Someone has superglued our entire carpet to the concrete floor.

[Driftingonawave]

Shamelessly posting for traffic but I'm very stressed and concerned.

We've saved up for ages to replace the carpet in out home. It's the original carpet that was laid when the house was built 8 years ago. We've lived here 5.

It's not our home, it's owned by a private landlord that used to be part of the council.

Basically, I've been and ordered the laminate and came back home. Thought I'll just lift a bit of the carpet to see what's under, more curiosity than anything. I've now discovered the entire carpet is glued to the concrete floor.

There are no carpet tracks, no underlay just the carpet and the glue. I've emailed the landlord to request they remove it but I'm not going to hold my breath.

Has anyone removed this before? It took me 45 mins to remove about 20cm x 10cm. The carpet downstairs is 33m squared

Please tell me there's a magic tool to fix this!

Wow what a divy who ever laid that! Sorry Op no advice except what you are already doing. Ignore the posters who questioned spending money on a rented property (flooring doesn't have to be that expensive 🙄) I rented before I bought and I changed the flooring in my rented flat throughout because it was really nasty. It was only about £300 to do the entire flat on my budget, hardly a waste of money if you know you are going to be there a good few years it's well worth it. I was in mine around 5 years before I bought.

Use pliers to pull the carpet or you'll have friction burns tomorrow and rubber gloves for grip.
Ignore the sneery rental comments it will be lovely and worth the hard work when it's done.

I would recommend using a floor scraper and as others have suggested perhaps heat the glue up with a wallpaper steamer. If you're laying laminate over the top you won't need to clean of all the glue residue as long as there are no lumps.

OP

you can lay laminate over carpet, and certainly thin carpet like that.

Google it.

Carpet glue is a bastard. I would rather have the laminate over carpet, take the doors off the hinges, plane them and re hang them than try and get carpet glue off. Heat gun, wallpaper scraper, and months of inch by inch work otherwise.

Two people, cut/score carpet in strips. One person pulls the carpet away while the other applies heat with a heatgun, possibly using a scraper to help ease it away.

Thank you for the carpet glue solidarity posts!

I'm calling it quits tonight, I will get some thick gloves and Pliers as suggested tomorrow and tackle it again.

If anyone sees a slightly unhinged looking woman dancing around a pile of burning carpet, it's only me.

From bitter experience, wear a mask when pulling up carpet that is glued - the amount of dust and fibres released is insane. Get a really sharp Stanley knife and cut into strips lengthways then you can pull and roll up as you go - gives you a bit of leverage. A bit like cutting strips of icing or pastry for lattice!

You really should visits a tool hire place and see if they have a machine that will help you. Honestly these jobs are all about having the right tools.

Yeah you need the right tools and solvent and hopefully it will come up easier. I wouldn't risk laying it on carpet, if it gets damp under there 😬

My friend is in a long term rental and can decorate and re carpet if she wants .

As for not putting laminate in HA or council properties, they don't like you to if you live in a flat but I live in a house council house and the only carpet I have is on the stairs and they are fine with it . As are the neighbours

Having looked at the pic op, I would lay laminate over the top and use the carpet as an underlay.

It actually looks like a version of carpet tiles and is very thin with no underlay and will offer insulation without raising the height of the flooring.

In our new build HA home they put cheap vinyl tiles in the kitchen/living rooms room and nothing on the stairs/bedrooms.

We laid carpet over the vinyl tiles (after living with no flooring for 18 months).

Shit flooring is really depressing isn't it?

There's a You Tube video called "How to remove carpet adhesive from concrete." B&Q sell Evo Stik carpet adhesive so they can probably advise what would help remove.