Quote Originally Posted by Purr-tender
From what everyone is telling me, I need more boxes, but if I keep the ones that I have scooped I don't see how that will help.
I can only venture a guess here but I think it's because they more or less claim a litterbox as their own. Then if another cat does use theirs, there is one extra that's clean. It definitely helped to get more litterboxes plus, as you say, having them in the basement. My house is the same way as your friend's, no odor unless a neighborhood cat walks by and has the audacity to sit on my patio or in my shrubbery, then they might spray against a window.