Carpet flooring - good or bad?

[MommyMaggie]

My family (husband, 2,5-year-old and 1-year-old) and I will be moving from Sweden to London in a few weeks and we are looking for a flat or house to rent.

In Sweden, carpet flooring is very, very rare and from the very beginning of the flat/house searching I have been totally against carpets. One of the main criteria for the new home is wooden flooring.

Each day we find very nice flats and houses but the majority of them have carpet flooring in at least the bedrooms! I'm starting to feel like it's time to reevaluate my stand in this matter.

My main concern is the cleaning. We have wooden flooring in our flat right now and there have been many nights when the kids suffered from stomach flu or allergies and vomited all over the floor. Or the time when they spilled chocolate ice-cream/tomato sauce/mashed banana or what not. Currently I can just simply wipe the floor clean. But what would I do if I'd have carpets? Is it worth the effort? What are the advantages with carpets other than that they are warmer/softer than hard floor?

The other main concern is hygiene. My kids have allergies and one of them has asthma. I keep thinking of all the germs, allergens and parasites hidden in those carpets. Or is there a way of cleaning them really thoroughly to remove all that stuff?

Should I be more pro carpets or am I right to turn those nice apartments down only because they have carpet flooring?

This is a hard one. I know mothers who prefer carpet over laminated/wooden floor as they usually feel it's 'twice' the job. With carpet, just need to vacuum/hoover up the dust/mess/bread crumps. On the other hand, with wooden floor, you usually have to sweep it and at some point mop it, so some mothers feel it's two jobs for wooden floor.

Personally I prefer carpet in bedroom and living room as I don't like to wear shoes within the house and I hate dislike cold floor. I will keep the kitchen and hallway as laminated floor just for easy cleaning/heavy traffic.

In terms of heavy duty carpet cleaning, we rent 'Rug Doctor' to clean our carpet when we moved into the house and rent it again may be once a year to throughly clean it. You can easily rent the 'Rug Doctor' from B&Q, or bigger Morrison's in the UK. Do a google search and there ll be lots of info. It's a industrial machine for carpet cleaning with high temperature of chemical water and suction. It's a lot cheaper than buying a carpet cleaner and save up space in the house.

There are lots of product for cleaning carpet throughly in the UK like Blissel Rug stick which is on the cheaper scale to a proper carpet cleaner vacuum cleaner.

My husband is asthmatic and he has been fine with carpets in most part of the house. Rug doctor is a must when we just moved into a property with existing carpet as we don't want to know what has been on the carpet before! And regular vacuuming seems to keep it dust free. And there's a lot of vacuum cleaner comes with HEPA filter to keep the allergen in. It's not as scary as you think.

It will be very hard to find a property in the UK with all wooden floor as heating floor board in not so popular, thus the carpets. Good luck with our flat hunting and hopefully you will find something you like

Thank you MeghanMc! I haven't really decided if I should change my mind but this certainly made me rethink a few things. The solution with Rug Doctor seems easy and nice for thorough cleaning once a year. But what if someone vomits on the carpet or spills something that leaves hard-to-remove stains. What do you do then?

And what does it cost to rent the Rug Doctor? I can't seem to find prices... I think I would have wanted to clean the carpet even more often, or is that just mad?

It's what your used to really, we have wooden floors and I have to vacuum and then steam clean.

I find carpets cosier.

Stains are not the end of the world, for a £100 or so you could buy a carpet cleaner to shampoo the carpet more often.

I'd kill to get rid of our carpets. Just living means that you get stains which any amount of cleaning won't remove. You pay a fortune to get people in to clean them, or go through a massive faff to hire a machine to clean them yourself, and they never get everything out.

With wood floors, whatever it is, you just mop and it's gone. Our old flat had all wood floors. We had friends visit, bringing their cat, which promptly threw up in the hall. I was able to smile a cheery "no problem" and mop up the mess in a couple of minutes. In our current flat, that would be through gritted teeth as even after half an our on my hands and knees scrubbing with special products, waiting until the carpet dried and then vacuuming, you would always still be able to see where it had occurred.

And scotchguarding/stainproofing doesn't work or last that well. Don't do it to yourself. If you want to make a room "cosier", get a rug.

I've used the Rug Doctor too. Again, it doesn't get all stains out and for most stains, it just makes them paler, doesn't erase them. It costs about £25 per day to hire, plus about £30 for materials such as the special solution you need to use, and your carpets will be damp for at least the rest of the day. While they are damp, they are even more prone to getting dirty.

Every time I sweep our wooden floors and see how much dust and bits are there, I am thankful we only have carpet in one room (and I'd get rid of that given half a chance!)

Wooden floors are more and more common in the UK but I suspect you will struggle to find an apartment that doesn't have carpet in the bedrooms as it's perceived to be cosier.