Sort of an odd question, but I'm not sure how to go about finding what I need. Essentially I'm looking for a plastic container of a specific size. Does anyone have an idea how I would go about searching for such a thing? It's probably crazy, but is there any place that will custom make containers?

I'm basically looking for a plastic/Rubbermade type material.

What size? The BBS can find anything, but it's not got ESP.

Well... I don't, anyway, but all bets are off with Bitt and Tony F.

Check US Plastic Corp. - they have all sorts of plastic stuff. I've dealt with them before and had no issues with online ordering and shipping.

Second that, I've purchased items from U.S. Plastics also, no problems.

Well, I should have said that there's one size I'm looking for in particular, but there may be some others I need.

The main one, though, is 14"D, 22"H, 22"L.

I've had to have custom shipping cases made in the past. The company I used was Cases Cases. Their cases were pretty rugged, lasting a lot longer than they should've based on the abuse they received. The only damage that occured to the cases was one handle became detached. This was after a couple years of stacking two of the cases on top of each other (for about 200lbs or so of combined weight) and using the one handle to pull the stack.

We just ordered some off-the-shelf cases a couple weeks ago for another program. I'll try to find out where we go those.

Thanks, but those are way more than I need I'm just looking for a very basic plastic container.

Aren't there any RubberMaid containers that fit your specs? At least roughly enough that you can use them?

In my town, we've got an awesome and addictive retail store called Storables that fills this niche. I don't know if there's one in your town.

I think you have just used a definition of 'awesome and addictive' I was previously unaware of

You've never been inside one? It truly is both of those things.

We have one of those, as well as a Container Store. I don't see anything in the online catalog that matches the size, though.

Thinking a bit more, unless you need a metric assload of these, I expect custom containers would be cost prohibitive. Generally, these sorts of containers are made via a molding process, so a custom job would require development of a new mold, which would likely be muchos dineros. If you're adventurous, you could try building a wooden form, and vacuum-forming what you need.

Anyone else interested in what ghoulish purpose Matt needs these containers for? It's not for storing human heads is it?

(Guiltily,) yes... particularly why they have to be plastic. Wood or even basketwork containers are much easier to make yourself in bespoke sizes...

Peter

Maybe it has something to do with hydrofluoric acid.

What kind of human head requires a box nearly 2'x2'x1.5' for storage? Maybe he's got Bigfoot heads?

The rest of the space is for the preservative and swimming room.

Yeah, you need a lot of neck juice if you want to keep a head alive.

Heh... an old office I worked at had one of these.

Lol! I wish it were as nefarious as you guys are surmising. Sadly I can attribute, at the very least, 5% of my entire life to the dealing with - and thinking up solutions for - our cats deciding to go to the bathroom anywhere BUT their litter boxes.

A while back, one of our cats decided that instead of the litter box, she'd just crap on the floor downstairs. So on the advice of, well, everyone, we added a second box downstairs. The problem is our downstairs is nothing but a kitchen and a living room. Rather than have a tray full of crap for all our guests to enjoy, I bought a large cabinet from IKEA (why do I feel I have to all-caps that name?) and created a hidden litter box.

But does that stop my adorable cats from driving me nuts? Is it enough that I shovel their waste twice a day? No, they decide that when they go in the hidden litter box, they need to piss over the side of the plastic bin I have the litter in. This is worse than the crap, as it gets into the MDF the cabinet is made of and pretty much will always smell.

What I was hoping to do was to get a plastic bin that would fill the entire cavity that the box is in. I'd then cut out the side where the entrance is, and there'd no longer be a way to piss over the edge.

I went to the Container Store today, and they had nothing even remotely close to the size I need. I don't think they even had a single container of any kind anywhere near the depth I was looking for. The tallest container I could find that wasn't a trash can was about 16" deep.

So as a temporary solution, I bought a large plastic shelf liner, trimmed it down with some scissors, and stuck it on the side of the box they pee over, and voilà, a splash-guard. It's good enough for now, though I'd still like to find what I'm looking for.


My secondary search is for some good food storage containers. I'd like to find tall square ones (this shape, basically) that I could use in the shelves in our fridge door. But that's not important.

It might end up serving double-duty as a kitty coffin. (Heh. "Duty".)

When I had a cat I had a box with a cover on it and a hole on the front for the cat to go in. This was a really large cat so either his head or butt stuck out. Amazingly the cat would go in and turn around so his head stuck out and go in the box but if I didn't clean it out before he went again he would go with his butt sticking out and go on the floor.

Take a look at the recycling boxes at Home Depot. At least around here they have some tall ones. They don't have a top, but that doesn't sound like it would be an issue since it's going to be stuffed in a cabinet anyway.

Other than that, consider getting a dog in the future.

Eventually we'd like a dog, but we're not quite ready yet Cats are cool and low maintenance. [yes, despite all this annoyance I'm going through]

Besides, cats are awesome. Don't diss cats man I like dogs too, but my childhood pet cat was pretty much the greatest pet in history

They might just not like your cat litter of choice. One of my friends tried switching their cat litter brands and one of the cats didn't like it. The cat let them know this by jumping up on the coffee table in front of them while they were watching TV and took a crap in front of them. No problems at all since switching back.

Other problems could be a bladder infection. The cats learn to associate the pain of going to the bathroom with the litterbox. There could be lots of reasons for them to avoid the litterbox.

It's not that they're avoiding it. It's that one out of 10-15 was over the side, which I've been reading is just what they do sometimes. There's still plenty of #1's that are inside the litter. And all #2's have been in the litter box since I built the hidden litter box.

And we definitely have a good litter that they seem to like. I can't go back to the old stuff, as the new stuff is 99% dust free, which is so much nicer than before.

Matt, what litter are you using? We find litter dust all over the house.

Ahhhh, gotcha. I have a (yes, get ready to laugh) Booda Dome litter box for my cats. The one time one of them used it while I had the lid off for cleaning, she 'missed'. The enclosed box really helps cut down on that.

I use "Dr Elsey's <sp?> Precious Cat" litter. It promises less tracking, which I guess is true, but also 99% dust free, which is absolutely true.

The only problem? Very expensive. I pay about $21 for a 40lb bag.

Wow. That's crazy. I pay < $5 for a 40 lb. bag of wood pellets. One of my cats has "butt-over-the-edge" syndrome, too. We have a covered container, but he hangs his butt out the door. :p

Could you put a container-in-a-container? Give him a wall to hang his butt over, but both sides of the wall have litter there?
Or maybe he'd never get to the 2nd level at all and nothing would change.

Cats. hmm.

This is, in fact, what I do. The litter box is in an under-the-bed box from the afore linked Container Store. In front of the litter box door (still in the under-the-bed box) is a mat to help get litter off the feet before it gets tracked through the house. The under-the-bed box helps keep it contained (though it's not perfect).


I'm not going to investigate this. It's bad enough when he craps over the first wall.

Just felt this was appropriate:


Closed:


Inside:

Thats pretty cool. Nice use of that tiny cupboard as well.

Awesome.

Agreed. Cool idea. Especially because you can close it if you have company. Though in that case I would hope that there's a second box somewhere out of sight that the cats can use.

So far I think my fix is working. I put up that plastic shelf liner and it's discouraging them from going over the edge. It's been pretty good since then.

I've been too heavily conditioned, I think -- each time I come back to this thread, I'm expecting the final picture to reveal a car-player, some fat-ass power amps, and a subwoofer.

Maybe at the next owners' meet we should have a competition for best stealth install of a cat?

Peter

That's a beautiful cat shitter.

Is there something that removes or reduces the gag-factor when cleaning these things out? I have to take care of a neighbor's cat every now and then and less infrequently I have to do something about the litter. The last time I just put a giant garbage bag over the whole box and dumped everything in, then just filled it back up with fresh litter. I wasn't going to risk vomiting while scooping up turds and piss-clods one at a time.

It's only very infrequently that I need to do anything about the litter since usually it's only when they're gone for a day or two where I need to do anything with the pair of cats - food and twice daily insulin shots for one of them.

But the time before that last time I thought I was going to die - it had been only 3 days since the last time the litter had been taken care of.

Okay, Bruno, I think I need clarification. First off, when you say "it had been only 3 days since the last time the litter had been taken care of," do you mean that it had been three days since anyone had even scooped the litter? So nobody did anything at all with the litter box in three days? And we're talking about two cats?

I have two cats and two litter boxes. If I didn't clean either of them out for three days, I would have crap and piss all over our floors. Some days I clean one of the boxes out twice.

As for the rest of your post, you are supposed to change the litter out completely every so often. You're supposed to do it every couple weeks, I think, though I do it every 3-4, and I do just what you describe, I just cover it with a trash bag and dump the whole thing in. Then I fill it back up and you're good to go.


So if you're really saying that you let it go for 3 days, I think that's the primary problem with the smell. If the cats cover their mess up, there shouldn't be too horrible a smell when you go to clean it out. There are also enclosed litter boxes with carbon filters that can help. I have a "smellkiller" product I got from Amazon in my hidden box that I think helps a tiny bit.

On a side note, I'm not sure how cleaning out a litter box is any worse than picking up after a dog.

Shit, my wife is going to kill me. We have to get going soon and I still need to shave...



Well, I don't have to pick up dog piss for one. Dog piss also doesn't smell once it's absorbed into the grass. Not to mention that there's no dog on earth with piss that smells as bad as any run of the mill cat. Damn! The dog poop also doesn't usually smell (maybe it's species related, but it's also outside) and I don't pick it up with a shovel in close-quarters. The only time I pick up fresh dog treats is on a walk - but most of their business is done in the backyard. Guess I'm lucky that way - I send them out before going on walks. In the back yard I'll let it sit for a few days which usually gets rid of the odour.

Next spring however, I'm installing a flushable toilet in the back yard which I've already purchased. I'll need to use a scoop or claw to pick up the goods and drop them into the bowl to flush away.

I don't know how often they clean out the cat litter, but I don't own cats and I can't recall if they really said to bother any more often than 3 days. It was all covered, but man, it stank something awful when I sifted it out to pick and pack. I'm just gong to tell them to make sure to have 4 or 5 full boxes of new litter so I can do a daily complete dump if I need to handle that duty again.

What kind of litter do they use?

We use the clumping white sand stuff here.

Yes, let them poop outside. We have a litter tray in the house for emergency use only as the cat prefers to go outside to do her business.

Yeah, I think there's a few issues there Bruno. Like I said, they really should be sifting the box more than every 3 days. That's crazy. Their cats should be commended for putting up with that. I'm amazed they're still covering their business with that much stuff in the box.

Think of it this way, if a dog had to crap outside, but only had a 2' square area to do it in, I'd bet it would still smell pretty bad when you went out to pick it up.

And most people I've seen pick up dog crap on walks and with plastic baggies. I tend to think that handling wet dog crap, even through a bag, is a lot worse than scooping dried crap out of the litter box. I suppose it does depend on how you allow your dog to do its business, but living in an apartment, I wouldn't have a place for a dog to go out in. And if I had a yard, I wouldn't let my cats out. I think I'm only going to have indoor cats, after hearing the statistic that on average, indoor cats live 13-15 years, and outdoor cats live 3-4. My old cat was an outdoor cat until she had a fight which left one of her eyes cut open and she was on the brink of death. That was when she was about 9. Then she was an indoor cat until she died at 22.

And in case you're wondering, here's what my 22 year old cat looked like toward the end.



That's the most friendly cat in the history of the world you're looking at there.

Maybe... I'd have to put my cat, also named Spook, as a close runner-up. He died when he was 17 years old. I miss him. Sadly, this poor quality picture is the best one I have of him.

tanstaafl.

Wow, they look very much alike! I've actually seen many cats that are all black with nothing but a white tuft of hair on their necks. Green eyes too.

Actually, mine was Spooky, but close enough

Well, as long as we're showing cat pictures... This is a cat that we had to give up. We got him from the Best Friends animal rescue organization, brought him home and tried to integrate him with Jean's Siamese cat and my miniature poodle. The Siamese would have none of it. Caesar was the most patient and accommodating cat you could imagine, but the little bitch-kitty Siamese decided that one cat in the house was all there was going to be.

Caesar was about the prettiest cat I've ever been around.

tanstaafl.