You’re walking barefoot around your house, when you feel the unpleasant sensation of something hard pressing into your heel. To your mingled horror and disgust, you realize that Fluffy has used your carpet to clean the litter off her paws. You’ve tried almost everything you can think of us to remove it, but nothing seems to be working. Like the tiny debris your kitty tracked into your carpet, you’re going to have to think outside the litter box to solve this problem.

When it comes to something as messy as your kitty’s mess, it’s better to be more proactive than reactive, meaning that you should take measures to ensure that the litter clumps in your carpet are few and far between.

Below are a few ways that you can avoid a carpet cat-astrophe in the future:

  • Make sure the kitty litter box is on tile or hard wood, typically in a bathroom or secluded corner of a hallway. Your kitty will have farther to walk to get to carpet, so the idea is that any excess litter on her paws will lay neatly on a hard, easy-to-clean surface rather than matted in your carpet.
  • Keep a small broom and dustpan or hand-held vacuum near the litter box. Check for trailing around the exterior of the litter box daily, and clean up after your kitty whenever the need arises.
  • Contain the litter box in a small, closed-off area. Some people have even gone as far as to keep their litter box in the bathtub of a spare, mostly unused bathroom, but you could try something less invasive like keeping the litter box in a small plastic basin. The theory is that by the time your kitty hops out of the enclosed area, most of the litter will have already fallen off of her paws.

    • Rather than adding a containing extension to the litter box (as in the above suggestion), you might try rethinking the style of your litter box altogether. There are plenty of enclosed or high-walled litter boxes out there for you (and your kitty) to choose from.
    • Welcome your kitty to her new litter box with a new mat. There are mats out there that are specifically designed for you to place at the entrance of the litter box, which are fabricated with fibers that attract the loose litter bits that find themselves outside the protective walls of the box.


    Besides cleaning up outside and around the litter box, you should also make sure to clean the kitty litter itself daily. If your kitty finds that her bathroom is undesirably dirty, she may find somewhere else to relieve herself, causing your carpet even more damage.


    Even if you’ve taken all the necessary precautions, the occasion kitty litter clump is still, unfortunately, very possible. We’ve collected a number of cleaning and sanitizing methods that you can use to remove the kitty litter.


    Read on if the lit has missed the pan:


    • If the kitty litter has clumped into your carpet (rather than just lightly peppering it, as discussed in the situations above), do not try to vacuum these clumps out the way you would any other mess. Remove the detachable hose on the side of the vacuum and run the hose over the clumps in order to achieve the highest level of suction. Let the opening of the hose hover (or should we say, “hoover”?) over the clump for a moment before pressing the end of the hose directly into the carpet around the clump.
    • To extract any remaining litter bits, take some duct tape and pat the sticky side flat down on the carpet. If you have a particularly powerful vacuum (like the one we have), this step may be superfluous.
    • Once the litter clump has been effectively removed from the carpet, spray this area with special anti-pet-odor air freshener or a spray specifically designed to break down enzymes found in pet urine. (You can find a spray like this at almost any pet store or in the pet aisle of your local grocery store.) Spraying the carpet makes it less likely for your kitty to mistake this place as a spare bathroom.


    If you’re looking to have your carpet cleaned professionally, call Aqualux Carpet Cleaning. Not only do we clean your carpet using hot water extraction (steam cleaning), which can remove any stains the litter residue may have left behind, but we also disinfect your floors with our unique sanitizing solution. Take advantage of one of our monthly specials today!