|
| 
| Brand: CatGenie
List Price: $329.99
Buy New: $269.98
You Save: $60.01 (18%)
New (6) from $269.98
Rating:  165 reviews
Sales Rank: 8914
Media: Misc.
Shipping Weight (lbs): 34.1
Dimensions (in): 25.8 x 22.4 x 13.8
MPN: 891329001003
Model: 891329001003
UPC: 891329001003
EAN: 0891329001003
ASIN: B000MKHQG4
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
|
| Customer Reviews:
Showing reviews 6-10 of 165
 Buy this product!!!!!! November 10, 2006
Ryan P. Schoenhard (Cedar rapiids, Iowa)
77 out of 91 found this review helpful
I saw the Cat Genie late one night on an infomercial. I usually don't pay attention to infomercials, but I've had two cats for three years and I was tired of cleaning litter. I researched this product online and decided to make the investment. It took a week to get my cats used to it, but now that they have I can't imagine owning my cats without it. This thing works and works well. I've owned other automatic litter boxes, but this one works just lik its advertised.
I have large cats and I was spending over $30 a month for litter and the room in the basement where the litter was was a mess and never seemed to be clean. I've since reclaimed the room and I am spending way less in litter supplies. The kitty litter is clean and the waste goes down my sewer drain.
Yes the Cat Genie costs quite a bit, and you need the cleaning solution to make the Cat Genie work. But think about what you are probably spending a year on litter, all the time you spend cleaning the litter, and the accidents that your cats may have when you forget or neglect to clean the litter and the Cat Genie is well worth the price. The way I figure it the Cat Genie is going to pay for itself in two years or less and my house feels and smells cleaner. If the price worries you search the internet and you will be able to find a better deal.
 Problems with Cat Genie January 6, 2007
Ann Bush (Maine)
59 out of 68 found this review helpful
The Cat Genie is very expensive, as are the cartridges needed for it to run. The theory is great, but for multi-cat households with some long-haired cats like mine, there are some limitations. Fur in the feces kept getting wrapped around the contraption in the hopper which liquifies solid waste to get it through the drain pipe. It is not hard to unwind, but it IS hard to take the thing completely apart while it is filled with water and not able to drain until you take it apart and fix it. If you set it up to cycle through cleaning automatically, and something interrupts the cycle, it will beep all day if you aren't home, teaching the cats to fear it. With the water backing up in it twice weekly and the alarm going off, my ragdoll who previously had no elimination disorders started pooping in the bathtub next to the Cat Genie. I am very disappointed in the performance of this product, although it is now working and the 6 cats have 4 other litter boxes, the ragdoll still avoids it and poops in the tub. Thanks a lot, Cat Genie...
Waste of Time.... August 22, 2007
Happy Endings (USA)
51 out of 54 found this review helpful
There is NO substitute for the standard scoop method.
I received the CatGenie on a Friday, assembeled it on Sunday evening. A customer service rep said to give them a call and they will walk me through the initial wash cycle. Sounded GREAT, so I called them on Monday evening after one of my cats peed sometime earlier in the day. With the rep on the phone, I pressed the start cycle and the arm came down but the bowl did not spin. Luckily the rep said it might have gone off alignment during shipping and asked me to help the bowl to spin. I did, and it worked like a charm. To watch it was fascinating. (Note: As I had one rep on the phone, a second rep called, having received my voicemail for the initial cleaning.) -Very impressive indeed!
HOWEVER, the second evening I got home from work and pressed the start cycle button (because I could see my cat had peed again. Just pee.) The system started and about 10 minutes into the clean cycle, I noticed the water was getting a bit higher than the prior night, and sure enough, the error button started to blink and the machine made a beeping sound! (I called costomer support and left a message -stupid system. Keep leaving messages and apparently they pick and choose who to call back. Everybody wanted to call the easy first wash customer, but when there was a problem, (because they ask you to leave your name number and a brief message), nobody wants to deal with it! It is going on 24 hours and NOT A PEEP from their customer serivce!!! I have left two messages, and finally went to the handbook to figure out and clear the clog on my own! -My guess is these things are breaking down left and right and customer service is tired of it! Luckily I had the litter box on standby, because it saved me and my babies last night!
And the granules do go everywhere. After having taken the thing apart to try and figure out why it was not draining, following the instructions in their manual, I saw straw granules EVERYWHERE in that system. And it was just one night!
Of course I didn't pin point the problem so the granules are left in a cat pee swimming pool all night and day today. Tonight I will have the very unpleasant task of somehow draining the pee water system and throwing away the granules and putting that big piece of junk back in the box! -good thing I used my digital camera in unpacking it, so I can put it back together!
The way this machine throws granules, especially in raising and lowering the rake for the emptying the poop cycle, wet ones (saturated with cat urine), bits get flicked onto the surrounding areas.
Can't wait to hear from customer service! Big waste of my time and money with no support! Thank God it's only been two days and I learned my leson, but more importantly, can get a refund! Because when it acts up and you have to go back to the old litter box and then back to when the CatGenie feels like working, cats must get confused.
Worth it, for me. October 29, 2007
Jany (New York)
49 out of 49 found this review helpful
Cat Genie uses reusable plastic cat littler; drains cat pee; rakes cat poop and liquifies it; then pumps it out to your toilet; uses cold water and sanitizer to then wash, scrub, sanitize and dry cat litter leaving a fresh clean box for your cat(s) daily.
Pros:
1 Never have to buy and carry large bags of cat litter again.
2 Dust Free.
3 Fresh clean box once or twice daily, depending on how many times you want to run it (recommended one time per cat per day).
4 Never need to scrub and wash a litter box again.
5 Never carry heavy dirty litter to the trash again.
6 Easy Hook Up.
Cons:
1. HUGE. (The thing takes up a good portion of my bathroom but then again I live in an apartment and have a small bathroom so if you have a large bathroom or better yet an extra bathroom or a laundry room, this won't be a con for you)
2. Hoses are rather cumbersome if you don't need the entire length of them (which in a small bathroom, I don't).
3. The rake can miss the cat poop (which means the cat poop gets washed, scrubbed and dried - which for me meant burning three glade candles, scooping the missed pieces of cat poop, and rerunning a wash cycle to get rid of the awful smell which was probably toxic).
4. Not entirely scoop-free... See con #3; I never want to smell that smell again and will probably scoop the poop before running--not a huge deal since you are in the bathroom anyway and the litter is flushable. Also, since it's dust free you're not inhaling the dust of normal cat litter.
5. The box drains the cat pee into a bucket underneath the litter bowl (it has small drain holes in it); Also the cat poop is left in the bowl until either you run a wash cycle or it runs automatically at the time you set up. So, since the litter is non-aborbent, it won't temporarily cover the smell like normal cat litter does. But still, the whole scenario smells so much better than normal used litter in a box.
6. Buy a dust buster, the plastic re-usable litter is lightweight and will be tracked out of the box. In this way, it's very much like normal cat litter but it doesn't stick to the floor like regular cat litter and is easier to clean/ vacuum. You can't really sweep and toss the litter back in the bowl because you don't want to be adding cat hair you might have swept up as well for the next reason I will mention.
7. Brush, brush, brush your cat gently down the back. Cat hair is in poop and cat hair can supposedly cause clogs and drains in this machine. It hasn't happened to me but I did notice cat hair in the toilet after I ran the machine. Catgenie specifically tells you to make sure you brush your cat to limit the amount of hair he ingests and passes through in his feces. (See con #4 - another reason to scoop poop)
8. It takes half hour to run completely (and apparently my cat could not hold it until the machine finished and decided to pee in the puppy's bed instead - poor Oscar).
9. Expensive. Supposedly in the long run - in years - it will be cheaper than the normal litter box set-up, but with the expensive supplies, I haven't worked out if this is true or not.
10. If the company goes out of business, you're out of luck with refilling your supplies (litter and sanitizer) so stock up.
11. When the machine dries the litter, expect your whole bathroom to be nice and toasty. This could be a pro as well, I guess.
12. Ugly hose permanently over your toilet. Live with it or buy a normal litter box.
13. Sometimes the draining can cause splashing in your toilet and you may find some mess on your toilet seat (very minor, few droplets, no big deal).
Notes:
My cats adjusted quite nicely to it - very surprising since I have one cat who is nervous and would never use an automatic rake litter box because he was scared of it. I prevented him being scared of it by closing the bathroom door when it's running so he won't have a clue. The other cat was strange about it, would use it and then retreat to his next favorite spot (bathroom floor) and pee there. He always did this, regardless of which box was used. I prevented this by placing tin foil (and scrubbing lemon oil on top with a cotton ball) on the floor where he likes to pee and it hasn't happened since. I think his peeing on the floor was out of habit instead of being scared of the new box. Also, my cats aren't exactly small (they take after me), yet the bowl is big enough for them.
I decided on scooping poop before running it for reasons #1 so the rake doesn't miss it and wash and dry it #2 prevent clogging in the hoses #3 save on sanitizing fluid. I have two cats, so by scooping the poop I only run it once a day to drain the urine and wash the litter. Like I said, I don't mind this since the litter is dust-free and flushable.
For my personal situation, the pros I listed very much outweigh all of the cons for me - especially never having to drag boxes of cat litter to my apartment from my parking spot or dragging dirty litter out to the trash. I just listed out as many cons as I could think of so you would know what to expect. I have only had it almost a week so I haven't had any mechanical failures but based on other reviews I have read, it seems to be hit or miss. Some people have had a wonderful experience while others have had breakdowns, more than once and on more than one replacement machine. We shall see, knock on wood or a cat's head. (I will however, go out and buy emergency normal litter and a pan in case I find myself looking at cat litter swimming in a bowl of water if the machine breaks down on me.) When I spoke to a customer service rep, he said to me "make sure the litter is drying completely"... well, that made me nervous and made me expect a problem in the future.
And come to think of it, already, a normal litter box sounds so ancient to me and I will never return to one as long as this machine keeps on kickin'. I predict simplified, smaller and better versions will come along in years to come.
It just doesn't work March 4, 2007
Timothy J. Jones (Cincinnati, OH)
46 out of 51 found this review helpful
My wife and I are tired of cleaning up after our 4 cats. Though the Catgenies are terribly expensive to purchase and to keep stocked with Sanisolution and granules, it would be worth it for more free time and a cleaner basement. Unfortunately, they just don't work.
Becuase we have 4 cats we bought 2 Catgenies. Even with 2 of them it was more than the machines can handle. Even when we ran them right after the cats made their deposit the impeller was never able to grind up the turds properly. They clogged everytime and beeped incessantly.
Another problem is the scoop. Even though it scoops 3 times for every cycle, it always left turds behind. Those turds would then go through the whole cyle, which includes drying. That means that, even if they're scooped up the next time it cycles, they're going to be so dry and hard they'll never be ground up properly. Again, this results in clogs.
We had them for a little over 2 weeks. In that time we had to run extra cyles, backflush and even take them apart and clean them.
This product results in far more work, not less.
|
|
|
We'll be adding even more exciting features to assist you in the coming year.
Thank you for shopping at the Depot.com online shopping depot.
©2008 Depot.com | |
