first off, i live in a small apartment. bed, bath, kitchen, living. there's no great place to put it in the first place [it's in the bathroom rn]
every time i see it it feels like a chore. it gives me anxiety, it is a constant chore, endless, does not stop. it will never stop. i cannot finish the chore, ever.
^ and to that point -- if i were to scoop every day or even less frequently, it is disgusting 100% of the time, no matter what. touching it at all is disgusting, putting my face or body near it is disgusting, i don't want to see or interact with it in any way. every time i interact with it, it's a mental barrier to break down. no amount of cutesy names or molded plastic will make it not fucking disgusting.
none of the self cleaning ones really work properly, do they?
it's bad for the cats if you don't maintain it properly
i mean ok whatever. if this is the worst part of their lives, fine, they don't have to work or pay rent or worry.
If you won't clean a litter box you aren't fit to care for an indoor cat.
I had a cat that I adopted from some piece of shit that was bad to him. He always wanted to go outside like a lot of cats, was enamored with it when the door opened. So I let him. This was a choice I made, I knew life for an outside cat was harder but he was happier, and he was neutered so I let him go outside. I never had to change litter, he went outside every time. But it came with a price: he died early from being bit by a snake or something. I always knew it was a possibility but I knew my cat, he would've been miserable cooped up all the time. He was a free soul.
So you have a choice: clean a litter box every day, without fail, even if you hate it, or let your cat go outside whenever he wants. He will get beaten up by other cats, stuck in trees, attacked by wild animals, he will not come home sometimes for 2 days, he will come home sometimes looking like he got the shit beat out of him by another cat. You have to make sure he doesn't get picked up by the pound, that your apartments won't flip out on you or get him picked up, and he could get run over by a car. Maybe he won't like being outside, in which case it's not an option, you're cleaning a litter box. Or, if you can't deal with either, don't have a cat. Someone who won't clean a litter box has no business having a cat, go shit and piss in the corner of your bedroom and leave it there and see how happy you are with that state of affairs, that's what you do to your cat being a lazy bum.