Carping about carpets

 There have been a few stories I've noticed lately about people moving into social housing and being shocked & depressed that the carpets and floor coverings have been ripped out, by policy (example - BBC article). As I understand it, this is to prevent infestations continuing and because it's quicker and easier to turn the property around for its next tenants than attempting to clean it. 

This was the case when we moved into our council house a good few years ago. In fact, I still don't have carpets/floor coverings in some of my rooms because I've never had the money (or arguably, I've chosen to spend it in other ways). I am very proud of my living room carpet that I saved up for and paid for installation as well (luxury!) only a couple of years ago. In the meantime, we had had a large rug bought from a B&M or similar, and painted or varnished the floorboards where visible. I guess I'm lucky that the house has floorboards, but the utility room is concrete, and that I painted that as well. In the early days, I wanted most urgently to carpet the kids' rooms and we were given some by a neighbour for one, and managed to buy some for the other after a while. Once that was done, making do until I could afford better was fine. 

I don't think it's a wrong policy - I've lived in some flats and moved into some places that felt bloody filthy and made my skin crawl, and some of these were supposedly cleaned for rental. And into places with fleas. Ugh! 

I worked for a Housing association and saw some pictures of houses being turned round for the next tenants and they can be left in a horrific state - there was no chance of salvaging carpet out of those. 

I'd rather a bare floor than someone else's dirt. 

Plus removing carpet and floor coverings yourself is a big job, especially if you're on your own with kids - so if the carpets were left, you might want to get rid of them, but it wouldn't be practical or affordable for you, and then you'd be stuck with it. 

At least with a bare floor, you can get it really clean, and you can chuck some paint down and some rugs as you go on. 

I'm just really grateful that we were lucky enough to get this tenancy and the chance to make it our home. Yes, it's not perfect, and I'm still working on getting it how I want it, more than a decade later, cos I'm on a low income despite working full-time. 

Other people have it far worse, of course, than I ever did, but hard as it is, I do think a clean slate of a house is better.