If you have grown tired of the daily task of cleaning the litter box, odds are this has sent you on a quest for the Littermaid Elite Mega reviews that exist on the web. While this is just one of the many models available on the web, it can be quite difficult to choose the one that best suits your needs. While a variety of positive Littermaid customer reviews exist, many provide nothing but complaints about this machine stating that it broke after only a few months time, wouldn’t scoop, etc.
I was in the same boat you are now when I purchased my LitterMaid Elite Mega about a year ago. I was on a quest to find the perfect automatic litter box because I had grown tired of the daily task of cleaning the box, and at the time I only had one cat. With the addition of three more kitties to our home, the task of cleaning the litter box became much more tedious. I spent hours searching for Littermaid Elite Mega reviews online, and with my technical background, I had hopes of finding the perfect automatic litter box that could meet my needs. Instead of finding the answer to my prayers, the only Littermaid Elite Mega reviews that I could find stated that the product was junk and broke not soon after it was purchased. I then compared these Littermaid Elite Mega reviews to those of automatic litter boxes that cost two to three times and found that they too had their fare share of negative reviews.
After spending months reading Littermaid Elite Mega reviews, I came to the conclusion that the only truly worry free litter box was a standard litter box, so I decided to give the LitterMaid Elite Mega a try. At the time Petco was offering a good sale on this model, so I figured I had nothing to lose and only more time to myself to gain. With four cats and a dog in the house, there had to be a better solution to my litter box woes.
When I first took the Littermaid Elite Mega out of the box it worked perfectly. I read the manufacturers recommendations regarding the best litter for optimal performance, and dismissed it without a second thought. I figured this information was just another form of a marketing ploy to get you to purchase the pricey litter they “recommended” and I figured I be fine with a hard clumping litter. I had even read a variety of other Littermaid Elite Mega reviews that suggested other brands but I dismissed that information without a second thought. At the time I purchased this machine we were using Scoop Away and I thought that would be more than adequate for my needs. I soon found that the standard clumping litter did not clump fast enough, so I upgraded to the extra strength multi cat version and that’s when my Littermiad Elite Mega review problems started.
We heeded the manufactures recommendation, as well as recommendations made in other Littermaid Elite Mega reviews and sprayed the bottom of the pan with cooking spray. This process is supposedly supposed to prevent the clumps fro sticking, and while it worked when the box was freshly cleaned, the non-stick performance didn’t last for long. We even went as far as waxing the pan with car polish in order to create a smoother, slipperier pan and even that didn’t help. It was barely a day before the cement clumps were sticking to the bottom of the pan, causing the machine to make horrible grinding noises as it came to a halt. This constantly occurred simply because the rakes motor was just not strong enough to scoop the immovable lumps. At this point I thought I was just another unwilling member of the negative Littermaid Elite Mega review crowd, but instead of returning to my standard litterbox I started a quest to find a Littermaid Elite Mega review that contained a recommended type of litter that would work well with the LitterMaid Elite Mega.
On one of my Littermaid Elite Mega review searches I found a list of five different brands of litter that supposedly worked well with the LitterMaid Elite Mega. Upon doing more Littermaid Elite Mega review research, I decided that the Ever Clean Extra Strength Premium Clumping cat litter sounded like the best option. While this litter did quite well with clumping, it made the LitterMaid Elite Mega review problems I was experiencing even worse. Its strong clumping ability created even harder cement lumps on the bottom of the pan and with four cats that like to use the box in parade like succession, the LitterMaid Elite Mega just could not dispose of the piles that my beloved felines created. The grinding got so bad that in my Littermaid Elite Mega review that I found that it would try three times before giving up. It got to the point that I could never get a good night’s sleep because I was always being woken up in the early AM to what soon became classified in our home as the Littermaid “death squeal.” I would then get up and clean the box so as to avoid a horrible mess in the morning. In my Littermaid Elite Mega review I found that the amount of human intervention that was required was not what this machine was meant for. This went on for months before I finally had enough and, thinking that all the previous Littermaid Elite Mega reviews I had read were right, I made a last ditch effort and decided to give the World’s Best Cat Litter a try. This is also the litter that just happened to be recommended by the manufacturer.
As I scoured the internet for the best deal, I was shocked to find out how much this natural litter cost. How could something made of corn cost so much more than the standard clay litter? I bit the bullet, so to speak, and order the Extra Strength version figuring it would perform better than the original. After being burned by so many other products, I thought I was destined to be just another lifetime member of the negative Littermaid Elite Mega review club. When I first put it in the box I had my doubts that this litter would really do anything, but I was shocked to find that it actually performed as described. This is not to say that I do not have to perform a manual cleaning of the box on occasion. The occasional pee lump does still get stuck to the rake or the pan, but the amount that is left is nowhere near as bad as what I had to contend with earlier in this Littermaid Elite Mega review. I have been using this litter for months now and the machine no longer makes the sickening grinding noises that it once did and it’s now free to work as it was designed. My only recommendation in this Littermaid Elite Mega review is to not use the regular strength litter. I tried it once because my local store ran out of the Extra Strength and found it did not work as well. The regular strength does not clump well and does a bad job when it comes to holding in odor, especially in a multi-cat home.
Another thing I found out about in my Littermaid Elite Mega review is the fact that there is a cost effective way to stretch the lifespan of the receptacles. I found that if you line them with 4 gallon waste paper bags from your local grocery store, you can get at least a few months out of one receptacle. While other Littermaid Elite Mega reviews may point you to sites offering bags that claim to be designed specifically for this task they are nothing more than an overpriced trash bag that can easily be found at your local grocery or discount store.
As you can tell from my Littermaid Elite Mega review, I am very happy with my LitterMaid Elite Mega automatic litter box. While I did run into some issues getting it to work correctly, the problems were caused by the use of an improper litter and not the performance of the machine. As soon as I switched to a different litter the machine performed as it should and it is still working fine to this day. I just want to give a word of caution. While this Littermaid Elite Mega review goes to prove that the Littermaid Elite Mega can help decrease the amount of cleaning you need to do, it should not be considered a completely “hands off” device. I suggest checking it once a day to remove any lumps the machine could not get and to check the status of the waste receptacle. Other than that, consider this one of the few positive Littermaid Elite Mega reviews that can be found on the web. I would most definitely recommend giving the LitterMaid Elite Mega a try as it truly can help solve your litter box woes while giving you back the time in your day you so desperately need.
© 2009, Jennifer Bedell. All rights reserved.
Tags: automatic litter box review, cat litter box, litter box buying guide, LitterMaid, littermaid buying guide, littermaid elite mega, littermaid elite mega review, littermaid review, self-cleaning litter box review
