Can You Vacuum Cat Litter?
Vacuuming litter with a regular vacuum cleaner is a bad idea. Here are the main reasons why it causes more harm than good:
- Cat litter is sharp and damages hoses and filters.
- Cat urine and feces turn litter into heavy clumps that clog hoses. When mixed with liquid, the litter behaves like cement, sticking to hoses and canister walls.
- Litter dust clogs filters and reduces suction power.
- Urine- and feces-soaked litter gets trapped in brushes or hoses, spreading unpleasant odors throughout the home.
- Vacuum brushes often fling litter away from the box. If clumps are contaminated, they may end up in unexpected places.
Litter is tough on any household vacuum. While it may seem convenient to use a standard vacuum to clean up spilled litter, the result is usually a shorter lifespan for the machine and a bigger mess to deal with.
The biggest issue? Once damp, litter hardens like concrete. Inside a vacuum, it’s essentially like sucking up tiny rocks, abrasive, heavy, and destructive. A different method is far safer for both the machine and the living space.
Best Way To Pick It Up
There do exist vacuum cleaners that can handle litter. The best vacuum for kitty litter will be a shop vac and not the regular vacuum you use around your home.
I’m a fan of the Shop-Vac 5989300 5-Gallon 4.5 Peak HP Stainless Steel Wet Dry Vacuum on Amazon (Amazon Link Ad).
The great thing about having a shop vac around the home is that it can clean up all the other messes you don’t want your nice vacuum to touch. Things like sucking up water and all the other messes around your home.
Using A Shop Vac
I prefer removing the filter from the shop vac before tackling kitty litter, so that cat urine or feces doesn’t cling to it. My shop vac usually stays in this state since it’s often called on to pick up all sorts of unexpected liquids.
Move the litter box aside to clear the space for cleaning.
Without any attachments, the shop vac hose quickly pulls in most of the scattered litter. After that, the Crevice Tool makes it easier to reach tight corners and edges. Long Crevice Tool Attachments are especially handy for those tough-to-reach spots.
A shop vac is a powerful tool and, in my opinion, the best option for litter cleanup. These machines are designed to handle nearly anything thrown at them—even messy accidents.
Getting Litter Out of Carpet
For carpet cleanup, a carpet rake is an excellent choice. If a carpet rake isn’t available, a shop vac does the job well when the hose is moved across the carpet from multiple directions.
Relying on a shop vac for these messes helps protect a standard household cleaner from early failure caused by litter. I’ve seen a shop vac take on pens, rocks, and other odd items without issue. One of its greatest advantages is the ability to handle liquids, making wet messes far less troublesome.
Tip: Some shop vac models include a floor attachment, but I usually stick to the hose alone for litter cleanup. Avoid floor attachments with spinning brushes since they tend to scatter litter rather than remove it.
The Bigger Issue
Cats that scatter litter outside the box make cleanup a constant hassle, especially when dragging out a regular household cleaner feels like a chore. Two products worth considering are a litter mat to catch the scatter or an automatic litter box to minimize the problem altogether.
(Amazon Link Ad)Litter Mat – You can buy litter mats that will help to stop the spread of litter around the litter box. But trust me on this one, you need a particular mat. What you need is a litter mat like the Blackhole Cat Litter Mat (Amazon Link Ad), this mat allows the litter to fall through the holes, and it makes it super easy to dump it out in the trash.
Automatic Litter Box – A litter mat is helpful in any setup, but cats often toss litter out the sides while digging for the right spot. In homes with multiple cats, this behavior is even more common. Many cats avoid using the same area as another, so they push litter aside and create their own space, leaving a bigger mess behind. Unless the box is cleaned after every single use, an ongoing solution is needed.
An automatic litter box is one of the best answers. These units continuously sift through the litter, removing waste and keeping the box cleaner for longer. The biggest advantage is simple disposal—waste is collected in a contained tray that can be emptied with minimal effort.
Another Option – One alternative, while not perfect, reduces the hassle of scattered litter: a robot cleaner. I set mine to run once a day, starting in the area where the litter box sits. This way, litter sprinkles get handled automatically without extra effort. Even with mats in place, cats always find ways to track litter beyond the box. A robot cleaner takes care of that on a schedule, turning a daily annoyance into a worry-free task.
Those wondering if a robot vacuum can work as well as a regular vacuum I have a post that answers that question here.