LitterMaid Automatic Self-Cleaning Multi-Cat Litter Box

This gets 5 stars for the two reason I do not give up & I am a good DIYer.My cats adore the littermaid as well. The second I put litter in it they claimed it.It was a lot of messy trial & error but I won in the end & the setup is a dream.Details:Cats = x2 7 lbers, x2 12 lbersX1 8 month male, x3 1+ year femalesApprox 2 months of useOnly litterbox in houseMy cats are very... spoiled & would refuse to use the litter boxes if there was waste. So I wanted a self cleaning litterbox for that sole reason. I got a cabinet, mat, fine holed scoop, hand brush, dog kennel pan, 4 gallon wet/dry vac w/ bags, & motion battery light to go along with the littermaid.What I have done/learned:Mods:I put this in a white litter cabinet from Amazon, I cut a mesh litter mat to fit inside the cabinet. I also got a dog kennel tray that fit inside the cabinet & put it under the mat & littermaid in case of spills. I used sticky cable hooks to secure the cord & put the littermaid as close to the wall opposite the cut door as possible. I put 2 sticky hooks above the litter pan to hang the hand broom & the battery operated motion light. I put the scoop leaning in the corner behind against the back wall of cabinet behind the cat door. I put a large honeycomb double layer litter mat in front of the cat door. I also took the ramp off the littermaid. (If my bot starts spraying I will be adding waterproof shelf contact paper to the walls, back of doors, & floor for protection & easy cleanup.)The disposable containers:I knew my cats would go through the disposable boxes very quickly so I line them with "thank you" bags & replace the containers roughly every 2 weeks or if they get messy. I also do not use the disposable lids since they kept messing up the hinged top & making horrid messes. Instead I just save it for the disposal day & put the charcoal stickies right on the blue lid. I then empty it every other day or daily since they fill so quickly. I gently remove the blue hinged lid from it's holes instead of trying to slide out the container. It is a much cleaner & easier process that way.Litter sticking:There are pancakes the rakes cannot reach. I use the fine holed metal scoop to scrape them up & let the rake put them in the bag, then use it to sift out the small bits the rake could not get. I do this every time I change the bag. The rake also needs to be scraped with the scoop if messes get stuck to it. I do so every change. (I am going to be trying some weather seal to see if this helps the problem soon)Cleaning:I store a bottle of Clorox wipes & box of tissues above the cabinet for spot cleaning. I brush loose litter from the tracks when emptying & wipe down the blue hinged lid if needed as well as the curve on the pan leading to the disposable container & the rake. I vacuum the scattered litter every second emptying & vacuum out the tracks for the rake at the same time. As well as lifting the front of the littermaid & sucking up the litter that slips between the crack of the pan & disposable container. Once a month I empty, take apart, & clean the pan + all parts with bleach wipes. NEVER SUCK UP ANY CLUMPS LARGER THAN A PENCIL ERASER INTO YOUR WET/DRY VAC IT IS A DISASTER THAT TAKES DAYS TO CLEAN UP.Litter:We are currently using tidy cats light weight & it is not the best. I am running down our stock before switching to a mix of arm & hammer double duty + tidy cat multi + maybe baking soda. I will update with how that works out. The lightweight was just too... light weight. It tracks badly & just doesn't work well with the taken I suspect it is a good chunk of the cause of the pee cakes. I also add a few cups of clean litter every time I empty the container because the litter can run out surprisingly quickly overnight & that makes a big mess.Conclusion:All in all it is the best thing every once I "modded" it up. I will be getting a second one later in the year to hopefully push out empty day to twice a week or less. But straight out of the box this thing sucks for a multi cat house. Maybe it works with one cat. But it in no way works with multi.Edit 4/28/19 : A lot of the trouble was from the tidy cat lightweight litter. We do an arm & hammer + tidy cat instant + tidy cat glade + tidy cat maintenance + baking soda + litter attractant herb now. It is awesome. No more "cakes". 90% less tracking. Less smell. Everything is better.One horrible thing we have finally mastered. You have to keep it right below the max line. Too much & the rake cannot go back down or into its "hole" at the end. Too little & it gets gross.We empty every day now too since our boy is bigger now.We also got a second one now for our Kitty Jail (huge nodded rabbit hutch) that is accessible to all as long as no one is serving jail time.Still love this thing despite any headaches it may cause. Makes life much easier.

I want to preface this review with a little fact about me. I can usually see the good in products or see ways to make a product shine, even if it's not so great. This is not going to be one of those reviews.I bought this box for one reason, because I don't have room for a second Litter Robot. Being that I already had a Litter Robot, and while that product has it's quirks (I've literally had to have the whole unit replaced under warranty already, so don't think I am just biased, it's a love/hate relationship for sure) I got pretty spoiled not having to scoop litter everyday. My genius plan was to buy the Littermaid. Less expensive and seemed like a decent option until I move and have a basement for a second robot.Let's start out with the good. I have nothing except that it works really nice for about 3 cycles completely clean with the perfect amount of litter. From there it's all bad.The bad.A bit of background, I have 6 cats, but really only 3 of them use the Littermaid, the others prefer the Litter Robot. So in reality only 3 cats, with one other one who likes to poop in it every once in awhile, are using this thing. I feel like that is an average amount of cats a person would have if they bought this.1. The rake doesn't go all the way to the bottom of the pan. It doesn't even get really near the bottom of the pan. All pee clumps inevitably sink to the bottom of the pan, so the rake really just skims the top part of the pee clumps leaving pee clumps stuck to the bottom. I tried several litter types thinking it was just bad litter. Didn't make a world of difference. The best litter I found to use with it was Arm & Hammer Clump and Seal Slide. It still wouldn't pick up the bottom part of the pee clumps but just makes it easier on me when I have to manually scoop out the pee clumps.2. The pee clump part that the rake does pick up... yah it totally gets stuck to the rake. You are constantly having to clean off the rake of pee clumps otherwise more pee clumps just get stuck to the existing pee clumps. Before you know it, you have a large mass of pee stuck on the rake.3. Dear god if your cat has bowel issues, this thing just makes it 10 times worse! I have a cat with IBD. Unfortunately he is one of the cats that prefers this box. He is on meds, but sometimes he will have a bad IBD day and have a blow out in the box. The crappy rake can not handle that sort of issue. Unless your cats poop is perfect solid rolls, the rake will just rake right on through it making a huge mess.4. It goes through a ton of litter because the rake will often break up parts of the pee clumps and scatters little pee nuggets everywhere. I literally have to fully replace the litter every week.5. The plastic litter bins are a complete joke. With 3 cats using the box regularly I was initially having to replace the bin every day. I wised up and started using a bag so I didn't have to pitch a plastic bin every day, but this thing is so wasteful on resources. Compared to the Litter Robot where I only replace the bag every couple of days and my old way of daily scooping where I had a trash bag in a nearby trash can that I scooped into, this thing just blows through plastic bags. I did even "hack" the plastic bin by cutting out the bottom and putting a bag in that way, but it still is a bag every day, it now just doesn't spill everywhere after it runs for half a day.6. Speaking of hacking the plastic bin, the bins are flimsy. Insanely flimsy. Like how did they think this was a good idea flimsy. My husband is currently trying to 3D print a frame that will fit and hold a bag. You would think this company would have had that genius idea to reduce plastic waste, but then again, this thing is so poorly engineered, I guess I do see why they haven't.7. The litter kicks up into the grooves where the rake moves through. You can hear it through the whole house when it runs. It grinds and struggles and groans. I've literally ran to check it because it sounds like it's breaking while it's running. I've had this thing for just a few months and it literally ran nicely one whole day before it started sounding horrible. I have no doubt that this $120 box will probably fail before a year. Hopefully it makes it to July when we move.So there you have... I have to manually scoop this automatic litter box every single day to clear out pee clumps from the bottom of the pan. Honestly I should have given up on it within the first 30 days and returned it, now unfortunately it is too late. It didn't even come in a Littermaid box, just a brown cardboard box which I threw out. This thing may work great if you have one small cat. As a matter of fact, if you have three cats, just don't, you will hate yourself and still be manually scooping. If you have two cats you will for sure be throwing out bins/bags every day and scraping the bottom. One cat and you will probably be OK, but probably still scooping out the bottom of the pan pee clumps.