Cat Hair and Legos

Updated on January 23, 2019
J.G. asks from Champaign, IL
10 answers

I have two kids that love legos, thus I have a few lego work spaces. We also have a cat that climbs on everything. I am not a cat person, and I am struggling with cat hair. Advise on how to remove, tame, and prevent cat hair from being all over the place?

In an ideal world, the lego work spaces wouldn't have piles of legos on them, but instead, put together projects that could be dusted around. My oldest does tend to pick up loose pieces so he doesn't' lose them, but my youngest is, well, still young. I keep thinking we can keep the loose legos in her desk draw, or in plastic shoe bins (what my son uses). But she doesn't build this way. She has a loft bed, so the cat uses the desk to climb up into the bed, and the desk is a mess of cat hair and legos. Suggestions to tame this chaos?

So, cat hair and legos. Suggestions to tame this chaos? (I am going to put the cat's owner on a set schedule for brushing the cat. I know this will help immensely.)

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Featured Answers

D.S.

answers from Phoenix on

I hate legos. So I'm no help there. But I'd definitely try to restrict them to one room.
But I've had cats and dealt with cat hair since I can remember. I have been catless for about 3 yrs. Catless is way better.
Cat's have different kinds of hair. My Maine Coon didn't shed a lot. My rag doll shed like you wouldn't believe. I brushed her routinely out doors and enough hair came off to make another cat. And still there was hair left to brush. I think it grew back as fast as I brushed. It blew through the neighborhood like cottonwood seeds. It was a sight to behold. It piled at the corners of the fence in my back yard like a small snow bank. In the house it wafted across the kitchen floor like cotton wool.
My daughter has a cat with short spikey needle hair that gets on everything and won't be vacuumed.
So the bottom line is you have a cat. You have cat hair. Deal with it. Sorry.
I changed my last cat's name to Elsie. (LC. Last Cat.) Swiffers. Lots of Swiffers.

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J.F.

answers from Las Vegas on

Why don't you just keep that bedroom door closed and keep the cat out? It may take a while to get the kids to remember to keep it closed, but if their legos get knocked down enough and they're upset about it, they'll learn. As for the cat, she'll find other places to be her favorites if she's kept out of there.

We did that in our house, and it was a quick and easy fix for places we did not want the cat to go.

Regarding cat hair: brush the cat regularly; swiffer, dust, and vacuum regularly, and use tape rollers for places that are resistant to vacuuming. There's really no way around it. If you're going to have cats, even short-haired ones like ours was, you're going to have hair.

5 moms found this helpful

D.B.

answers from Boston on

If your kids have "works in progress" on the bed that they don't want to clean up, you can try long strips of aluminum foil over the display. That's what a lot of people put on their furniture to keep animals off. Apparently, animals hate it. Use long sheets rather little ones so the cat's movement doesn't dislodge the lightweight foil. And of course, re-use the sheets.

5 moms found this helpful

B.C.

answers from Norfolk on

Loose Legos go in ziplock bags.
It keeps them together and you can see what is in the bag.

The only way to deal with cat hair is to have surfaces kept clear/picked up so dusting/vacuuming can happen - it may be awhile before you can achieve this.
Maybe the cat can get brushed more - some enjoy being vacuumed - so there's less hair floating around.

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M.D.

answers from Pittsburgh on

I don't have any great solutions for the existing problem with the legos, but I do have 2 cat hair suggestions to keep the amount of fur that is flying around down to a low level. 1) vacuum daily. I have a Roomba that does this for me and it's amazing how much cat hair it picks up every single day. 2) air cleaners with HEPA filters (replaced often) and frequent replacement of furnace/heat pump filters. The filters catch the cat hair that is in the air and help keep the overall cat hair levels down.

ETA: Like many others, we also have a 'closed door' policy when it comes to bedrooms and the cat.

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C.T.

answers from Santa Fe on

Hello, we have a long hair cat and a husky...both shed a lot. You brush the cat daily if you can. We try to brush each day...put your kids in charge of this if you think they can do it. Our cat is young and she has to be in the right mood to be brushed so we do it in the evening when she gets in a snuggly, sleepy mood. If she's in a playful mood it's impossible. The other thing you do is vacuum, sweep, and mop on a regular basis. You don't say how old your kids are, but my kids do the sweeping and vacuuming. These are done twice a week. The vacuum has a long attachment to get the corners and behind/under furniture where pet hair can accumulate. My daughter actually loves doing this...it's a really lightweight vacuum. Then I mop once a week. This takes care of it....seriously. I've had friends with cat allergies come over for dinner and they say our house is the only one with cats where they have no symptoms. Ithink this will help you a lot...if there is not an accumulation of hair it will not pile up around the legos. We keep our loose legos in these large plastic totes that stay closed when the kids are not playing with them. The built legos are out on a little shelf. You can put your kids in charge of dusting that area once each weekend.

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D..

answers from Miami on

I would designate a room for legos that the cat cannot enter. Separate the cat from the legos.

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M.G.

answers from Portland on

My youngest is a slob when it comes to Lego. I can relate. She doesn't really build the sets so much as uses her imagination with them - so she kind of builds them, but when they sort of fall apart, she's ok with that, and then she takes parts of others, and then random people and other bits and pieces ... and then doesn't put away other Legos she was playing with ... and then has a friend over and they sort of make a town .... and so it kind of grows. It is just m-e-s-s-y and I don't really know what she's playing with and not, and I also don't really want to ruin the creativity mid play. I prefer this over electronics/devices.

What about those trays they can build on - and sort of lift that away and put in a closet or someplace, and say so long as it's on here, you can have it out? I did that with just these cheap trays I got at the Dollar store. She could transport it from room to room, and I could blow on it for dust to remove. I wonder if you could do the same with cat hair?

We have those grey Lego bases that would work similarly ... but I like these trays with handles (just plastic trays that people would use for coffee/lunch) and it gives them a limit. Everything else goes in the big bin.

I find it I expect the messy ones to get more organized than that (even if I sort for them first) they won't keep it up.

You could just keep the cat out of her room. We close our bedroom doors during the day and also at night.

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S.T.

answers from Washington DC on

well, the easiest thing is to close the door and keep the cat out of that room, isn't it?

this isn't something that will have a nice neat solution. you have to decide what's the least difficult.

you can brush the cat if the cat likes it, but some cats don't. and it won't stop the cat from shedding.

your youngest isn't a toddler. even in an unschooley sort of home you should have expectations and boundaries, and 'if you want to play legos you need to make sure all the loose ones are put in a shoebox when you're finished' is one that even boingy busy young ones can and should follow.

if the legos are confined it's very easy to run a dustbuster. your kids can do that part too.

it's only chaos if you don't implement simple coping techniques.

khairete
S.

2 moms found this helpful

A.W.

answers from Kalamazoo on

get one of those cans of air in the office supply sections, used to clean off keyboards and stuff, Spray legos. Also, you could from time to time, put loose legos in a laundry basket or similar with holes in it, and rinse off in bathtub, then toss on towel to air dry.

2 moms found this helpful
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