Unbearable smell in friends house

[kcchiefette]

My friend had to go away for the day (a drive about 2 hours away) and asked me to check on hIs cats during the day.

I have been up a fair few times and the house is a bit messy as you can imagine a single man's house to be.

Anyhow, the last time I was up for a visit, the smell of amonia was dreadful from the litter trays. They were full, the cats had started flicking their poo out and playing with it on the floor. I had to leave after half an hour because I was getting a headache and the next day I felt really sick as well.

I called up today, and the smell is there again, only worse. The litter trays are full again and the smell was so intense, I had to put my jumper over my nose to mask the smell. I checked on the cats, left them food and left. Friend will be back 8pm.

For those that have cats, I am assuming this is not normal?

I have never owned cats so dont know much but anybody else's house who has owned them has never had this smell and I am assuming litter trays need to be cleared out at least once a day?

How do I approach this with my friend? I dont want to go up there again to visit if the house will be smelling so badly of amonia and making me feel unwell.

Poor things! 😫

I have three cats and two trays, they did have a tray each but nobody used the third one so we scrapped it. They’ve agreed amongst themselves that one tray is for poo and the other is for wee 😂 if they need both, they’ll use one and then hop out and use the other, I don’t know how they’ve come to that arrangement but it works!

We use a strong clumping litter so there’s never any ‘wet’ wee in the tray; the trays are scooped morning and night with a full scrub and litter change weekly, plus litter top-ups if there’s been a lot of scooping. No smell at all!

I’ve had three cats, all at once, and I’m a clean freak so their mess would be scooped as soon as they had done it. They had an enclosed litter tray because of the flicking and I bought litter tray liners because the pee eventually stains the plastic and can become smelly. Entire litter tray was washed and thoroughly cleaned twice a week, fresh litter every clean down. Is he using cheap litter? That could be why the house is so smelly. Better brands usually absorb properly and have good odour control. He may have cats that like to out scent each other or are still fully intact. Fully intact male cat urine can singe your nasal hair so you have to be on top of it hygiene wise. I feel for the cats though, they are very clean animals so I’d imagine going on cheap litter and the smells being awful for them too.

Also CP recommended 3 litter trays for 2 cats. I change and wash out the trays every other days, and pick out poo with a cat tray scoop as it's done.

My cat lives 90% indoors. It poos once a day and maybe has a wee about twice? I have non-clumping litter. We are a bit naughty in that we don't change all the litter, just the used bits, and it goes in a dog-poo bag and gets tied off. We do obviously clean out the entire tray and disinfect it regularly with appropriate cleaner/disinfectant.

It sounds like your friend's cats aren't having theirs done more than once a week, poor things. If I was asking a friend to look after my cat I'd expect changing the litter to be part of that but what you've been left is ridiculous!

We have three neutered indoor cats and the rule is 'one tray per cat plus one'.

They're scooped daily, litter is fully changed three times a week (we use Catsan) and have three sets of trays, so in between times the trays themselves are washed thoroughly using cat-safe disinfectant and left to air dry.

The trays are on hard floors which are regularly mopped and disinfected.

All that notwithstanding, there are, even then, times when I think my house smells a bit 'catty'. I can only imagine the smell you must have experienced.

Poor cats.

My trays have been like that in the past when I was depressed. The smell and state of them really got me down but I just couldn't bring myself to sort it as much as I should.

So to answer your question, no it's not normal.

Sounds vile, those poor cats!

Tell him you can get clumping litter which forms balls of wee and makes it easy to scoop just that (and the poos) and don't need to change the whole lot more than once a week or so.

But the solids (poos and wee balls) need scooping as soon as they appear, or the minute he gets in from work. I feed my friends cats when she's away and go morning and evening. There is a bit of an issue with litter being kicked out of the tray but the smell is never that bad. His situation sounds disgusting, and unhealthy for both your friend and his cats. If there's any way you can say anything - or at least recommend the clumping litter - then please try.

I think you did what was asked of you, and now that you explicitely told your friend to clean you took up your responsability for the welfare of the cats as well. Yes, I agree you should say it again if it hasn't been done, but you should not do the cleaning yourself! I take it your friend is fit and healthy, so he needs to get used to take up this chore every day.

If I were you, I'd ask why the cats are kept indoors.....unless it's obvious if he's living on a busy road. Followed with it being a good idea to encouraging cats to go outside by moving litter tray outside. If there's a good reason why the cats aren't allowed out, say you've seen the enclosed cat loos that have a catflap on the front. (Think cat carrier with litter tray on the bottom.) Mention that you have a friend, neighbour, celebrity who has one and uses it with neutralising litter. Hopefully your friend will ask why you're telling him, giving you the reason to say that the stink is so strong!

@kcchiefette I know exactly what this is - my ex-DP (a slovenly bastard) kept 2 house cats and his entire place (I swear, even the street outside) was thick with this stench!

He changed his litter every day (the non-clumping catsan kind) and couldnt get it through his thick head that it wasn’t enough to tip out the old and pour in the new. Because these litters are essentially deodorisers not absorbants, some liquid goes to the bottom of the tray… a layer of dampness if you will. Over time (and not a lot of it) this calcifies into hard deposits. At this point, the stink has started. Even if you now start rinsing and bleaching the tray at every change it makes F all difference. Only thing to get rid of it is to fill the tray with limescale remover (the blue gel kind) and let it sit for at least 24 hours before scrubbing it.

In short, it’s using non-clumping litter and/or too shallow a depth of it, and not cleaning the tray itself at every change… or not cleaning it with LS remover.

My nans house is like this….its awful. The house smells like dog wee, cat litter and dirt. When you leave the house your hands feel dirty. I can’t stay long and she complains when I don’t visit but it’s a truly awful smell

I feel so sorry for the poor cats. I imagine your friend is used to the smell and doesn't notice anymore

I’ve got cats but no litter trays but when we did they were kittens and had trays they didn’t smell. Cats are very clean so I imagine it’s just as horrible for them.

I have 4 male cats, we have 3 litter trays, 2 big normal ones and one huge one. Mine get totally emptied twice a week, more in the summer, and filtered once a day. We do, occasionally, have a smell of ammonia in the area where the trays are but that's mainly due to the fact they're males and one of them is half blind so misses his tray some times.
As for how you mention it, you can go the old route of saying "A friend of mine has had an issue with her cat and I thought you'd like to know. The cat has sores in its legs and paws so she took it to the vets. Turns out it's from the cats urine! Did you know that the ammonia can burn their fur?"
Or be straight and say "Look man, I think you're nose blind so I have to tell you this. When I came in to feed the cat the other day the place smelt really strongly of ammonia and its not good for you or the cats to be breathing that in"

I have cats and can tell you that this is not normal. I put a black bin bag around the litter trays so that litter goes into the lined litter tray. That way the litter tray stays immaculately clean and you can take away all the litter in the bin bag and dispose of the lot. I usually change the litter tray as much as it needs it - the cats do not like a dirty litter tray. They will kick things out if it’s not clean.

it’s also important to get decent litter (I like the CatSan white stuff).

I also wonder if your friend has had his cats neutered? It can smell worse if they haven’t been.

The poor things!
My cat is 18 and has kidney disease so she wees a lot.She's very good about using her litter trays and I scoop poo and the clumps of wee as soon as I can. Not keeping a clean litter tray can stress them which can contribute to their kidney problems. I use ultra clumping litter and use a liner underneath,usually recycled cardboard or a plastic bag,newspaper etc which makes cleaning the whole thing easy.
Your friend needs to sort himself out!

You scoop the poos on a regular basis (I did it as soon as they went but they were kittens) and flush them down the toilet, then you change the whole litter once every 3-4 days. We put newspaper in the bottom of the tray, then litter.

If 2 adult cats share 1 tray then it may need changing daily from the pee. Is there a practical reason why they are indoor cats? Most prefer to go outside and will do so if allowed and you can withdraw the litter tray. But if he has no outdoor access then he needs to scoop that shit, flush it and change the tray regularly.

I scoop the litter box daily.

Your friend is no friend to his cats. What you describe is appalling treatment of the animals.

Yes, it is about the welfare of the cats.

They are fastidious animals and they will hate having to go in a filthy litter box. They are very likely stressed.

They also run the risk of picking up bacterial infections from the poop and pee they have to dig in.

Put on a mask. Look around for fresh kitty litter. Empty the litter boxes into garbage bags. wash the pans with cleaner, rinse well, when dry refill about two inches with fresh litter. There should be a pooper scupper for this waste. I always scooped twice a day but you can get by with once a day. You can google how to care for kitties. Sounds like your friend needs some instructions too. Please don’t leave the kittens in that condition a minute longer!

Your friend is being extremely neglectful and should not have cats. Cats do not like dirt and mess, they are clearly suffering. Litter trays should be cleaned out every 1-1.5 weeks (meaning the litter completely changed) but poop scooped out daily. Litter doesn’t smell because it naturally absorbed odour so for it to smell that bad, it must have been sitting there for at least a month unchanged. Could be months. Poor poor cats

I do sympathise. We regularly used to go to our neighbour's house to feed her two cats while she was away. Often we had to clear up sick or excrement. It later transpired that one of the cats had a stomach problem from which he later died. We never knew whether or not to mention it to her.

Some people are saying to dispose of cat faeces in the toilet, but this is inadvisable in the UK, so please don't do it!

It’s not remotely normal no.

but I’d do it with humour, I’d say cats fed, by the way place honks from their litter trays, just in case you’ve went nose blind.😁x

Thats rubbish... we've had 3 large cats for much of our lives... I buy CLUMPING wood pellet cat litter in 35kg bags which lasts us a month.

Scoop any poop out as soon as noticed, and any pee x 2 daily into nappy bags and discard,

Change all the litter and disinfect the tray x 1 yearly. Never have any smells from our two trays. Easy peasy.

But we WFH so are able to scoop out the poop out immediately, cos one leaves it on top like a gift! The other 2 cover it over, so the tray looks like Mount Vesuvius.

The wood clumping litter is THE BEST ever, just smells of freshly sawn wood

Had rescue cats for 40 years so have tried every kind of litter. The range sell that litter in 7kg bags@£4.99.
No excuse for leaving you to clear shitty litter trays. Cats love to be clean.