Cat Product Review: CatGenie

CatGenie Litter Box Review

Genies come in bottles; the CatGenie comes in a huge, heavy box! Note its size compared to this large laundry basket. The bowl is actually wider than that of a regular toilet.

(Not that you'd try, but if you sat on the CatGenie, you'd fall in.)

Rose Martelli

We wanted to set up our CatGenie in the bedroom, but its cords and hoses (each about seven or eight feet long) wouldn't reach the closest water line, electrical outlet and drain system, which were all in our bathroom around the corner.

Rose Martelli

Sadly, CatGenie is not a great fit for an apartment bathroom. Above is what our 8-by-5 foot restroom looked like once this monster was ready to go. The top hose ran under the sink to the water line, and the power cord snaked behind the toilet and up the wall to the nearest outlet. The bottom hose ran to the toilet, up its side and under the seat, making it difficult to use the loo the CatGenie is housed in. Based on user comments I've read online, along with my own assessment, the CatGenie is best suited for a spare/guest bathroom or in a laundry room that has a floor drain.

Rose Martelli

Sadly, CatGenie is not for one bathroom apartments. Above is what our 8-by-5 foot W.C. looked like once this monster was ready to go. The top hose ran under the sink to the water line. The power cord snaked behind the toilet and up the wall to the nearest outlet -- have you ever noticed that most bathrooms don't have outlets by the baseboards? The bottom hose ran to the toilet, up its side and under the seat, so you can't really use the loo the CatGenie is housed in. Based on user comments I've read online, along with my own assessment, the CatGenie is best suited for a spare/guest bathroom or in a laundry room that has a floor drain.

Rose Martelli

The washable granules, like little tubular pellets, reminded me of ditalini, the type of pasta often found in minestrone and pasta e fagioli soups. I apologize if I just ruined your appetite or your love of Italian food.

Rose Martelli

Our inaugural, poop-free test run! The sifter/scooper lowers itself into the bowl. The basin rotates, moving granules through the sifter and catching poop along the way. It's kind of like that thing that sweeps away knocked-over bowling pins crossed with a Zamboni.

Rose Martelli

After dry sifting, water streams into the bowl much like it does in a toilet. Cleansing solution is automatically dispensed to wash the reusable granules.

While the CatGenie comes with a spare box of granules (and more can be ordered online), replacing them is meant to be a very rare occurrence since they are washed clean with each cycle and are supposed to remain within the CatGenie bowl.

Rose Martelli

Mayday! Mayday! It seemed to us this bowl was getting way too full. Suspicions were confirmed when the CatGenie temporarily stopped working and an error light and beeping ensued. We never figured out what was wrong; we just left it alone for a while, started it up again and it worked just fine. I'm sure glad there's a fail safe that stops this thing from overflowing.

Rose Martelli

Thanks to our flooding incident, many granules escaped over the lip of the bowl, down the CatGenie's waste chute, and ultimately in our toilet. It never happened quite so badly again, but we did see a few deserters with each subsequent cleaning. (Also, the granules track out of the bowl like most litters. Technology can only do so much.)

Beware, the next slide contains intimate photos of nature's waste.

Rose Martelli

When it comes to number two, the scooping/sifting process was quite successful; only one tiny piece of poop got left behind... until a previously-scooped ball of dookie shot back up the poop chute! It lodged itself under the scooper's robo-arm for quite some time before eventually falling back into the bowl.

Another item of note: In our toilet bowl, we found not only liquefied feces, but furballs. Since Rena had only set foot in the CatGenie once, we could only conclude that she's been ingesting and depositing her own fur all along. I must admit, I'm thankful for the inadvertent heads up. No wonder the CatGenie instructions strongly recommend that a CatGenie cat be an oft-brushed cat.

Rose Martelli