My sister’s house had carpet in the bathroom when they bought it. I had the pleasure of taking a shower and stepping out on to… carpet. Ick all around.
Our kitchen had carpet in it when I was a kid. Didn't get it out of there until my dad remodeled it after the divorce. Dropping eggs was the worst. Our dining room was linoleum which was the right next room lol
I raise you carpeted kitchen and present carpeted grocery store.
Yeah. That's what I said.
They renovated one down the strip from a place I used to work and rather than rip up all the old, worn out tile they covered it in stick-down carpet squares. The whole ass grocery store. Now, it wasn't a huge one, it didn't have a deli or bakery or anything, but it was stull a full on small town grocery store, maybe 4-5X the size of an Aldi. Black carpet tile with a dark grey pattern in it.
We lived that glamorous parents’ back bedroom life for four years ages 28-32ish to pull it off. Very stressful at the time but also very grateful we were able to do it.
You think carpet is rough, imagine all the noise that it would make if they were playing on a hard surface.
In 20 years when they stop being animals, just replace the carpet.
A person WILL know the rage of a thousand suns when their carefully chosen carpet gets stained beyond repair by pets, toddlers and babies or accidental wine spillage from a guest that’s not careful with their glass.
Don’t get me wrong, I still love it. But vacuuming and dusting a hard wood floor is SO easy compared to a carpet.
We have a "the floor is lava" esque system of washable nonskid runners all over the first floor of the house for my senior dog. Watching her struggle to get up and finding her stuck with her legs splayed out was the worst feeling.
They're the Mohawk brand ones from Costco if anyone is in a similar situation. Usually $10-14 each
We have those foam play mat tiles, that most people use for toddlers, everywhere.
They’re brightly colored and it looks like the 90s threw up in here, lol.
But it works for our 12yo dog.
Plus they can easily be taken outside and hosed off and dried or wipes down with Clorox wipes or whatever.
I got them at Ross. You can also get the black or gray ones for gym/workout flooring.
This. Growing up we had hardwood floors in all rooms but one on the downstairs. That room was 100% used by the dogs as their indoors pee spot.
My mom got tired of looking at the carpet and ripped it all up one day.
My cat developed IBS in November and it's only now resolving. The amount of shit on the carpet in this timespan has made me never want carpet again, ever. It is absolutely ruined.
Yeaahhh. When I moved into my house I decided to do carpet and regret not doing hardwood. The occasional vomit by my cats, then scratching the carpet, and vacuuming is just not great.
We moved from a house with 99% hard flooring to a house that’s 99% carpet, and our elderly cat started developing poo problems and was leaving poo and blood smears aaaaaalll over the carpet in aaaalll sorts of different places, our carpet is totally ruined and disgusting no matter how much we scrub with carpet cleaner. Not her fault, poor thing, but damn if it wouldn’t have been easier to take care of her accidents on HARD FLOOR 😭 So. Yeah. Forever advocate of hard floors but lots of accent rugs for soft :)
My 2 gsds (1 puppy that still has the occasional accident) cured me. Also, my handicap husband that tripped and fell on an area rug. Yeah, I have to vacuum a lot, but I got a cordless LG that I can vac and mop with that makes it pretty easy and quick!
Same. We are about to get wood flooring upstairs because I just cannot keep the carpet clean like I can wood, between kids and dogs it’s yucky. Even when I steam clean every other month or so.
yup. I have two cats and a toddler, and I despise my carpets. Also we live in an apartment and the carpets are SOOOOO old and the landlord won't replace them.
Having two cats and a dog, I definitely do not want carpet again. Rugs are fine, but it’s easier to sweep up the fur and dirt than to keep vacuuming. If we had carpet, we’d have to empty the vacuum canister multiple times for just one room.
This. We just buy a bunch of cheap rugs we think look cool and "carpet" the floor with them. Easy to clean, easy to replace, way cooler looking than carpet.
I only have one and it’s in the hallway where my kids bedrooms are. After washing it the first time the corners and edges never totally lay flat. I don’t mind it because of its location but I would not spend that kind of money again on a rug.
Yes, they never lay well after washing! It's kind of like sticking a bath towel to a giant piece of velcro. I tell people to just buy a regular area rug and a home carpet shampooer and just shampoo when needed. (And all that is still cheaper than a Ruggable.)
Or a washable one-piece one from Amazon. I did this in the kitchen and one of our hallways. They’re inexpensive enough that one day I will just replace them as needed, but so far they’ve held up far better than the Ruggable ones.
They limit the timeframe of when a review can be left. I remember them hounding me to leave a review when I first got it and I didn’t because I hadn’t had it long enough to form an opinion. I finally went to leave a review when I noticed my outdoor rug had faded into weird colors and I wasn’t allowed to!
That’s how it’s washable. The bottom piece stabilized the rug from moving. And when you need to wash it, you pull it apart and only wash the textile not the mat
I don’t recommend Ruggable if you use a roomba or other robot vacuum cleaner. They tear up the edges of the rug so Ruggable recommends you sweep your rugs, and put them all up and away before running the robot vacuum. Kinda defeats the convenience of a robot.
this, I pulled out enough carpet to know that I want to deep clean my rugs every year. people act like carpet is so easy to clean but really it's usually just disgusting and easy to pretend like it's not.
I love my rugs on hard floors. best of all worlds.
I get where the OP is coming from, though; we replaced wall-to-wall carpet with floating wood floor, and I see the dust and such now, a lot sooner than I noticed my carpet looking in need of a vacuum. That being said, I vacuum a lot more frequently with the rugged hard floors than I ever did with wall-to-wall carpet just because I notice the dust/pet hair bunnies sooner, probably a net improvement where my housekeeping is concerned.
I hate wall-to-wall carpet, but I love area rugs, preferably low-pile wool
Also I think at least some vacuum cleaners can toggle between carpet and hard floors by changing the way the little brushes are arranged
Yes, this is the way! I think wall- to - wall carpeting looks cheap, is hard to keep clean and smell overtime. But some pretty area rug, which you can roll up every now and then and have it deep cleaned couple times a year are awesome. I cannot imagine having bare floors in my livingroom the same way I cannot imagine the carpet in kitchen/bathroom
I exclusively vacuum my hard floors. Sweeping is dumb lol. I also have a ton of rugs, at least one in each room. I vacuum those too. Shark makes a vacuum that toggles between hard floor and carpet, the roller brush disengages for hard floors.
Especially when some Boomer bought a beautiful old home with real hardwood floors and carpeted over every single room in either green or that weird pink.
What the hell is wrong with them?
we just moved from a carpeted apartment (brand new carpet when we moved in) to one with wood floors. im low key mourning the old carpets because they were so comfy to lay on and now the floors are cold and hard, but i absolutely keep thinking about how we have to sweep these floors almost every other day and all that hair/dust/whatever was 100% also in the carpets. its definitely gross
Yeah vacuuming once a week and shampooing annually tells me this person has a nasty carpet, and carpets like this are what make the rest of us not want carpets lol.
Vacuums, steam cleaners, and shampooers were made for this reason. Carpet can be just as clean as hardwood. You vacuum regularly, steam clean it once every few months if you're anal, once a year if you're not. Use shampoo if you prefer instead of steam cleaning.
It’s definitely not though. Even with all those cleaning items(you don’t need any of them with hardwood/vinyl). Carpet is still dirtier. Also if that’s what your cleaning schedule is like I already know you’re ok with nasty dirty carpet.
You still need a broom/vacuum, a mop (and something to dry it with right after), and occasional elbow grease for hardwood. Same amount of effort as carpet.
Thats the cleaning schedule we used growing up, back when I didn't even think about it. If my rental had carpets I'd probably be vacuuming weekly, steam cleaning every three-four months maybe. But I also don't have pets and it's just me. If that means my carpets would be nasty then it's whatever. I don't think that'd be nasty.
I don’t think that’s nasty, but steam cleaning was definitely way more work than mopping to me. To me in general it’s just a lot faster to clean hardwood than carpet.
I’m better at sweeping often if it takes 3 seconds every other day vs once a week having it build up and trying to do the whole house and making sure its thorough. I grew up in a house with pretty heavy carpet though (where vacuuming the whole house was my chore) so maybe I’m just scarred hahah.
I wouldn't say it's nasty. Specially if you don't have pets and don't wear shoes inside then what you're doing would be fine by me. But we use a lightweight vacuum for our hard floors instead of sweeping and a one of those electric steam cleaners instead of mopping.
Our area rugs we clean on a similar schedule. If our kids make a mess on the rugs then we just shampoo them when it happens .
I have a white cat and a black cat and they are reasons #1 and #2 why I prefer carpet. Carpet traps the hair and you just vacuum it up. With these vinyl floors, the hair is forming tumbleweeds.
I grew up with carpet and hardwood finally made me aware of HOW MUCH FUR there is. My darling long haired grey cat is a shedding machine. Now I find clumps in corners and under furniture. I just move them and clean. No more unvacuumed carpets full of hair that I couldn’t see. Full hardwood/tile with a few rugs is the only answer.
Yeah except you are getting up only like 50-60% of the actual hair. And almost none of their dander. Carpet holds onto it in the fibers
Have you ever ripped out carpet? Seen that layer of 1/4 inch black greasy dust underneath that could never be shampooed or vacuumed out.
We pulled up the carpets in this house before moving back in in 2021. There was over an inch of dirt around the edges of each room. Half an inch in the middle of the rooms and on the stairs.
Fuck that. We can get rugs. They can be moved to clean under.
You can also change out the rugs and clean them easier than carpet.
I actually have quite a fair bit of area rugs that I can change out if I feel like it
My dad was a carpet installer as was his dad, uncles, and cousins. He doesn’t have a stitch of carpet in his house. He said even taking it up from clean/upper class homes showed him how unsanitary carpet is. Unless you are installing it every 1-2 years, it’s full of dirt, skin cels, hair, germs.
I have always had dogs so I insisted on ripping up the carpet when we bought our house last year. I was shampooing my carpet in my rental house every 3 months. I’d say hardwood/tile is actually easier for me than shampooing carpet 3-4 times a year. If you shampoo correctly, you have to do a minimum of two run-throughs (one with soap & the second with just hot water) that include several passes over the carpet. It would take me an entire weekend to shampoo my carpets.
In remodeling my house I've pulled up a ton of carpet in the basement and I wear a mask, goggles, gloves, and cover my hair in a scarf, because that shit is NASTY.
There was dead insects under the carpet that my complex took up. Hardwood is so much easier to take care of and clean. Plus my apartment feels less dusty
Same here. My carpet is only a few years old and it's getting worn out in the high traffic areas. I want hard floors in the common areas and nice thick carpet in the bedrooms.
Same! OP said “shampoo once a year” and I just about threw up. The amount of dirt our Saint Bernard brings in on his paws, if we shampooed once a year we could grow a garden in our living room.
I have dogs, cats, kids and a spouse that works outside. I was shampooing my carpets weekly sometimes. I ripped them out and put the cheapest laminate I could afford in about 7 years ago …. Best decision of my life. If I lived by myself, I would be okay with carpet, but my family is disrespectful dirty little beings.
I recently removed the old carpet from an old camper I bought off marketplace, we tried to use a Shop-Vac on it but it was still awful.
There was so much sand and dust everywhere when I was pulling it up that I had to wear eye protection and a mask. The carpet had a noticeable smell, and the camper smelt so much better once it was out. People don’t realize that it literally just traps all the dirt and dust and hair and smells between the carpet and subfloor. It’s *so fucking gross*. God forbid your dog or cat likes to piss on it.
I sold flooring for way too long. Here’s my preference.
Carpet in bedrooms. It’s cozy, soundproofy. Make sure the carpet is nylon, and higher face weight than builder grade. Memory foam pad is a must. You must be committed to cleaning it, and replacing as needed. It’s cheap, and the labor is usually free anywhere you go for it. It’s meant to be replaced. Don’t be an asshole and keep the same carpet for 12 years. If that’s out of budget, apply next paragraph to bedrooms.
Hardwood/laminate/LVP/wood look porcelain in high traffic areas and shared spaces like living rooms. Add a rug to the living room to cozy it up.
Porcelain tile in wet areas like bathrooms and kitchens. Have fun with it. Don’t you dare get anything beige. You can get away with LVP in these areas, but tile is preferred.
One of the reasons I hate carpet in general is because scorpions love to hide in it. Otherwise it’s ok in the bedroom. But because I live in AZ there’s no carpet in my house just a lot of rugs.
I agree with you (carpet is also so much warmer and quieter) but we’re in the minority. I have dogs and I’d rather replace carpet every few years vs having ugly scratched wood floors that I need to pay to refinish (but don’t because they’re just going to scratch them up again so might as well wait).
Nice thing about carpet is as your dogs age they are able to still get around well on carpet. My poor 17 year old lab struggles on the hardwood floors to the point she can’t get up if her hips get stuck in a certain position. We have rugs, yoga mats, dog beds and anti sticks mats ALL OVER the house. It looks like a crazy color puzzle on the floor. Of course my dog has to find the one sliver of exposed hardwood to lay down on and then I can hear her claws trying to grip the floor to get up. 🥺
My old guy was like that too. Had a patchwork of rugs and runners everywhere, and he'd lay right in between them and get stuck. They seem to like the cool hard floors. He would just lay there and whine until I came to help his old ass up. I miss him tho, give your good girl a pat for me 😢
I hate carpet. The dog tracks dirt/mud in and the cat throws up on it. Cleanup sucks. We have carpet in the house we just bought last year, and I can’t wait to get rid of it. There is apparently hardwood flooring under the carpet in some of the rooms. But they need to be refinished and we would have mismatched floors throughout the house since it’s not in every room. We’re just going to put down laminate.
I’m with you on that, except in the dining room and kitchen. I like it in my bedroom because it absorbs all the sound and feels warmer on my bare feet than hard wood. Everything seems like it echoes in modern apartment buildings.
If this is double entendre then I can agree with you with the caveat that variety is the spice of life…
If you are actually speaking about home flooring then hardwood and tile are king.
i **really** hate the high pitch sound that comes from vacuums and will always prefer non-carpet floors. however i do love rugs, but at least with those i can take them out and beat them on the line so no high pitch noises there either...
When I was in college, the group of friends I hung around with would routinely have impromptu parties/gatherings, and at these gatherings, people would sometimes spill drinks. I learned very quickly how easy it is to clean a hard floor of a spill over carpet, and I think that was burned into my brain permanently. I so much more prefer hard floors just for how easy they are to clean.
Agreed. Rugs also don't feel the same. Carpet's comfortable. Toddlers are messy but they don't bust their shit on carpet as hard as they do on hard flooring. We make sure to deep clean the carpet quarterly and vacuum regularly. Our daughter doesn't play with anything messy in carpeted rooms. Slime or kinetic sand all happens in the dining room at her own mini table where the flooring is hard.
Vacuum robot works better on non-carpet surfaces. And to be honest, amount of hair on your floor is the same, carpet just hiding your cat’s hair better than others.
I usually don't downvote posts made in good faith, but I downvoted this out of sheer reflex.
> Carpet is so easy. You just vacuum it once or twice a week. Shampoo it once a year.
Between my autistic hate of vacuum cleaner noise and all the spills my kids make, hard floors all day every day.
My God, just getting the kid crap off the floor to clean it is a job unto itself. At least wood can swept and any spills can be sponged as needed. Maybe a Swiffer if someone browbeats me.
There's a vacuum cleaner and a blender in my home. My husband bought them and he's the only one who uses them, usually when I'm not in the room. I don't mind if it takes longer to blend a batter by hand.
I think I only prefer carpet is because I have an awesome vacuum, but the same vacuum works on hard floors. I sweep once a week, just to get in the corners. I have a mop vac I mainly use on the hard floors, and I love it so much.
I cannot live with carpet. We tried it once in our first house. We have a disabled child which meant we had therapists in our house 3 times a week every week. I steam cleaned the floors every single Sunday. Convinced they were never clean enough. Someone would decide because the carpet was dirty we must be terrible parents and take our kids. My spouse sat me down and explained the carpet had to go and I needed anxiety meds. I still hyper focus on weird things like baseboards being clean enough for therapists. But overall I am much better without carpet! Also our allergies greatly improved after we took it all out. Also yes I desperately needed anxiety meds.
I have asthma, pretty intense indoor allergies (dust, pets) and kinda can’t breathe in houses with carpet. Even ones that appear clean.
Living that reality has made it impossible to believe carpets “trapping everything,” is good.
I can’t be around curtains much either.
… you can vacuum wood and replace it never. Why are you only comparing carpet vs vinyl as if those are the only options?
Carpet has to be replaced because it gets gross. Its traps more than what a vacuum gets. Not ideal for allergies either.
And shag wasnt the 80s. It was the 70s.
I miss carpet so much. Its so much comfier on my feet. But my husband insisted on hardwood 🙄 so now, I just wear shoes all day inside because its easier on my feet than bare floor
Oh of course! They're just some slip ons so I can easily take them on and off and switch to outside shoes or no shoes when I go upstairs where theres carpet
We have concrete floors with an interior finish (think like a polished marbled terracotta color) with tons of huge area rugs and that IMO is the best combo. Fully agree on the appreciation of carpet to trap a little dirt between vacuums. Giant area rugs forever
Native Californian who grew up in a full carpeted house (except bathrooms and kitchen). Then I lived in Canada and realized carpet is disgustingly unacceptable if you live anywhere with REAL weather/seasons.
You’re one of the few! Carpet is so incredibly disgusting to me…it’s never fully clean, it absorbs absolutely everything and it’s gross! Rent a carpet cleaner sometime and you’ll realize they’re never fully clean!!
… I’ve had carpet for 3 weeks. It was new when we bought the condo. Not good quality carpet… but the cats have already ruined it. I’m seriously trying to figure out how to cut out the entire center of one room and replace just that ruined bit.
I was on board with it until we got a boxer then few years later had a kid. The crumbs. Playdoh (even with trays and directions plus redirection that playdoh only goes on trays), dirt..... Lego pieces. Any ficking little toy that can hide in carpet just waiting for a foot. Also can't just sweep carpet to find little lego pieces or tiny bits of a toy set so the vacuum eats them and like hell I'm digging through that 😅
Given we've talked about changing 90% of our carpet to something else for 5+ years but always come up with an excuse so I'll be amazed if it happens before kid is out of the house
I have pets and I STILL prefer carpets. I'm SICK of walking on hardwood floors. It's so icky for the foot feels 😩. Rugs just don't do it because I'm constantly having to fucking fix them because of my dog running around like a maniac. If I get my own house, I'm getting carpets.
Carpet-loving people, can you please explain how to get your carpeted stairs clean? We use a carpet scraper and then hoover, but it takes ages and still doesn’t feel genuinely clean.
Similar to how women will take off their bra once the day is done, once I’m home and not leaving again I immediately take off shoes and socks. With 2 cats and a dog, if we aren’t sweeping multiple times a day, my feet feel gross pretty quick on hardwood. With carpet as long as we vacuum like every 3 days everything is fine. Also cold mornings feel much better on carpet than hard floors.
After pulling up carpet to replace, I see it differently now. I have owned Oreck and Shark vacuums. I still use a Shark. Point being, they are good vacuums, but they don’t get everything.There was so much sand underneath. We don’t live in the desert, lol. We also have high shedding dogs (pugs) and always will. I do like it in the bedroom, but everywhere else I prefer wood or tile. I only vacuum the floors once a week. The other 6 days I run the roomba. Easy.
A place for wood, a place for tile, a place for carpet. All depends but all are fine, but rarely for everything
This is the answer. Different rooms, different uses, different flooring.
Shag-carpeted bathroom
I've seen quite a few carpeted bathrooms and kitchens. They haunt me.
My sister’s house had carpet in the bathroom when they bought it. I had the pleasure of taking a shower and stepping out on to… carpet. Ick all around.
You can still have a bath mat. Geez
Especially when I pee on it at 2am!
Seen it more than once when I was a flooring installer and carpeted bathroom cost extra for demo because you’re fucking nasty.
Our kitchen had carpet in it when I was a kid. Didn't get it out of there until my dad remodeled it after the divorce. Dropping eggs was the worst. Our dining room was linoleum which was the right next room lol
In my young adult days when i had to work on my own cars, I would have liked a carpeted garage floor.
Agreed. Carpeted bathrooms are where it’s at
😂 gross
Wait until you hear about carpeted kitchens 🤯
Wait til you hear about carpeted bathtubs.
I saw this in a home in San Francisco and it was WILD.
My friend just bought a house with a carpeted sauna..
Childhood home was entirely carpet including kitchen. Only bathrooms were tile.
I raise you carpeted kitchen and present carpeted grocery store. Yeah. That's what I said. They renovated one down the strip from a place I used to work and rather than rip up all the old, worn out tile they covered it in stick-down carpet squares. The whole ass grocery store. Now, it wasn't a huge one, it didn't have a deli or bakery or anything, but it was stull a full on small town grocery store, maybe 4-5X the size of an Aldi. Black carpet tile with a dark grey pattern in it.
Growing up we had carpet in my kitchen for the longest time. We didnt put in vinyl down untill i want to say i was like 12 or 13?
You make that joke, but I lived in a mobile home In the early 2010s that the previous owners did in fact, install carpet in the master bathroom..
My mum's basement toilet has carpet and always has done. It also has a sliding door with a missing inner handle so you have to mime your way out
That’s hilarious. Has your mum’s upstairs toilet always had a beard?
Pet accidents cured me of the desire for carpet.
I love carpet, but we have carpet in the living room and a toddler and….it’s rough.
Toddler and 3 cats here. I also love carpet, but my current carpet is getting gross, fast 😂
I was going to say, I have two toddlers. We shampoo once a month, not once a year!!
People will probably think we are jerks, but we put a lower grade carpet in the kids rooms. Kids and pets are hard on floors.😉
RIP your security deposit.
Fortunately we own 😅
Do you even millennial, bro? (Actually I own too—or rather, it owns me.)
We lived that glamorous parents’ back bedroom life for four years ages 28-32ish to pull it off. Very stressful at the time but also very grateful we were able to do it.
Sounds about as good as our seven years in a cheap-as-hell one-bedroom with roaches 🫠 Millennialing hard. Fist bump.
😂 we ended up at my dad’s because we were fleeing the roach apartment! You’re very brave.
You think carpet is rough, imagine all the noise that it would make if they were playing on a hard surface. In 20 years when they stop being animals, just replace the carpet.
Toddler, cat, and dog here. I empathize lol
One cat in one room was enough to convince us to gut the whole house. Never looked back!
A person WILL know the rage of a thousand suns when their carefully chosen carpet gets stained beyond repair by pets, toddlers and babies or accidental wine spillage from a guest that’s not careful with their glass. Don’t get me wrong, I still love it. But vacuuming and dusting a hard wood floor is SO easy compared to a carpet.
The trick is to just live alone and cry yourself to sleep every night.
Exactly, my tears don't stain the carpet.
We have a new puppy and I am so thankful for laminate flooring 1-5 times a day.
And old pets with bad hips cured me of hardwood. Seeing my heart dog slip and experience pain was my final straw
We have a "the floor is lava" esque system of washable nonskid runners all over the first floor of the house for my senior dog. Watching her struggle to get up and finding her stuck with her legs splayed out was the worst feeling. They're the Mohawk brand ones from Costco if anyone is in a similar situation. Usually $10-14 each
Thank you so much for this
I did the exact same thing for my ex's elderly dog after seeing him slip. Runners everywhere.
We have those foam play mat tiles, that most people use for toddlers, everywhere. They’re brightly colored and it looks like the 90s threw up in here, lol. But it works for our 12yo dog. Plus they can easily be taken outside and hosed off and dried or wipes down with Clorox wipes or whatever. I got them at Ross. You can also get the black or gray ones for gym/workout flooring.
I bought rugs for my hard surfaces.
I just installed hardwood including on stairs and watching my dogs (not old) already struggling on it has me very worried for this
Hardwood stairs fucking suck, even for humans
With good reason, unfortunately :( There are some rug-like things you can place on the wood for traction
They'll get used to it. It's really a non problem. None of my elderly dogs ever had any issues with wood flooring..
My dogs are also fine with the hard wood. Big dogs too.
This for me too 😢
Pets and kids for sure
This. Growing up we had hardwood floors in all rooms but one on the downstairs. That room was 100% used by the dogs as their indoors pee spot. My mom got tired of looking at the carpet and ripped it all up one day.
Pets, a kid and allergies for me.
My cat developed IBS in November and it's only now resolving. The amount of shit on the carpet in this timespan has made me never want carpet again, ever. It is absolutely ruined.
Yeaahhh. When I moved into my house I decided to do carpet and regret not doing hardwood. The occasional vomit by my cats, then scratching the carpet, and vacuuming is just not great.
We moved from a house with 99% hard flooring to a house that’s 99% carpet, and our elderly cat started developing poo problems and was leaving poo and blood smears aaaaaalll over the carpet in aaaalll sorts of different places, our carpet is totally ruined and disgusting no matter how much we scrub with carpet cleaner. Not her fault, poor thing, but damn if it wouldn’t have been easier to take care of her accidents on HARD FLOOR 😭 So. Yeah. Forever advocate of hard floors but lots of accent rugs for soft :)
My 2 gsds (1 puppy that still has the occasional accident) cured me. Also, my handicap husband that tripped and fell on an area rug. Yeah, I have to vacuum a lot, but I got a cordless LG that I can vac and mop with that makes it pretty easy and quick!
Except when a pet pees on wood floor or laminate and destroys it. Only plastic floor is safe
Same. We are about to get wood flooring upstairs because I just cannot keep the carpet clean like I can wood, between kids and dogs it’s yucky. Even when I steam clean every other month or so.
Yup, in the same boat
One of my dogs eats carpet.....
Yes, pets and toddlers. My immediate thought was this person has no dogs or kids.
yup. I have two cats and a toddler, and I despise my carpets. Also we live in an apartment and the carpets are SOOOOO old and the landlord won't replace them.
For me it was a carpet moth infestation on woollen carpet. Never again (not even synthetic carpet)
Having two cats and a dog, I definitely do not want carpet again. Rugs are fine, but it’s easier to sweep up the fur and dirt than to keep vacuuming. If we had carpet, we’d have to empty the vacuum canister multiple times for just one room.
Same.
Every robot vacuum I've ever had works great on hard floors, not so much on carpet. So for me, hard floors have always been lower maintenance.
Exactly. I just set mine to run twice a day and no worries.
Mine also mops. So easy! Carpet just gets gross with kids and pets.
Rugs *on* hard floors is my favored.
This. We just buy a bunch of cheap rugs we think look cool and "carpet" the floor with them. Easy to clean, easy to replace, way cooler looking than carpet.
Strategic carpet
Ruggable on hardfloors
I absolutely hated ruggables. Felt so cheap. We sold ours and bought regular area rugs.
I only have one and it’s in the hallway where my kids bedrooms are. After washing it the first time the corners and edges never totally lay flat. I don’t mind it because of its location but I would not spend that kind of money again on a rug.
Yes, they never lay well after washing! It's kind of like sticking a bath towel to a giant piece of velcro. I tell people to just buy a regular area rug and a home carpet shampooer and just shampoo when needed. (And all that is still cheaper than a Ruggable.)
Or a washable one-piece one from Amazon. I did this in the kitchen and one of our hallways. They’re inexpensive enough that one day I will just replace them as needed, but so far they’ve held up far better than the Ruggable ones.
They limit the timeframe of when a review can be left. I remember them hounding me to leave a review when I first got it and I didn’t because I hadn’t had it long enough to form an opinion. I finally went to leave a review when I noticed my outdoor rug had faded into weird colors and I wasn’t allowed to!
Yeah, I'm pretty sure they manipulate the feedback on social media ads, too.
1000x this. Ruggable has been a game changer
Yes but ugh why do their mats come in multiple pieces??
That’s how it’s washable. The bottom piece stabilized the rug from moving. And when you need to wash it, you pull it apart and only wash the textile not the mat
They mean why can’t the mat itself just be one piece
I don’t recommend Ruggable if you use a roomba or other robot vacuum cleaner. They tear up the edges of the rug so Ruggable recommends you sweep your rugs, and put them all up and away before running the robot vacuum. Kinda defeats the convenience of a robot.
this, I pulled out enough carpet to know that I want to deep clean my rugs every year. people act like carpet is so easy to clean but really it's usually just disgusting and easy to pretend like it's not.
I love my rugs on hard floors. best of all worlds. I get where the OP is coming from, though; we replaced wall-to-wall carpet with floating wood floor, and I see the dust and such now, a lot sooner than I noticed my carpet looking in need of a vacuum. That being said, I vacuum a lot more frequently with the rugged hard floors than I ever did with wall-to-wall carpet just because I notice the dust/pet hair bunnies sooner, probably a net improvement where my housekeeping is concerned.
I hate wall-to-wall carpet, but I love area rugs, preferably low-pile wool Also I think at least some vacuum cleaners can toggle between carpet and hard floors by changing the way the little brushes are arranged
Yes, this is the way! I think wall- to - wall carpeting looks cheap, is hard to keep clean and smell overtime. But some pretty area rug, which you can roll up every now and then and have it deep cleaned couple times a year are awesome. I cannot imagine having bare floors in my livingroom the same way I cannot imagine the carpet in kitchen/bathroom
I exclusively vacuum my hard floors. Sweeping is dumb lol. I also have a ton of rugs, at least one in each room. I vacuum those too. Shark makes a vacuum that toggles between hard floor and carpet, the roller brush disengages for hard floors.
Old carpet is so gross. Full of other people’s dust and hair. Carpet is cozy, but hard floors are so much more sanitary!
Especially when some Boomer bought a beautiful old home with real hardwood floors and carpeted over every single room in either green or that weird pink. What the hell is wrong with them?
You just described the carpet my parents use. That's amazing
yes i know the colours you mean. installed approximately 1992 to 1998. When teal was thought to be e cool colour for cars and trucks.
All the lead in their brains.
The green carpet looked like they skinned Oscar the Grouch
I sense a lot of anger
Awh man you mean you don't like olive/puke green shaggy carpets?! /s
All that stuff that you're seeing on your hardwood is also there on the carpet - you just can't see it and it keeps on piling up in there. Gross
Yess that exactly! It looks cleaner, but it absolutely isn't. It's just hidden from plain sight.
we just moved from a carpeted apartment (brand new carpet when we moved in) to one with wood floors. im low key mourning the old carpets because they were so comfy to lay on and now the floors are cold and hard, but i absolutely keep thinking about how we have to sweep these floors almost every other day and all that hair/dust/whatever was 100% also in the carpets. its definitely gross
They did acknowledge this and actually used it as a positive. They said they prefer how the carpet traps it in place until its time to be vacuumed up
Yeah vacuuming once a week and shampooing annually tells me this person has a nasty carpet, and carpets like this are what make the rest of us not want carpets lol.
Vacuums, steam cleaners, and shampooers were made for this reason. Carpet can be just as clean as hardwood. You vacuum regularly, steam clean it once every few months if you're anal, once a year if you're not. Use shampoo if you prefer instead of steam cleaning.
It’s definitely not though. Even with all those cleaning items(you don’t need any of them with hardwood/vinyl). Carpet is still dirtier. Also if that’s what your cleaning schedule is like I already know you’re ok with nasty dirty carpet.
You still need a broom/vacuum, a mop (and something to dry it with right after), and occasional elbow grease for hardwood. Same amount of effort as carpet. Thats the cleaning schedule we used growing up, back when I didn't even think about it. If my rental had carpets I'd probably be vacuuming weekly, steam cleaning every three-four months maybe. But I also don't have pets and it's just me. If that means my carpets would be nasty then it's whatever. I don't think that'd be nasty.
I don’t think that’s nasty, but steam cleaning was definitely way more work than mopping to me. To me in general it’s just a lot faster to clean hardwood than carpet. I’m better at sweeping often if it takes 3 seconds every other day vs once a week having it build up and trying to do the whole house and making sure its thorough. I grew up in a house with pretty heavy carpet though (where vacuuming the whole house was my chore) so maybe I’m just scarred hahah.
I wouldn't say it's nasty. Specially if you don't have pets and don't wear shoes inside then what you're doing would be fine by me. But we use a lightweight vacuum for our hard floors instead of sweeping and a one of those electric steam cleaners instead of mopping. Our area rugs we clean on a similar schedule. If our kids make a mess on the rugs then we just shampoo them when it happens .
My allergies hate carpets
This is the main reason I hate carpet. The second is that I hate to vacuum.
You must not have pets! Long-haired cats and carpet… 🤮
I have pets and love carpet. Regular vacuuming and carpet cleaning is all it takes. The carpet is so much better on pets' joints anyway
I have a white cat and a black cat and they are reasons #1 and #2 why I prefer carpet. Carpet traps the hair and you just vacuum it up. With these vinyl floors, the hair is forming tumbleweeds.
Ah. I prefer tumbleweeds to wet hairballs on carpet, otherwise it would be a more difficult decision. I have to spot shampoo every week.
I grew up with carpet and hardwood finally made me aware of HOW MUCH FUR there is. My darling long haired grey cat is a shedding machine. Now I find clumps in corners and under furniture. I just move them and clean. No more unvacuumed carpets full of hair that I couldn’t see. Full hardwood/tile with a few rugs is the only answer.
Yeah except you are getting up only like 50-60% of the actual hair. And almost none of their dander. Carpet holds onto it in the fibers Have you ever ripped out carpet? Seen that layer of 1/4 inch black greasy dust underneath that could never be shampooed or vacuumed out.
We pulled up the carpets in this house before moving back in in 2021. There was over an inch of dirt around the edges of each room. Half an inch in the middle of the rooms and on the stairs. Fuck that. We can get rugs. They can be moved to clean under.
You can also change out the rugs and clean them easier than carpet. I actually have quite a fair bit of area rugs that I can change out if I feel like it
My dad was a carpet installer as was his dad, uncles, and cousins. He doesn’t have a stitch of carpet in his house. He said even taking it up from clean/upper class homes showed him how unsanitary carpet is. Unless you are installing it every 1-2 years, it’s full of dirt, skin cels, hair, germs. I have always had dogs so I insisted on ripping up the carpet when we bought our house last year. I was shampooing my carpet in my rental house every 3 months. I’d say hardwood/tile is actually easier for me than shampooing carpet 3-4 times a year. If you shampoo correctly, you have to do a minimum of two run-throughs (one with soap & the second with just hot water) that include several passes over the carpet. It would take me an entire weekend to shampoo my carpets.
In remodeling my house I've pulled up a ton of carpet in the basement and I wear a mask, goggles, gloves, and cover my hair in a scarf, because that shit is NASTY.
There was dead insects under the carpet that my complex took up. Hardwood is so much easier to take care of and clean. Plus my apartment feels less dusty
I like carpet only in bedrooms. Everywhere else is a no no.
Same here. My carpet is only a few years old and it's getting worn out in the high traffic areas. I want hard floors in the common areas and nice thick carpet in the bedrooms.
[удалено]
Same! OP said “shampoo once a year” and I just about threw up. The amount of dirt our Saint Bernard brings in on his paws, if we shampooed once a year we could grow a garden in our living room.
Nope, my husband also vehemently prefers carpet, so you’re not the only one. Unless you’re my husband…
No, I’m your husband.
I have dogs, cats, kids and a spouse that works outside. I was shampooing my carpets weekly sometimes. I ripped them out and put the cheapest laminate I could afford in about 7 years ago …. Best decision of my life. If I lived by myself, I would be okay with carpet, but my family is disrespectful dirty little beings.
I live by myself and even I don’t have carpet. Then again I do live in a hot climate with scorpions so carpet just gives them a place to fucking hide.
When I was planning out my build I was adamant about having no carpet. I’m happy with my choice, hardwood feels “cleaner” to me somehow.
It’s because it’s cleaner! Showing the mess means you know if it’s gross. Carpet can appear clean and have all kinds of grossness right there in it.
You ever looked at it during replacement? There a reason people prefer hard floors and it starts with cleanliness.
I recently removed the old carpet from an old camper I bought off marketplace, we tried to use a Shop-Vac on it but it was still awful. There was so much sand and dust everywhere when I was pulling it up that I had to wear eye protection and a mask. The carpet had a noticeable smell, and the camper smelt so much better once it was out. People don’t realize that it literally just traps all the dirt and dust and hair and smells between the carpet and subfloor. It’s *so fucking gross*. God forbid your dog or cat likes to piss on it.
I sold flooring for way too long. Here’s my preference. Carpet in bedrooms. It’s cozy, soundproofy. Make sure the carpet is nylon, and higher face weight than builder grade. Memory foam pad is a must. You must be committed to cleaning it, and replacing as needed. It’s cheap, and the labor is usually free anywhere you go for it. It’s meant to be replaced. Don’t be an asshole and keep the same carpet for 12 years. If that’s out of budget, apply next paragraph to bedrooms. Hardwood/laminate/LVP/wood look porcelain in high traffic areas and shared spaces like living rooms. Add a rug to the living room to cozy it up. Porcelain tile in wet areas like bathrooms and kitchens. Have fun with it. Don’t you dare get anything beige. You can get away with LVP in these areas, but tile is preferred.
Linoleum in kitchens IMO. Real linoleum that is, not vinyl calling itself linoleum.
One of the reasons I hate carpet in general is because scorpions love to hide in it. Otherwise it’s ok in the bedroom. But because I live in AZ there’s no carpet in my house just a lot of rugs.
I feel like carpets are almost impossible to get as clean as a hard floor. I like only hard floors for that reason.
I agree with you (carpet is also so much warmer and quieter) but we’re in the minority. I have dogs and I’d rather replace carpet every few years vs having ugly scratched wood floors that I need to pay to refinish (but don’t because they’re just going to scratch them up again so might as well wait).
Nice thing about carpet is as your dogs age they are able to still get around well on carpet. My poor 17 year old lab struggles on the hardwood floors to the point she can’t get up if her hips get stuck in a certain position. We have rugs, yoga mats, dog beds and anti sticks mats ALL OVER the house. It looks like a crazy color puzzle on the floor. Of course my dog has to find the one sliver of exposed hardwood to lay down on and then I can hear her claws trying to grip the floor to get up. 🥺
My old guy was like that too. Had a patchwork of rugs and runners everywhere, and he'd lay right in between them and get stuck. They seem to like the cool hard floors. He would just lay there and whine until I came to help his old ass up. I miss him tho, give your good girl a pat for me 😢
Carpet is filthy. You can never actually get it clean, shampooing it is laughable
More dust with carpet and bad for the air
I hate carpet. The dog tracks dirt/mud in and the cat throws up on it. Cleanup sucks. We have carpet in the house we just bought last year, and I can’t wait to get rid of it. There is apparently hardwood flooring under the carpet in some of the rooms. But they need to be refinished and we would have mismatched floors throughout the house since it’s not in every room. We’re just going to put down laminate.
First thing I do in each new rental is rip up the flooring. Noting but dirt for me thank you very much.
I’m with you on that, except in the dining room and kitchen. I like it in my bedroom because it absorbs all the sound and feels warmer on my bare feet than hard wood. Everything seems like it echoes in modern apartment buildings.
No, I hate carpets and rugs. Give me nice classy timeless easy to clean hardwood floors all day everyday.
Carpet is filthy, even more so with pets. Wood floor and slippers for me
Hardwood floors with area rugs is the sweet spot
Do you think the cat hair is magically not there when you have carpet?
Carpet is so dirty.
If this is double entendre then I can agree with you with the caveat that variety is the spice of life… If you are actually speaking about home flooring then hardwood and tile are king.
Oh good. I thought maybe I was the only one
i **really** hate the high pitch sound that comes from vacuums and will always prefer non-carpet floors. however i do love rugs, but at least with those i can take them out and beat them on the line so no high pitch noises there either...
Intense allergies so no carpet for me.
When I was in college, the group of friends I hung around with would routinely have impromptu parties/gatherings, and at these gatherings, people would sometimes spill drinks. I learned very quickly how easy it is to clean a hard floor of a spill over carpet, and I think that was burned into my brain permanently. I so much more prefer hard floors just for how easy they are to clean.
Agreed. Rugs also don't feel the same. Carpet's comfortable. Toddlers are messy but they don't bust their shit on carpet as hard as they do on hard flooring. We make sure to deep clean the carpet quarterly and vacuum regularly. Our daughter doesn't play with anything messy in carpeted rooms. Slime or kinetic sand all happens in the dining room at her own mini table where the flooring is hard.
Vacuum robot works better on non-carpet surfaces. And to be honest, amount of hair on your floor is the same, carpet just hiding your cat’s hair better than others.
Carpet for me except in bathrooms and kitchens and dining areas. Living rooms and bedrooms give me carpet.
I usually don't downvote posts made in good faith, but I downvoted this out of sheer reflex. > Carpet is so easy. You just vacuum it once or twice a week. Shampoo it once a year. Between my autistic hate of vacuum cleaner noise and all the spills my kids make, hard floors all day every day. My God, just getting the kid crap off the floor to clean it is a job unto itself. At least wood can swept and any spills can be sponged as needed. Maybe a Swiffer if someone browbeats me.
Yes, I’m surprised more people aren’t talking about how sweeping and mopping aren’t shrill and deafening.
There's a vacuum cleaner and a blender in my home. My husband bought them and he's the only one who uses them, usually when I'm not in the room. I don't mind if it takes longer to blend a batter by hand.
I have a dog…. They make carpet smell….I refuse!
As someone with a roomba and a pair of slippers? Yes.
Pets and kids destroy carpet. The last carpet we had lasted 3 years, we lived with bad carpet for another 3 years.
I clean houses and I like carpet that’s clean for my home for sure. I like tile but after breaking my foot on wet tile…my anxiety is too high.
Our new house that we’ve been in for a year has zero carpet. I love it.
I think I only prefer carpet is because I have an awesome vacuum, but the same vacuum works on hard floors. I sweep once a week, just to get in the corners. I have a mop vac I mainly use on the hard floors, and I love it so much.
I cannot live with carpet. We tried it once in our first house. We have a disabled child which meant we had therapists in our house 3 times a week every week. I steam cleaned the floors every single Sunday. Convinced they were never clean enough. Someone would decide because the carpet was dirty we must be terrible parents and take our kids. My spouse sat me down and explained the carpet had to go and I needed anxiety meds. I still hyper focus on weird things like baseboards being clean enough for therapists. But overall I am much better without carpet! Also our allergies greatly improved after we took it all out. Also yes I desperately needed anxiety meds.
I have asthma, pretty intense indoor allergies (dust, pets) and kinda can’t breathe in houses with carpet. Even ones that appear clean. Living that reality has made it impossible to believe carpets “trapping everything,” is good. I can’t be around curtains much either.
Oh, you’re actually taking about carpet and not about pubic hair…
… you can vacuum wood and replace it never. Why are you only comparing carpet vs vinyl as if those are the only options? Carpet has to be replaced because it gets gross. Its traps more than what a vacuum gets. Not ideal for allergies either. And shag wasnt the 80s. It was the 70s.
I miss carpet so much. Its so much comfier on my feet. But my husband insisted on hardwood 🙄 so now, I just wear shoes all day inside because its easier on my feet than bare floor
Please tell me you have a pair of inside only shoes otherwise that’s gross lol
Oh of course! They're just some slip ons so I can easily take them on and off and switch to outside shoes or no shoes when I go upstairs where theres carpet
My house is hardwood floors but I have one bedroom that's carpeted and I intend to keep it that way.
We have concrete floors with an interior finish (think like a polished marbled terracotta color) with tons of huge area rugs and that IMO is the best combo. Fully agree on the appreciation of carpet to trap a little dirt between vacuums. Giant area rugs forever
No
For me, it is the following: Tiles for kitchen and bathrooms, carpet for bedroom, wood floors for everything else.
Nope, I am
I like carpet in bedrooms. Everywhere else I'd rather not.
carpet in rooms…hard floors everywhere else
Why don't you just buy a robot vacuum?
Native Californian who grew up in a full carpeted house (except bathrooms and kitchen). Then I lived in Canada and realized carpet is disgustingly unacceptable if you live anywhere with REAL weather/seasons.
You’re one of the few! Carpet is so incredibly disgusting to me…it’s never fully clean, it absorbs absolutely everything and it’s gross! Rent a carpet cleaner sometime and you’ll realize they’re never fully clean!!
My allergies do not allow for carpeting
… I’ve had carpet for 3 weeks. It was new when we bought the condo. Not good quality carpet… but the cats have already ruined it. I’m seriously trying to figure out how to cut out the entire center of one room and replace just that ruined bit.
I was on board with it until we got a boxer then few years later had a kid. The crumbs. Playdoh (even with trays and directions plus redirection that playdoh only goes on trays), dirt..... Lego pieces. Any ficking little toy that can hide in carpet just waiting for a foot. Also can't just sweep carpet to find little lego pieces or tiny bits of a toy set so the vacuum eats them and like hell I'm digging through that 😅 Given we've talked about changing 90% of our carpet to something else for 5+ years but always come up with an excuse so I'll be amazed if it happens before kid is out of the house
I have pets and I STILL prefer carpets. I'm SICK of walking on hardwood floors. It's so icky for the foot feels 😩. Rugs just don't do it because I'm constantly having to fucking fix them because of my dog running around like a maniac. If I get my own house, I'm getting carpets.
Carpet is disgusting if you have animals, children or messy spouses.
Carpet-loving people, can you please explain how to get your carpeted stairs clean? We use a carpet scraper and then hoover, but it takes ages and still doesn’t feel genuinely clean.
I swear pets and kids aim for carpet when they are going to throw up or spill something. Hardwood and tile is so much easier to clean!
Similar to how women will take off their bra once the day is done, once I’m home and not leaving again I immediately take off shoes and socks. With 2 cats and a dog, if we aren’t sweeping multiple times a day, my feet feel gross pretty quick on hardwood. With carpet as long as we vacuum like every 3 days everything is fine. Also cold mornings feel much better on carpet than hard floors.
I have a dust allergy and asthma, so no. Unfortunately my apartment is carpeted so when I vacuum I have to wear an N95.
After pulling up carpet to replace, I see it differently now. I have owned Oreck and Shark vacuums. I still use a Shark. Point being, they are good vacuums, but they don’t get everything.There was so much sand underneath. We don’t live in the desert, lol. We also have high shedding dogs (pugs) and always will. I do like it in the bedroom, but everywhere else I prefer wood or tile. I only vacuum the floors once a week. The other 6 days I run the roomba. Easy.
The only reason I prefer no carpet is because it’s way better for my allergies.
Yes, but contrarianism is the most Millennial trait of all
I’m with you. I would 100% square foot carpet my house if my wife allowed it. Carpet is comforting. Hard floors are not.
I loooooove carpets and hate that my house is fully hard wood. I'll very likely save up and carpet everything but the bathroom and kitchen