and kept trying to complete the cycle, woke me up, and resisted being fixed for a full 20 minutes.

Dipstick, on the other hand, adores the stupid thing. I am afraid we have totally spoiled her now, her litter box never has waste in it (except for the little pieces it leaves behind). I don't know how she would react to a "normal" box now. She loves to make it go off, too. We solved the problem of Abby the puppy getting in (and trapping the cat in sometimes), by turning the opening towards a closed door. There is room for Dippy to get in, but not Abby. To its credit, it doesn't smell at all when the proper bags are used and the reservoir isn't so full that the cover comes off. I just have to remember to check it every day to make sure that it hasn't jammed during the course of the day when nobody is home to hear its sad grinding noise when it is stuck (it does eventually stop trying to unstick itself), and to make sure the bag isn't reaching the too full stage. I just check when I leave in the morning and when I get home at night (it is by the garage door).

My only consolation is that we didn't actually buy the stupid thing ourselves. We'll use it until it breaks, and then buy a traditional covered one, and clean it more often, it will have to be easier than trying to get the cover to sit just so.