[Ria P]

I walk around the hamster's room sniffing.

When my nose detects a bad smell i sort it. The source could be a patch of smelly substrate which i then renew with fresh substrate, a peed on wheel which gets a wipe over with a damp jcloths, a smelly corner toilet i remove lumps of sand from and so on.

I have no cleaning schedule or timetable. The hamsters have houses with removable roofs so i can check their nests without disturbing them. I do that when they're not in their cages.

Petshops advise to clean often so they can sell more substrate and their advice is generally many many years out of date.