Can’t afford to carpet my council house

[Florafloral]

I have recently moved into a council house with my 5 year old after being made homeless. It’s a new build so All rooms are painted which I’m grateful for but I can’t afford to carpet it. It’s concrete flooring throughout which is impossible to keep clean, is very powdery and dusty. It’s making our clothes and furniture dusty too. I applied for a grant for flooring with the council but was turned down because my DD isn’t under 3 and we have no health conditions. Does anyone have any tips or how I can try and get cheap flooring. I’ve been quoted over £2000 for the whole house. It just seems impossible

As a PP said, it's really important to seal the floor whilst you wait/save for floorcovering.

The dust from concrete floors is quite bad for you so hope you can get it sorted soon.

It is standard. When my parents moved into their new build council house 50 yrs ago, they had to carpet it all.

When Mum moved in with me, I was given a long list of things I had to do - that included lifting all carpets. I was allowed to leave vinyl in good condition.

A neighbour's son was allowed to view the council flat he was moving into. The tenants agreed to leave all the floor coverings for him. The council ripped them all up.

Where are you OP? I've got a huge floor rug I'm about to get rid of. It's not fantastic but on the off chance your close by you'd be more than welcome to it as hopefully it would be better than nothing.

What drives me mad about this is that plenty of people leave the floor when they leave council properties which instead of being passed onto the next tenant is then stripped out and binned. It's such a waste.

We had the same issue when we moved in, HA did carpet the stairs and landing but nowhere else. We managed to save enough to put laminate down in the living room (luckily my dad put it down for us), DD’s box room has lino which was a offcut someone gave us. When we moved in we were given a voucher for money off at B&Q, they don’t sell carpet which is why we got laminate instead.

I would concentrate on downstairs (covering the concrete). Sometimes you can get 2nd hand carpet or end of the roll from the shop for a good price. I saw some carpets on marketplace a few days ago so keep an eye out in there.

My floors are pretty awful 12 years after moving in, we use a rugs as I can’t afford to replace the laminate or the carpets upstairs (luckily no one really visits or goes upstairs).

Also, you can get really cheap cord carpet or exhibition cord it's called. It's also very easy to fit so you could fit it yourself after sealing the floors.

Cord Carpet | Exhibition Carpet | Buy Cheap Budget Carpet Online | OnlineCarpets.co.uk | Online Carpets

Best of luck.

could you look at Lino flooring instead and then buy rugs? at least for downstairs

try off cuts for carpets for upstairs

I'm very sorry. As a temporary measure, get cardboard boxes and flatten them, it will be a nicer surface, you can then put a pillow/blanket so you can play with your baby on the floor. Good luck, lots of people on here routing for you.

I’ve got some concrete flooring and you could deal with the dust really quickly and cheaply by using a floor paint or by sealing the concrete with a floor sealant. I’ve done mine using a chalk paint and floor varnish but you can also buy water based tile sealant for floors and it dries really quickly. Just make sure whatever you use is for floors so it is non slip. Also water based is better because fumes are less and much shorter drying time. Even a PVA mix (50% water) would work to seal the dust.

What drives me mad about this is that plenty of people leave the floor when they leave council properties which instead of being passed onto the next tenant is then stripped out and binned. It's such a waste.

indeed but the council and HA don't want to be sued for bed bugs or infestation of insects - so its easy to rip the carpets out and start again. Someone somewhere will have caused such a fuss. But it would be better to my mind to get new tenants to sign a waiver

You can get floor paint to seal in the concrete, it is a grey colour, and then free cycle for some rugs, not ideal but the floor paint with stop the dust at least

My parents moved to a large old house and we had no carpets for years- army blankets on the floors were fine.

floorboards are probably on upper floors of a new build so they will be warm underfoot .

Concrete sealant first - then if there is an old style market near you if there is a rug stand/store from what we've seen the best prices for really large rugs.

For smaller spaces lino tiles and cork squares are easy to lay and relatively cheap.

🤔 maybe they could put it on Facebook?

People can be heinous with carpets
Pissing and pooping pets, children vomiting ,
if rather have ZERO carpeting than someone else’s scabrous floor covering.
Especially in bathrooms - BOAK

maybe they could put it on Facebook?

the council won't put stuff on Facebook

B&M Homestores sometimes have reasonably priced tiles for floors - vinyl and carpet.

Look at local carpet shops and ask if they do roll ends. Our local one was so helpful when I first moved into a housing association flat. They found me a roll end for £20 and delivered it for a fiver. It covered almost a whole room. Bit of a weird colour but it did for a couple of years. I went back to that carpet shop and bought proper carpets when I could afford it.

A friend of mine had these down many years ago.
I remember he had spares so he could replace one if one got ruined. Easy to lay to. Stick and go. But you’d have to seal the concrete first.

Hi, so sorry you’re in this situation! We lived in a council flat in our early twenties so didn’t have much money, and there was no flooring when we moved in. We had carpets fitted in the bedroom and living room, and then laid carpet tiles down in the kitchen and bathroom as a temporary fix, because the bathroom suite and kitchen units all needed replacing too. You can get them really cheaply on Amazon and they’re non-slip, so should be able to be laid straight onto the concrete. Hope you get it all sorted and can enjoy your new home! 😊

Lots of people don’t have kids and pets. You will be surprised how many people cha be there carpets often even though these nothing wrong with them.

carpet doesn’t belong in bathrooms 🤢

It’s concrete flooring throughout

Not upstairs though!! A new build 2 bed council house will have the kitchen and floor done with vinyl only leaving you the lounge and 2 bedrooms. Much more do-able.

Why would you say it was concrete “throughout”? 🤔

When my kids were small and money was tight I blagged out of date carpet sample books and the kids had patchwork carpets in their bedrooms.

Get some tins of floor sealer in meantime to stop dust
https://www.rawlinspaints.com/floor-sealers?gad_source=1

Seal the concrete floors then ask round everyone you know as someone is bound to know someone who is getting new carpets and you can have the old ones. I own my home but I’ve had to do this.
If the rooms are small you can probably make a cupboard up with off cuts. Either stick it with double sided tape or stitch it together. Not easy but it is doable. Fit the carpets yourself.

Whete are you? I'm Oxfordshire and have some carpets I'm giving away.