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Better Living Through Plastic Homewares: The Luuup Litterbox
A crappy system gets a simple streamlining
Enter a caption (optional)House cats generally make less mess than their canine counterparts, but we also tend to keep boxes of their stinkiest work inside the home. The unfortunate upshot is the deferred version of dog walking: we have to scoop it eventually, and it can add up. The options for kitty poopin' places are innumerable, but they rarely shy away from requiring the classic litter scoop without getting into weird or expensive SkyMall territory. The Luuup is an interesting exception.
The Luuup system is based on three slotted plastic trays used simultaneously. The top tray is filled with your sand or litter, and once ready to be emptied you just pick it up and shake to let the clean material filter through to fill the tray below. This leaves your cat-leavings exposed and easy to transport to the trash in one go. Once emptied, the waste-free tray is stacked below the other two (rotated 180 degrees from the bottom-most tray), and the process is repeated with new litter added as needed.
The beauty of the design is in the trays' identical but directional shape, which allows both easy filtering and spill-security without complicated or tricky to clean parts. Other filtering trays do exist, but with smaller (cloggier) holes or multi-part systems that incur more work or waste more litter.
Like a grill pan, but grossThe Kickstarter photos lack any close-ups showing how secure the system really is (scoop or no, am I still going to get grit all over my floor?), but the 3-tiered concept is simple and they've incorporated a couple idiot-proofing measures. The shape is deep enough to account for some of the scatter made by gymnast kitties who like to fling themselves in and out of the toilet. They've also designed a snap-on spill guard for the guys who really dig enthusiastically. The handles are formed off-center to help you grab only the layer you want without getting fingernails involved, and I'm betting that the slot bottoms avoid the suction-stick you get with stacking containers. My favorite feature is the "Nope, other way, dummy" tab that keeps you from replacing the tray in the wrong direction and thus spilling litter on your floor on the next round.
Nope. Try again.One of the stretch goals they hit includes production using better antimicrobial materials, which is an obvious plus. With some adventurous colorways it would blend in nicely in a modern home.
Maybe it's my own hatred for the inefficiency of poop-scoops, or maybe I just miss infomercials, but I even found the video's weird hard pitch (this is the world's best litter box!!!) endearing. The Luuup's Kickstarter only runs for another week, but based on its 900% successful funding and made-for-TV backstory, you'll probably have no problem finding a Luuup in the future.
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Comments
I purchased this in April and finally got it in August. SAVE YOUR MONEY!!!! It is the worse cat box I have ever used!!! It is so much trouble and ridiculous to use! My cats make 10 times more mess even with the cover. You basically cannot move it at all or else the slits shift and cat litter spews all over. They are wrong in saying the sides keep you from turning it the wrong way when you have litter in it and trying to put the one on the bottom it doesn't work because of the weight. Plus everything sticks to the sides and good luck getting the litter clumps out of the slits!! GIANT PAIN to clean every single time you sift! They gave me all kinds of rules and steps to follow when I complained. Only used it for 2 months and couldn't take it anymore went back to my old box with a liner HELLO easy! They also would not even consider giving me my money back!!!
these are on Ebay http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/1-set-of-shake-and-clean-cat-litter-box-/262452773995?ssPageName=STRK:MESE:IT
Used http://www.petco.com/shop/en/petcostore/lift-n-sift-cat-litter-pan this product in the 90s, I think we bought it at Target. Can be messy and requires you to try a bunch of different litter brands to find one that works. The freshly emptied tray goes on the floor so you have to get it really clean, not just shake it off. You also now have three litter boxes to clean when you change litter, not just one.
Petco already sells a sifting litter box, one with a solid floor.
Edit: that URL was supposed to go at the end, it's the product Petco sells. "Used this product", that is, we used a triple-layer filter in the 90s.
No thank you. As someone who has cleaned litter boxes for years I can tell you that it may look clever at first, but in practice it is not a good design. In addition to the previous commenters points, shaking the litter is not good because it usually breaks off small pieces that then fall through the slots. My cats also tend to dig all the way to the plastic bottom before doing their business, which I'm guessing would cause problems.
Probably 10-15 years ago I swear we owned a litter box set that worked exactly like this. Three identical trays that when stacked in alternating orientations provided no path though to the floor. We no longer have it and though I searched when I first learned of this, I couldn't find any reference of it.