The only living beings that make a bigger mess than pre-teen children are kittens. No one warned me that, as a cat fancier, the majority of my time would be spent cleaning. I love cleaning. No, that isn’t sarcasm. When I am stressed-out, my therapy is cleaning. However, I’m now in the equivalent of a residential rehab program now that the first and last thing I do in this home-based cattery is to scrub something.

 

The litterboxes get scooped everyday and emptied entirely every other day. They get washed and disinfected at least once a week, usually twice. 

 

Our litter is pine pellets:

http://www.geocities.com/prairiedawnc/blog.html/5

 

I’ve just learned that, if placed in compostable plastic bags, most municipal recycling programs will take used wood pellet, clay and  recycled newspaper kitty litter. Count me in!

 

I am very interested in the Litter Robot. It is not yet available in Canada, but I’m on a waiting list for one as soon as they come in. They are USD$400, but, from the reviews I’ve read, well worth every penny.

http://www.litter-robot.com/Default.aspx?ac=1

 

Until that day, we set kitten litterboxes inside of the free-with-purchase cat tents given away by Iams/Eukanuba. It keeps some of the litter from getting flung too far. We also use covered boxes for our adult cats, although we can’t convince all of them to like the doors on them, so they are off.

 

I do the scrubbing in the bath tub or shower stall and then wash and disinfect it.

 

Our cleaners of choice are dishsoap, hot water, and bleach:

http://www.pandecats.com/x/bleach.htm

 

The floors thoughout our home and cat room gets swept daily. We have a broom for every room with cats in it. The floors get mopped with dish soap and hot water every other day. My tricks of the trade for quick floor – and wall! – washing is to attach a microfibre car washing cloth (found in a pack of four in pretty colours at Walmart), cut in half, onto a Vileda mop.

 

http://www.vileda.com/image/blob?mimetype=image/gif&id=444441

 

The soapy water, or bleach and water, goes into a refillable plant sprayer bottle (also from Walmart). 

 

Spot cleaning is done with a bottle of Clorox bleach cleaner spray and paper towels. We have a stash of both, plus covered garbage cans,  in the kitchen, all bathrooms, and the cat room.

 

Any cat boogers or pooey that won’t come off the walls with a wet mop are removed with a Magic Eraser. I actually like the no-name band ones as much and they are disposed of after a particularly messy job with less worry about the cost. Contrary to internet rumours – and an erroneous comment by the beloved Oprah – Magic Erasers do not contain formedehyde, but a related ingredient that is, in fact, safe for pets.

 

http://www.snopes.com/medical/toxins/eraser.asp

 

Only bleach, Virkon, or very high temperatures will kill EVERYTHING that we worry about in a cattery. If we have a sick cat, have brought in a new cat or rescue, or have just returned from a show, these cleaning tools become our best buddies. Unfortunately, we can’t safely use bleach on every surface; my wardrobe shows evidence of that, with white blotches on just about every piece of loungewear that I own.  That’s where Virkon comes in; we buy it in small pouches from UFA, the ag supply shop. One day we will invest in a steam cleaner that can reach over 210F, the temperature required to kill fungus. Most cleaners available in retail shops do not get this hot.

 

Did I mention problems with my wardrobe? I own a set of scrubs that I try to wear when cleaning. I need at least two more sets. And an apron should hang from every hook.

 

We go through a lot of old towels. These are for bedding and for bathing the cats. We’ve received quite a few pet-quality towels from our local Freecycle group.

http://www.freecycle.org/

 

We wash a lot of cat dishes every day, too. We’ve bought a lot of metal dishes, they are durable and easiest to keep clean. They go through the dishwasher with the rest of the family’s dishes, but I always use the sanitize cycle. To keep kittens from flinging food all over the floor, we set their dishes in a boot tray. That does a good job to  catch crumbs.

 

I am not happy with our vacuums right now. We have four. One for the main and upstairs floors, an upright Panasonic, which is not handy on our carpeted stairs, comes with no attachments, and is constantly burning out belts. For the carpet on the stairs we have a Dirt Devil hand-held machine. The brush on it stops frequently and it seems to get plugged easily, especially when my hair gets caught in it. Our vacuum repair man suggested filling the bushings on the brush with sewing machine oil to keep it moving. I’ll have to try that. The third vacuum is Corey’s old Hoover canister. It works great, however the pole is cracked and repaired with duct tape and there are no attachments on it, either. The fourth and final machine is an electric broom we keep in the cat room. Its great for picking up litter and dust, but not food crumbs. After researching and discovering that central vacuum systems are, for the most part, lacking in suck power, I have decided that our next machine will be a Kenmore canister vac with a “power paw” mini powerhead for the carpeted stairs, a Consumer Reports Best Value. I think we need two.

 

For accidents on carpet, we like Nature’s Miracle, an enzyme-based cleaner,  that we buy from any pet store. Our carpets get shampooed every month.

 

So there you have it. Besides being organized and having a few inexpensive gadgets, I have no secrets to keeping a cattery clean… other than to clean it.  Frankly, most of my weekends are spent cleaning. There is time for little else.