| I agree completely with the other reviewers regarding the flimsy quality of the support posts for the tent. In addition, our zipper broke, and as the tent itself is plastic there was no easy way to simply replace the zipper without tearing up the tent itself. I do disagree with those who say the tent is useless. Once you've gotten a feel for how much litter is "too much", you rarely have to actually see into the tent itself for anything other than adding litter. The only problems I've ever encountered were that our cat had decided to "prefer" one side over the other, resulting in a mountain of litter in one half of the box that the motor for the scoop just couldn't handle. After 3 or 4 retries, it just stops and waits for the next cycle. Such problems are easily resolved by taking our "old-fashoned" litter scoop and shoving the litter around, then switching the unit off and on again and seeing if the rake makes it through the cycle. None of this is impaired by the presence of the tent. Adding litter is a bit of a pain - it would help if there was a snapping flap of some sort on the top. Meanwhile, the tent really does signifigantly improve the odor situation. But the most important thing, at least for our cat, is that without the tent she tends to ignore the ramp and jump out of the box directly, leading to litter all over the vicinity. The tent prevents this, and the carpeted ramp does a pretty good job of preventing litter from going everywhere. We haven't found a good replacement for the tent yet, and I'm loathe to spend 30 bucks for such poor quality. But as I noted in my title, this is not a review of the actual littermaid system - We got ours almost 3 years ago and (tent issues aside) it's worked great! I'd hate to go back to scooping. One recomendation - use a plastic grocery store bag as a liner for the little plastic container, then just throw away the liner and stop buying new containers! |
| OK, I know that's a non sequitur, but that should give you an idea of how useless this product is. I got this tent free when I bought the mega Littermaid litter box (which, despite some problems, I love). The tent comes with no instructions but the plastic pieces that support the tent fit together like Tinker Toys. (I'm not mechanical at all, but figured it out.) Once you get the plastic frame together, though, getting the tent over it is no easy task; the tent seems to be just a tad too small to fit well over the frame. I was frustrated enough at this, but once I figured I would have to remove the tent every time I wanted to change the plastic waste container in the Littermaid, I gave up entirely. The tent is currently taking up space in my garage. I ended up buying a custom-built plywood carpet-covered container that's big enough for both the Littermaid and the ramp. It has a lift-off lid and an opening for my two kitties, and it keeps virtually everything (including odor) contained -- I would recommend a unit like that over this flimsy tent. |
