4 cats, small home: litter box strategy

Four cats in a terrace house is exactly the kind of setup where litter box placement can quietly fall apart — and most people don't realise until the cats start going elsewhere. Quick thing worth knowing upfront: most litter boxes sold are too small. Cats need a tray at least 1.5 times their body length to use comfortably, and covered boxes — however tidy they look — often get avoided because cats feel cornered in them. So before we even talk about where to put boxes, we usually need to fix what the boxes are. How big are your four cats, roughly — are they all adults? And are any of them already avoiding the trays or going outside the box?

That garden visit in winter is absolutely a sign — that cat has decided the indoor options aren't good enough, and queuing means you're already under-provisioned. The rule of thumb is one box per cat plus one extra, so you're looking at five boxes minimum. I know that sounds like a lot for a terrace, but the placement strategy is what makes this workable in a small space. Before I get into that — do you have any covered boxes currently, and which floors of the house do the cats actually use day to day?

Right, so you've got two covered boxes in one room on the wrong floor for where most of your cats actually spend their time — that explains everything. The covered boxes need to go. For a house this size with four cats including a large Maine Coon, I'd recommend the Savic Senator open litter tray in the large size. It's genuinely big — 56cm long — which works well for your three moggies, and for the Maine Coon you'd want to grab two of the extra-large version (66cm). They're simple, easy to scoop, low-sided enough for quick access, and they stack for storage when you're cleaning. Switch out your two covered trays immediately, and you need three more trays placed across the house: one on each landing or in a corner of the upstairs hallway, one in the living room area tucked behind a piece of furniture, and keep one in the utility room. Spread across floors, away from food, never clustered together — that's what ends the queuing and brings the garden cat back inside.

Genuinely understandable concern, but covered boxes trap smells inside them — which is actually worse for the cats and why they avoid them. The smell in your house comes from waste sitting too long, not from the tray being open. Scoop twice a day, do a full litter change every one to two weeks, and use an unscented clumping litter — something like Catsan Smart Pack or Natusan. With five trays you'll have less waste per tray, which means less smell overall, not more. A litter mat under each tray catches tracking and cuts down on the spread. Once you're scooping regularly, five open trays in a clean house genuinely smells better than two neglected covered ones.

Keep one covered box in place for the first week alongside the new open trays — don't take it away cold turkey. Most cats will switch to the open trays within a few days once they're available, and by day seven or so you can remove the covered one quietly. Put the new trays in position before you do any of that, so the cats find them early and start using them straightaway. Your garden cat should come back in pretty quickly once there's an accessible tray on a floor they actually use. If after two weeks one cat is still holding out, check the placement — it might just need to move a metre or two.