If your cat leaves a Hansel and Gretel-style trail of crumbs leading away from his litter box, it's time for a switch. Sure, you could clean up the tracks each day, but you can also clean the problem at the source: the box itself, and the area around it.
Step 1
Switch your litter. Cat litters with fine granules get trapped in kitty paws and tracked all over the house, so switch to something with bigger grains. Some clumping litters, like corn litter, are formulated to resist tracking, so try one of those to clean up kitty's act.
Step 2
Invest in a new litter box. Some cat boxes are designed with special litter-trapping pads on the rim, so when your little guy climbs out, any litter trapped between his toes gets picked up and left where it belongs.
Step 3
Get your cat a litter mat. Litter mats are ribbed plastic or rubber mats that go on the floor outside the litter box. If the litter box is your cat's toilet, the litter mat is how he washes his hands -- it massages the litter right out of his paw crevices. Some cats even use the mats to proactively remove any litter, so getting one of these is worth a try when you're trying to clean up tracks.
References
Tips
- If your cat continues to track litter, clean it up by vacuuming or sweeping with a broom and dustpan. If you're going to vacuum, though, wait until the cat is far from the litter box. Cats are often spooked by vacuums, and you don't want him to start associating that monstrous device with his bathroom.
Writer Bio
Tom Ryan is a freelance writer, editor and English tutor. He graduated from the University of Pittsburgh with a degree in English writing, and has also worked as an arts and entertainment reporter with "The Pitt News" and a public relations and advertising copywriter with the Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh.