Hay cubes are not optimal as you know, but they could at least be a partial substitute for now, if your landlord is making trouble for you. You could perhaps hand feed some normal hay and have hay cubes available at all times. Many bunnies eat what they’re hand fed more readily.
It’s not certain that a bunny will eat hay cubes though. Mine wouldn’t. So buy a small pack first in case they disapprove.

My buns wouldn’t eat hay cubes when I tried them.

And if you can find a way to keep hay contained, please let me know. It’s a constant struggle keeping my whole upstairs clean. It just spreads all over.

My guess is whoever invents a method or device for keeping hay contained would become a very wealthy person. Possibly win a Nobel prize too. My whole life is full of hay.

That’s so frustrating about your landlord! I have found that the bagged hay you can get in pet stores is slightly less messy than fresh farm hay, since the strands are a little shorter. I stress “slightly,” though.

I also wanted to add that if you do end up using hay cubes, make sure you don’t get ones with added alfalfa. Kaytee, for example, has a Timothy hay cube that also contains a small portion of alfalfa, and I believe other companies add alfalfa, as well. While it sounds like it is a matter of personal preference, my rabbit loves them. I give him a few each week to supplement his loose hay, and he chews and nudges it all over his condo. They’re not mess free, since they produce a lot of dust when they break apart, but they are much less messy than hay.

Hay cubes are considered treat so don’t overdo it. You can just put one area with the hay that way they won’t make much of a mess. My room is full of hay that when someone enters it they say it smells like grass. Lols.

I found that my boy made a MUCH bigger mess when I put his hay in a hanging rack…he just pulled it all out and it got all over the place. I have much better luck with a plastic tub. I have his litterbox and a pile of hay in a flat plastic box (the under the bed kind) and he’s much neater. It gives him room to dig around in it a little bit, without getting it all over the house. I just fluff it up and freshen it every day and he loves it.

I guess I just got lucky, but I gotta say, I have no problems with stray hay. I keep it in a rack above his litter box, which is in a hutch. Maybe the hutch keeps it more contained, but really, I hardly ever find hay outside of the litter box.

Except this one time…

Luckily that turned out to be a fluke.

Hazel Why is the water inside the litter box? Just curious.

Just in case he makes a mess with it, sometimes he steps in his water. So if he spills anything it gets soaked up by the litter and doesn’t make a mess elsewhere. And he seems to like having it nearby while eating his hay. I used to have his food bowl in there too, but feeding him that way caused some behavioral issues so now we use a treat ball.

Thank you for the answer Hazel, I was really puzzled by the picture. Now I understand.

Hay cubes are great, Olly loves them, he has one for his tea before bed, so I put it in his bowl in his cage, he doesn’t like loose hay it makes him sneeze and me, but they can break up and you can vac it up without clogging your hoover.

LittlePuffyTail, if you get a goat he will gladly clean up the hay for you.