We bought a mangled up Eichler that had the following floor treatments in a single room: the kitchen
70 vinyl tile squares
ceramic tiles under the giant woodturning stove
blue shag carpet under the dining table
original eichler tiles in a strip and up the hall
The other ‘feature’ was an enormous RadarRange™ hung from the ceiling over the island with enormous steel bands. The lights dimmed alarmingly the one time I turned it on. It also had a ceiling fan directly over the table (8’ ceiling meant if I stood up I could get a haircut with every meal!)
Nice catch on the house. A fantastic Speyer that my best friend in junior high school grew up in is on the market, if I lived in Chicagoland I’d be all over it.
And sometimes carpet gets put in when the hardwood floor starts to get ratty. Because why fix a problem when you can cover it up?
It was with enormous relief that I found, after closing on our house, that the original hardwood floor under the wall to wall carpet was still in good condition. After ripping out the carpet evil allergen factory and pulling up a zillion staples, all the floor needed was a good sanding and a coat of varnish.
My parents carpeted both the bathrooms with shag in the 70’s… and they argued that because it had rubber underneath that, somehow, the extremely ■■■■■ conditions would not affect it.
I only just convinced them to get rid of the peeling wallpaper (installed at the same time) in those rooms, that was literally coated in black mold.
(This was in NYC, btw, and my parents were not English, so it’s not just some Lymie thing)
This is your regularly scheduled important reminder that carpet is bad.
I have it in just one room of my house and no matter how often I clean it, the rinsewater looks like this. Carpet: Mattress of Filth.
You say that like filth is bad!
Seriously, I’m way more concerned by the noxious off-gassing of many forms of carpeting than the fact that they hold onto dirt. Goodness gracious, it’s just dirt! If you have a badly compromised immune system or suffer from resperatory issues like asthma then, yeah, that “dirt” can be an issue. But hey, we evolved for millions of years surrounded by dirt. So long as you’re not eating a lot of fecal matter (and I don’t really want to know if somehow your carpet leads you to do that) you’ll be fine.
Even fecal matter is not problematic per se, but rather fecal matter is often a vector for nasties. I suspect a healthy house mate’s fecal matter is mostly benign.
I have got rid of all carpets because my partner (now deceased) was allergic to things that lived and/or died in them,and I have got used to the house that way, and it would be odd to have them back. However, in there defence, I would say that carpets do not generate this stuff: everything nasty in that grey water is something that would still be in your house somewhere. Yes, things like cat fleas would be more properly labelled carpet fleas because they spend much more time on your carpet, with their thumbs out waiting for the next cat to hitch a ride to the next carpet, but they are pretty quiescent while they are there.
Does anyone actually have any science? I can agree that carpets hoard the ambient grossness, but do they contribute to it. Can this ability to attract yuck be used to benefit mankind? The public deserve to know.
Where I live in Kansas City has flooded twice in the last month (only a couple of inches in my apartment each time), and I have been running my carpet cleaner over and over again. Looks a bit cleaner than that, but not much. Two to three more inches of rain tonight - probably won’t flood since the drains were fixed, but won’t get any sleep tonight until it’s over with.
