Hamster Cleanliness

Question
I've read that hamsters are very clean animals, "doing their business" in only one part of the cage.  I recently received a year-old hamster from a nephew and she seems not to understand that she's supposed to do that.  She leaves pellets whereever she goes, and most irritating, she urinates in her wheel.  Is that typical?  Is there a way to train her to go in one spot?  (I've seen hamster litter boxes-they say that you're supposed to find her 'one spot' and then place the box there.  I can't imagine that works based on my experience with this one.)

Answer
Hi,
as a rule hamsters really chose one corner of their cage as a toilet and urinate there. They do leave their excrements everywhere, but since those are hard and not smelly, that's not a problem.

It seems your hamsters picked her wheel as toilet. You can try to place the wheel somewhere else (clean it first so that it doesn't smell any more). Maybe she will use the spot where the wheel stood as toilet then. Or place some substrate that the hamster urinated on into a corner, a lot of hamsters get the hint when you do that.
By the way, it is normal for them to place food in their toilet corner, it seems to add to the taste for them.

I hope this was of some hep to you
Jennifer