To think UK should have moved on from carpeting by this stage

[Finlesswonder]

It's gross, it's ugly, it's high maintenance, and in a world of global warming, it increasingly feels like a dust and burning sun heat trap.
Why are people in this country still obsessed with carpeting?

A conservatory is a far more offensive thing to have attached to your home environmentally. They are actively discouraged in modern UK construction now - freezing in winter and boiling in summer. A conservatory makes any home feel like is belongs in the med in summer where hard floors are needed for cooling it down.

Also a natural wool carpet is far less offensive environmentally than that awful cheap disgusting plastic laminate floor.

No carpets downstairs in my house. 4 bedrooms, 2 are carpeted, 2 are not. One which is carpeted is an extension room built over a garage which gets very cold in winter and carpet does make a difference to keeping the heat in.

It's the cheap laminate that should be banned.

I don't get the "unhygienic" issue with carpets.

I only walk on my floors, I don't eat off them, although I might occasionally have sat on them back in the days when I could get up again easily.

I'm not aware of any bugs that could cause illness by being walked on.

The cats dirty feet and shitty arseholes all over the furniture and kitchen worktops would repulse me a whole lot more than carpet anywhere in a house.

Anyone that keeps a cat or dog in the house can't really bang on about hygienic floors, they scotch their shitty arses along them.

Too noisy to havd hard flooring upstairs

How would you like it if they came to your house, found it not to their taste, and slagged you off rudely on the Internet?

I just hate laminate flooring. Everyone is different so nothing more to say.

MN thinks anything that's not specified and cleaned to operating theatre standards to be 'unhygienic'.

Spot on, total snobbery.

Good lord, why do you give a crap about the flooring in someone else's house? You must have an incredibly boring life, OP.

I would have loved hardwood flooring in my kitchen and bathroom, but my god, the price of it!

In a Victorian house it’s really the only way to go, I have it upstairs and on stairs but downstairs no carpet. Much better for insulation etc.

I love these carpet, toilet brush and shoes on or off threads, generally started by goady fuckers though who know the Mumsnet way.

I can never understand people with dogs or young kids choosing to have a carpet in their living room

I can never understand people with arthritic elderly dogs having non carpeted floors. They slip and slide all over the place unable to get a grip on the hard flooring, this in turn causes them pain in their joints as their legs splay outwards. Something to think about when getting a dog.

I agree, OP.

To people saying carpet is easier to keep clean than wood or stone… it’s not actually easier, it’s that you just don’t see the dirt as well and therefore don’t feel the need to clean it as thoroughly or regularly. We mop the hard floors because it is obvious they are dirty, but the same stuff is hitting both floors, so with carpets it’s actually just a case of living with the grub because you can’t see it.

We have people in the house with dust allergies and asthma who seize up when they go into most carpeted homes. There’s a reason for that.

Totally agree!
Unhygienic fgs! How ridiculous.

@Finlesswonder What do
you have on your floors? Cheap shitty laminate? I would rather have carpet than that.
Tastes change; we have had everything from carpet in even
the kitchen and bathroom (carpet up the side of the bath anyone?) through cork, carpet tiles, flagstones..
Now have carpet only in the small living room with the log burner and on the stairs and mezzanine landing. Tiles in kitchen/diner/family room, bathrooms, lobby and oak flooring everywhere else.

I live in Scotland which for most of the year is Baltic.

So I will keep my lovely thick carpets.

If that's ok with you.

It was special carpet that was water repellant. They really tried to popularise it but I don't remember it taking off? People preferred tiles or vinyl.

No carpeting here - parquet downstairs, bamboo upstairs and karndean in the kitchen. Bit of a mishmash but no carpets. We pulled them up shortly after moving in because it was triggering my son's asthma.

@johnd2 thank you. An excellent explanation.

Carpets are not unhygienic and I have a cat. You need a decent hoover and carpet shampoo for spills.

I will say, me, DPs and some elderly neighbours of DP’s have recently had to replace carpets due to carpet moths. DPs and me both got acrylic non wool carpets to repel the moths.

I do have one or two rugs downstairs but am mindful to be careful because if you slip or trip on them you can have a nasty fall. NDN’s with young children have carpets upstairs and laminate downstairs. It costs a fortune replacing old Victorian floorboards and then my nightmare is cat brings in mice and they escape down a crack and breed, friend had this happen to her and cost even more money and more work!

It’s a trend. In a few years carpet will be back on Instagram and pinterest and all the talk will be about hoovering.