I’ve not been a fan of the Diaper Genie Elite, it’s commonly known as the fail pail around here due to everything possible going wrong with it, from unmarked bag ends causing a fully loaded sloppy diaper to fall into the thing, to a complete lack of warning that the thing is getting full.

more Diaper Genie Elite fails

Refail

The first of the recent fails has to do with one of the refills. I’ve refilled a few of these now, so this is not something that’s overly complicated to master. Peel off ring, pull plastic, and in about a foot or two the thing goes from doubled over bag to single bag and you’ve got your bag.

Except it didn’t. The refill lasted a little longer than half as long as it should as the only grab point was dead center. Basically due to packaging the thing wasted half the bagging potential because of it being doubled.

Pail Fail

The way the Diaper Genie Elite keeps smell out is a little door the flips open when you press the foot pedal. Actually it’s two little doors that basically keep the bag held together except when you place a diaper into the thing.

At that point the diaper sits in a little airlock, and when you let go of the foot pedal the top of the door closes and the bottom opens up and drops the diaper into the thing.

But what happens when someone puts a couple of diapers in there and they don’t go through because it’s full and you press the pedal? The force you put on it just to get the lid to pop up appears to also be the force required to break one of the door pegs, which is what happened to ours. One door opens, the other stays shut.

I took the thing apart to get to the peg (six screws and an extra long extension Philips head) and after that I found the broken peg sitting in the housing section. A bit of super glue and it worked a little longer, but not more than a day.

Pretty sad, this was a pretty high investment in terms of shitty equipment, and it’s been nothing but a pain from day one.

Pail fail backup?

I talked to the neighbors, they had one that they quit using because it was a pain for them as well, so I may be getting a replacement. I also may have roughly an hour of uninterrupted free time that I can rig up a new side peg using something that’s not a cheap piece of plastic, but with Baby M being what she’s been like, I don’t have much uninterrupted time.

Current list of fail pail complaints

1. No marking or indistinguishable marking in low light situations for when the bag is about to run out
2. Pricey refills
3. In bare feet entirely possible to pinch the hell out of a toe
4. No indication of when the diaper pail is getting full, just it works and then it doesn’t and you have to scoop shitty diapers out of the thing
5. If there’re a couple of diapers stacked up top, easy to break side peg
6. Diapers on top = stained lid
7. The smell reduction only works as long as the door properly works

You too can throw money away with this at Amazon for $29.74