Good Pet Stuff Hidden Litter vs Merry Products Cat Litter Loo: which hides the mess better?

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Spec	Top pickGood Pet Stuff Hidden Planter	Merry Products Loo Bench
Price	$64	$89
Material	Polypropylene with carbon filter	MDF with painted finish
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Bottom line up front

If you want the best visual disguise in a small footprint, the Good Pet Stuff Hidden Litter Box Planter Original wins on camouflage. If you want a piece that doubles as real, sturdy furniture and can hold a larger litter pan, the Merry Products Cat Litter Loo Bench is the better buy. Neither one solves odor control by itself, and both have a design flaw worth knowing before you order: the planter’s elevated round entry absorbs urine if your cat ever misses the pan, and the bench’s wood construction does the same.

I track new litter box releases and price shifts across this category regularly, and these two show up constantly in “hide my litter box” searches because they attack the same problem from different angles: one disguises, one integrates. Here’s how they actually stack up.

Size and interior space

Winner: Merry Products, by a narrow margin.

The Good Pet Stuff planter has a 19×19-inch interior, which Cats.com’s 2025 review flagged as tight for large or active cats. The round shape compounds the problem: circular walls make scooping awkward and can encourage cats to spray urine against the curve instead of down into the litter.

The Merry Products bench fits a litter box up to roughly 18.5 inches wide by 16 inches deep, with a removable divider that can expand usable space depending on which pan you install. Neither one comes close to the AAHA/AAFP standard of a box at least 1.5 times a cat’s nose-to-tail-base length, which most commercial boxes fail to hit. If you own a large breed or a cat over 12 pounds, plan to size up litter box hardware separately and treat both of these as enclosures, not the pan itself.

Odor control and ventilation

Winner: Good Pet Stuff, with a caveat.

The planter includes a carbon-infused filter designed to vent odor actively, and buyer reviews on Chewy and Amazon report solid odor containment when the filter stays clear and maintenance stays consistent. That’s a real feature the Merry Products bench doesn’t have.

But here’s the catch that applies to both products and to enclosed litter furniture generally: sealing a box doesn’t eliminate ammonia, it concentrates it. When urine sits for 12 to 24 hours, bacteria break urea down into ammonia gas, and in an enclosed space without active airflow that gas builds to levels that can discourage cats from entering at all, according to Cornell vet guidance cited by Petco and confirmed by ammonia-safety data from CATLINK. Passive vents alone aren’t enough. You need carbon filtration or genuine cross-airflow, and the Merry Products bench relies on magnetized doors with no equivalent filtration system, which a PetPlace veterinary evaluator described as having poor ventilation.

So the planter has a mechanical edge here, but it’s not a substitute for daily scooping.

Durability and material

Winner: Good Pet Stuff, but it’s close and the failure modes are different.

The planter is polypropylene, a plastic that per a 2026 Commeownity audit doesn’t absorb odors the way wood does. Its weakness is thinness: multiple buyer reviews on Chewy, Amazon, and Walmart report difficulty aligning the top and bottom pieces, and claws can tear the material over time, creating gaps that get unsanitary fast.

The Merry Products bench is MDF with a painted finish, not solid wood or oak veneer. That matters because MDF and particle board warp and absorb ammonia permanently within months once urine gets into the seams, according to The Refined Feline’s furniture material review. A verified long-term Chewy buyer reported exactly this failure: urine seeped under the pan, into the joints, and the odor persisted even after professional cleaning. Chewy reviewers from 2024 also flagged assembly issues, including door hinge holes misaligned by about an eighth of an inch.

Neither material is ideal. Plastic won’t rot but can crack and tear. Wood looks nicer and functions as real furniture, yet one accident can permanently ruin it in a way no filter fixes.

Cat comfort and entry design

Winner: Merry Products.

The planter’s entry sits 6.75 inches off the ground, meaning your cat has to step up and then down into the litter, an awkward motion for kittens, senior cats, or anything with joint issues. The bench’s side-entry, magnetized-door design is more in line with how cats naturally approach a box and doesn’t add a step-up.

Both are enclosed designs, and it’s worth knowing what the actual research says about that. A 2024 Ross University study of 28 cats, published via PMC, found no significant overall preference between covered and uncovered boxes: some cats liked covered, some liked open, and it varied by individual. So “enclosed” isn’t inherently worse for every cat. But veterinary behavioral consensus, per Newtown Square Vet and PetPlace, leans toward cats preferring visibility so they can watch for threats while they’re vulnerable. Single-entry enclosed designs like both of these are also riskier in multi-cat homes, since a subordinate cat can get cornered by a more dominant one and simply stop using the box. If you have more than one cat, don’t rely on either of these as your only box, and don’t assume hiding one box in the living room satisfies the litter box count you need.

Furniture value and multi-purpose use

Winner: Merry Products, decisively.

This is where the Cat Litter Loo earns its price tag. It’s a functional bench with a sturdy top you can sit on or set things on, plus a side towel rail and a removable interior divider for storage flexibility. Chewy reviewers generally praise the assembly process as straightforward with clear instructions and magnetized doors included, though some report the doors loosening with repeated use over time.

The Good Pet Stuff planter is purely disguise. It looks like a decorative plant and does that job well in a small apartment corner, but it’s not doing double duty as furniture. If you want a litter solution that also earns its footprint in your living room as a table or bench, the planter can’t compete.

Best cat litter for odor control

Unscented clumping clay litter is the safest default. A 2025 IAABC study found cats generally prefer unscented clumping clay over scented or novelty substrates, and scent additives that are pleasant to humans can actually discourage cats from using the box. Attractant litters show some promise in early research but don’t yet have strong peer-reviewed backing. The bigger lever isn’t brand, it’s maintenance: scoop once or twice daily, keep litter at a 2 to 3 inch depth (more litter doesn’t mean less cleaning, and cats prefer a shallow surface they can bury waste in like a natural scrape), and fully change litter once or twice a week depending on type. A thin layer of baking soda at the base of the box is genuinely study-backed for helping with ammonia, per research cited in the American Journal of Veterinary Research.

Self-cleaning litter box reviews and the reddit consensus

Self-cleaning boxes get mixed reviews because the technology solves scooping but creates a new problem: noise and movement that frighten cats into avoiding the box altogether. Veterinary consensus, including guidance cited by Litter Robot’s own practice notes, points to mechanical litter avoidance as a common cause of inappropriate elimination. Reddit threads on the topic echo this heavily: plenty of success stories, but a recurring pattern of cats refusing to use the box after the rake cycle startles them once. Automatic boxes also mask the daily visual health checks (urine color, stool consistency, frequency) that vets rely on to catch early signs of urinary blockages, diabetes, or kidney disease, according to a 2026 homerunPET safety review. If you go automatic, keep a manual box as backup during the transition and keep watching what’s actually going into it.

DIY self-cleaning litter box and mainstream brands

DIY self-cleaning builds (usually a sifting-tray setup on a timer or hand-crank mechanism) can work, but they inherit the same behavioral risk as commercial automatic brands: unfamiliar noise and motion near the box. If you’re set on automation, established self-cleaning brands with gradual-introduction guidance and adjustable sensitivity settings are a safer bet than a from-scratch build simply because the transition period is better documented and the failure modes are more predictable.

Cat litter oil stain

Oily residue on litter or around the box usually points to a scented litter additive breaking down, a cat with a skin or grooming issue transferring oils, or in wood enclosures like the Merry Products bench, urine that’s seeped into the material and is now leaching back out. If you see oily staining on an MDF or particle-board litter cabinet specifically, treat it as a sign of moisture penetration into the wood, not just surface dirt. At that point, cleaning the surface won’t fix it. The absorption has likely already happened.

Who should buy which

Buy the Good Pet Stuff Hidden Litter Box Planter if you live in a small apartment, own one small-to-medium cat, and care most about the box disappearing visually into a room. Skip it if you have a large cat, multiple cats, or a cat with mobility issues that would struggle with the raised entry.

Buy the Merry Products Cat Litter Loo Bench if you want a litter solution that also functions as real furniture, don’t mind wood as a material trade-off, and are committed to catching accidents fast so urine never sits against the MDF. Skip it if you’ve had a cat with a history of missing the box, since wood damage from urine is effectively permanent.

Either way, the enclosure is not a substitute for the fundamentals: daily scooping, correct litter depth, unscented clumping litter, and enough total boxes for your household (one per cat plus one extra, per AAFP/AAHA guidance). Buy the housing that fits your space and your cat’s size, then let good litter habits do the actual odor work.

Frequently asked questions

Are covered litter boxes bad for cats?

Not universally. A 2024 Ross University study of 28 cats published via PMC found no significant overall preference between covered and uncovered boxes, with individual cats favoring one or the other. The real risk with covered designs is ammonia buildup from poor ventilation, not the cover itself, so airflow and cleaning frequency matter more than the enclosure style.

How many litter boxes do I need for one cat?

AAFP and AAHA guidelines recommend one litter box per cat plus one extra, or one per floor of the home, whichever number is higher. A single hidden or furniture-style box, even a nice one, still only counts as one box, so multi-cat households typically need more than a single Good Pet Stuff planter or Merry Products bench can provide.

Does a carbon filter fully eliminate litter box odor?

No. A carbon filter like the one in the Good Pet Stuff planter helps vent some odor but can’t compensate for infrequent scooping or a blocked filter, and buyer reviews note lingering odor when cleaning lapses. Daily scooping, 2 to 3 inches of unscented clumping litter, and a full litter change once or twice weekly are what actually control smell long-term.

Can urine damage ruin a wood litter box enclosure permanently?

Yes, if the wood is MDF or particle board rather than solid wood or oak veneer. Urine that seeps into joints or the base can be absorbed permanently, and a verified long-term Merry Products Cat Litter Loo user reported odor persisting even after professional cleaning. Once ammonia is absorbed into composite wood, filters and surface cleaning won’t reverse it.