Original wooden floorboards in rented accommodation - how to treat them?

[Lucysdiamonds]

The rented accommodation I'm in has the original floorboards downstairs, but they are very tatty. I have a couple of rugs down, but the boards still look grubby and rough, with a few damaged patches.

I'm no good at DIY and the landlord isn't interested. Also have cats, so varnishing would be difficult as it's a through lounge and we need to go through to upstairs or front door or bathroom ...

Is there anything cheap and easy I could do apart from buy more rugs?

To regenerate floor boards, you can hire (or borrow/buy) a sander, sand them (a big job with more sawdust flying around than you can imagine) and then apply a few coats of varnish. It's a big job. I'm not sure I wd do this for rented accommodation unless I thought I was going to be living there a long time. Maybe landlord cd be persuaded to pay for sander and varnish if you were willing to spend the time on it?

I hope to stay 2 years ...

I don't think I could do that though .. and the landlord won't, he's not interested in doing anything or paying for anything. Varnishing also not an option due to my cats.