How to Keep Cat Urine From Sticking to the Litter Box?

Most cat owners can generally agree that cleaning out a cat’s litter box is one of the least appealing aspects of owning cats. While the cats themselves can be incredibly cute, cleaning up after them is significantly less cute. On top of the fact that you have to scoop their droppings and deposits out of the litter box, there are a number of additional problems that can arise.

For some people, this problem can be as annoying as the cats tracking the litter outside of the box. For other people, the problem can be a case of cat urine clumps sticking to the side of the litter box. When cat urine sticks to the side of the box, it can make the whole ordeal of cleaning the litter box that much more troublesome.

Some people may believe that urine clumps on the side of the litter box are just a factor that comes with having a litter box for your cats but this doesn’t always have to be the case. There are quite a few adjustments that you can make to your cat’s litter box to ensure that the scooping process can go quickly and easily, allowing you to spend as little time as possible scooping everything out.

When it comes to finding a solution, the way you will want to go about doing things will depend on what the source of the problem is. There are a few causes that can result in clumps of cat urine and each cause has its own remedies. Here are a few of the different things that can result in this.

Why Does it Happen?

There are a couple of reasons why the cat urine might be sticking to the side of the litter box. In some cases, it could be that the material of the litter box is prime for clumps of urine to stick to. This often happens with plastic litter boxes as your cat’s scratches on the surface can create tiny divots on the surface, allowing the litter clumps to dig in and stick to the sides of the box.

Speaking of clumps, sometimes clumping litter can work a little bit too well, turning the urine from a liquid into a solid that will clump and stick to any solid surface. If your cat prefers to urinate near the sides or corner of the litter box, then you can expect the clump of litter to stick to the side of it.

More often than not, there is a combination of both factors coming into play when you find that cat litter is sticking to the side of the box. Because of this, there are more than a few ways that you can go about alleviating both problems or whichever one is the more prominent problem in your current situation.

Fixing the Problem with the Litter Box

Sometimes, cat urine will stick to the side of the box because of the material of the box. Naturally, the best solution here would be to replace the current litter box with a better, naturally non-stick alternative. It may take your cat a bit of time to get used to the change in litter box but it will be worth it for you when you do not have to struggle with the litter sticking to the side of the box any more.

The most common material that will provide this property is going to be stainless steel, although this can be hard on some cats who prefer high walls in a litter box. You can also consider using Rubbermaid containers that have been repurposed as litter boxes as these containers tend to have non-stick properties.

If you have the budget for it, you could consider getting a self-cleaning litter box that takes care of the clumps for you. This way, no matter if it is the litter or the nature of the box, you won’t really have to worry about scraping and digging for the litter in the box. You can leave it all to the self-cleaning technology.

If you cannot afford to replace the litter box or you prefer to keep the one you have, you can also consider getting liners for the litter box. You can think of these liners as working as the garbage bags that you put in the trash can. (In fact, you can use trash bags for this exact purpose.) Here, you would treat the litter as trash and when it is time to clean the litter box, you can simply pick the bag up and dump it, with no worry about scooping the litter from the side of the box any more.

Fixing the Problem with the Litter

Sometimes, the nature of clumping litter means that there will be urine clumps in places where you do not want them to be. The easiest way to fix this problem is to consider using a type of litter that isn’t branded as a clumping litter. There may still be some natural clumping that happens but with litters that were not specifically designed to clump, it will be much easier to deal with.

The problem that comes with this type of litter is that it often does not have the odor removal properties that most clumping litter has. This means that you may end up smelling a lot of more of the litter box than you ever wanted to, although there are ways to absorb the odor of a litter box to make it more tolerable for both yourself and your cats. You can also consider using baking soda and non-stick spray to turn the sides of the litter box into a surface that no litter could possibly clump onto and stick to.

Similarly, you could also consider the idea of applying a wax paste to the litter box. This can be thought of as a much more long-term solution than baking soda and non-stick spray as most types of wax paste can last for approximately two months in these situations. The con that comes with this solution is that applying the wax paste can take a little bit of time, as you have to apply one layer, buff it out, and then apply a second layer to get the best effects from it. However, for many people, taking the time to apply a second layer of wax paste every few months will be well worth it when you no longer have to dig and scrape the walls of the litter box for urine clumps.