Imagine living in an apartment for 8 years, but it still has the same carpet it had when you moved in. If the carpet was showing a lot of wear and tear, would you ask to have it replaced, or would you accept living with this carpet until you moved out?

In this story, one couple is in this situation, and at about year 5, that started asking to get the carpet replaced. This request was clearly not high on the to do list for the management company.

Keep reading to see how the story plays out.

Move all the furniture to get new carpet

I don’t like moving, I’ve never not paid a bill on time, and I take decent care of things because I don’t like living in a place that’s a pig sty. My SO is tidy and responsible as well.

I’m the one who deals with things like leases in the relationship but he’s happy to go along or push issues if needed.

Because of this, we make pretty good and loyal tenants. So much so that our most recent landlord regularly praised us as his least annoying tenants, and during the pandemic when house prices were going up offered to sell us the house at a discount (more than he paid by a lot, but a lot less than adjacent houses were selling and we’re still well ahead at the current market).

But this story is about a previous apartment.

Anyway, 15 years ago, (the place before this) I moved into an apartment with my S.O. for about $700/ month. It was 2 bedroom and had huge closets…so big I threatened to make a guest room out of one for my mom when she visited since I was pretty sure I could fit a twin bed in. (That got vetoed).

It was pretty decent but the carpet was some super cheap stuff that was only meant to last 3-5 years since they replaced it after every move out.

No big complaints for the first 4 or so years. There were some roaches thanks to neighbors but they dealt with it and the water heater broke in the closet but I didn’t have anything too important there and they fixed the damage from that too.

The rent kept getting more and more expensive.

Meanwhile, the rent went up every year. Plus there were added fees for upgrades.

We agreed to pay for access to the new gym…for a monthly fee. I got a shaded parking spot…for a monthly fee. We got a cat and paid additional pet rent.

Whatever, but I was up to about $900/ month by year 4.

The 5th year was ending and the carpet was indeed looking a bit rough. I’d paid myself to have it cleaned twice but it was wearing. So when it came time to renew the lease, I mentioned it and they said they’d look into replacing it for me, so I signed.

But they didn’t make replacing the carpet a priority.

I did remind them a few times that year and so did my SO…he got them to give us another carpet cleaning for free but no action.

End of year 6… this time I say we need them to replace the carpet and that I’ll move the furniture from each room as they’re ready.

They verbally agree and I sign.

No action.

Now, they’re making excuses.

I remind them and they tell me they can’t do one room at a time… they can only do it all at once and I’ll have to move out all my furniture. They can rent us another apartment in the building that’s for short term use for a couple of weeks for like $500…what?!

I know that’s a lie that they can’t do one room at a time. Not only does that not make sense but remember when the water heater broke? It ruined the carpet in the closet and mold grew since it took about 2 days to notice. They had come in and replaced the carpet… only in that closet.

Plus they HAD verbally agreed.

Got another carpet cleaning.

Will new management make a difference?

End of year 7. New management.

I told them about the prior years and they made lots of understanding noises and said ofc they could replace the carpet given it’d been so long compared to the other units (it was near a military base…most tenants stayed just a year or two.)

I wrote that on the contract which they didn’t like but we all signed for another year… rent is now about $1100.

So about a month later I remind them.

They gave the same excuse as previous management.

Somehow I get the same story as the old management had that sure they can do it, and will honor what was on the agreement that I wrote on but only if they do it all at once rather than room by room, and we move out all the furniture for a week or two.

Um… what?

This time I don’t even get an offer to rent a second apartment to temp move into. I have no idea where they thought we’d magically store furniture and ourselves for a week.

Try again later that year, same answer.

I warn them if we have to move all our furniture out to get new carpet, we won’t be moving it back in.

So they started looking for another place to live.

Nearing the end of year 7. The lease renews in Feb, renewal due in January.

December, my SO starts looking at houses for rent and we start checking them out on the weekends. Because why not?

We find a nice 4 bedroom for only $1150/ month ($50 over my current place for close to 2x the space) and spend a few weeks moving in. And guess what? It has brand new high quality carpet.

The last day to renew our lease or give move out notice comes. We give notice. We and the cat are already sleeping at the new place.

How did management not see this coming?

Immediately, I get asked why we’re leaving and what they can do to make us stay?

I bring up we’ve been here 8 years and the last 3 we were promised new carpet and ended up being told I could only have it if we moved all the furniture out at once.

They had the gall to claim they were under new management (again!!) and hated to lose a good tenant that was one of their longest. They’d knock some fees off the rent and would absolutely replace the carpet (sure…) Pretty sure they’d have to do all that and a lot more to get a new tenant in.

But it was too late.

I told them we’d already moved most of the furniture out, would finish by the end of the month, and they could do the carpet whenever they’d like because I no longer cared.

They even gave me an offer in writing a week later that included 2 months free on the next lease, but we were already very much enjoying our nice new place and happily locked into a lease there.

As promised, if we had to move all the furniture somewhere else to get new carpet, we would not be moving it back. I only wish I’d made and kept that threat sooner.

I’m glad they found another place to live that sounds much nicer for almost the same price. Maybe management did them a favor. If they had replaced the carpet, this couple wouldn’t be enjoying so much more space in a house all their own.

Let’s see how Reddit responded to this story.

This is a good way of explaining it.

Someone who has experience installing carpet shares their experience.

This person would’ve handled it differently.

Someone who recently had new carpet installed shares what they learned.

Nobody wants to live with gross, old carpet.

If you liked that post, check out this post about a rude customer who got exactly what they wanted in their pizza.