Can You Make Your Own Zhu Zhu Pets Deluxe Giant Hamster City Playset?

So, your preschooler saw the television commercials and fell in love with the Zhu Zhu Pets, or maybe you did, and you bought them one, two or a few.
But, now you want to give the pets somewhere to live other than your floor or table without breaking the bank-there's a recession going on.
Of course, you can make your own playset.
The best way is to scale your way into whole city.
Why might you want to scale your way instead of buying it all? Two reasons, really: 1) Childrens' toy tastes can fickle really quickly (the less you spend, the less buyer's regret you have later), and, 2) You can get what you want; if you don't want an accessory with another Zhu Zhu pet, then don't buy it.
Here are four options for scaling into and building your city: the Car and Garage, the Starter Set, Funhouse, and City.
The Zhu Zhu Pet Car and Garage is a basic accessory.
Most accessories are in the $15-$30 range and are clearly the inexpensive route to making the city.
This accessory includes a sedan, garage and track section.
Put the car in the garage and close the door.
Then, put your pet on the track and it will crawl into the car, the door opens and off he goes.
Not all accessories are designed to be a stand-alone item (meaning, you need nothing else to make it work), but this one is.
Other accessories worth considering are the Ramp and Slide, Hamster Wheel or Skateboard and U-turn.
Where it makes sense, all accessories are designed to be connected together with each other, and with the houses.
The Zhu Zhu Pets Hamster House Starter Set is, well, exactly that-a complete starter set.
It normally retails for $28-$30-still inexpensive, but not like the accessories.
It is a small version of a figure 8 track and basic house-no special rooms.
It is the equivalent of a sleeping room or efficiency apartment without the kitchen or bathroom.
The starter set also has Patches-a difficult, some would say 'rare', pet to find.
Patches also comes with a ball to push around.
The Starter Set can also be expanded by adding some of the accessories mentioned earlier.
Moving on up, the next one is the Zhu Zhu Pets Funhouse.
The Funhouse also includes the "rare" Patches; alas, it does not come with a ball.
It retails in the $40 range.
The Funhouse has a tunnel that connects the following rooms: bedroom, kitchen and a studio-bathroom.
The tunnel track has special bumps that trigger the built in artificial intelligence to make your pet hamster move or emit funny sounds; snoring in the bedroom or pretending to brush teeth in the bathroom.
Last, we come to the Zhu Zhu Pets Deluxe Giant Hamster City Playset.
It truly is a city.
It retails for $140-170, depending on the retailer.
Wow! You might say, but hold on.
This is actually the more economical choice.
Here is what comes in the box, so-to-speak: Funhouse (see above), sleep dome, Garage And Car (see above), Hamster Wheel, Hamster Ball, and two Zhu Zhu pet hamsters-Mr.
Squiggles and Patches, aka the "rare" one.
Depending on where you shop, it may actually cost you more than this playset's price in order to get all that it includes.
Not to mention, you will save shipping or multiple trips to big box retailers to find all the accessories.
In sum, can you make your own Zhu Zhu Pets Deluxe Giant Hamster City Playset? Yes, you can.
You can start small with just an accessory or two, and then slowly add on the "buildings" that you like.
Or, you can start in the mid range with a Funhouse or starter set.
And last, you can go for it all and get the Zhu Zhu Pets Deluxe Giant Hamster City Playset-and save in the long run by not buying each individual piece.
What do you Zhu Zhu?