How to Clean a Litter Box Properly

Scoop once a day. Once a week, empty the box, scrape it dry, wash it with warm water and unscented soap or plain baking soda, dry it, and refill. No bleach, no pine cleaner, no liners. The whole job takes about six minutes.

The weekly wash, in order

1. 1

   Tip the litter out first, dry

   Into a bin bag, outside if you can. Do not run water into a box full of clay. Wet clay sets like grout and blocks the drain on the way past.

2. 2

   Scrape the floor of the box before it gets wet

   An old plastic scraper or the flat back of the scoop. Ninety percent of the stuck layer comes off dry in about ten seconds. Wet, it turns to paste and takes five minutes.

3. 3

   Warm water and unscented soap, or plain baking soda

   That is what the ASPCA asks for. Neither leaves a smell the cat has to accept, and neither reacts with what is in the box.

4. 4

   Scrub with something soft

   A brush kept for this and nothing else. Skip wire wool and hard scouring pads. Every scratch you put in the plastic is somewhere waste can sit that no scoop will ever reach.

5. 5

   Rinse twice, then dry it completely

   Soap left behind is a smell the cat did not ask for. A damp box turns the first inch of fresh litter into a cemented crust straight away.

6. 6

   Refill one to two inches deep

   Not four. A deep bed does not last longer, it just means more litter goes in the bin on wash day.

Step two is the one everyone skips, and it is the one that saves the time. Dry scraping beats any cleaner ever sold for this job.

Four things to keep away from the box

Some litters make the wash harder

A clump that falls apart under the scoop does not disappear. It smears across the floor of the box and sets there, and that crust is what you are scraping on Sunday. We drop each clump three feet and count what survives whole. These are the weakest in our testing, worst first.

If your box crusts up every week, a harder-clumping bag is a cheaper fix than a better cleaner.

When to throw the box away

Plastic scratches, and scratches hold what a scoop cannot reach. When the base has gone dull and grey and still smells after a proper wash and a full dry, the box is finished. That is usually a year or two of daily use, sooner if it has been scoured.

Buy the replacement before you bin the old one and run the two side by side for a week. A cat that comes home to a brand-new box and nothing familiar sometimes votes against both.

Questions people ask

How do you properly clean a litter box?

Scoop every day, and once a week empty the box, scrape it dry, wash it with warm water and unscented soap or plain baking soda, rinse, dry it fully, and refill with fresh litter one to two inches deep. That is the ASPCA routine, and it is the whole job.

Can I use bleach to clean a litter box?

Better not to. Urine is full of ammonia and the usual warning against mixing bleach with ammonia applies here. The ASPCA asks for warm water with unscented soap, baking soda, or no soap at all.

How often should the box be washed, not just scooped?

Once a week for a clumping box in normal use, and the same week you replace the litter. If two or more cats share it, expect to do it more often, not less.

The bottom of my box has a hard crust. How do I get it off?

Scrape it dry before any water touches it. If it is already set, soak the base in warm water for twenty minutes and scrape again. A crust that keeps coming back usually means the clumps are breaking up before you scoop them.