Comments on: Friday Cat Blogging

By: Bryan

Bryan — Tue, 08 Mar 2011 03:53:15 +0000

Badtux, bowlers aren’t a problem, and ceramic tile is easy to replace if you have the proper tools. When you have the storage space and can by it in bulk, replacing tiles is cheap and quick – grind out the grout, and stone chisel the remnants. A little thinset, drop in the replacement, and replace the grout. With carpet you have to pull the entire room, which means 4 yards of carpet, 16 square yards of pad, and installation for a six-inch hole in the center caused by a candle that was unattended. Oh, yes, and a gallon of Odoban to kill the odor.

If you paid our tipping fees for waste, you would really reduce the trash you generate. Broken tiles are useful in the bottom of flower pots for drainage, or to add interest to outdoor stepping stones, when you mold your own. Old carpet is garbage.

I don’t see how the fleas can survive in it, Hipparchia.

By: hipparchia

hipparchia — Tue, 08 Mar 2011 03:33:53 +0000

bryan’s right about the sand – and there are days when i’m convinced it’s not quartz, it’s gazillions of tiny little industrial diamonds instead.

By: Badtux

Badtux — Mon, 07 Mar 2011 20:30:08 +0000

Regarding ceramic tile floors, Bryan, I’ve seen them destroyed by tenants — there was one rental I saw where I have a sneaking suspicion the tenants were throwing *bowling balls* around in the house, half the tiles were cracked or chipped — and they’re *much* more expensive to fix than carpet. My current rental has tile floor in about half the place — the only carpet is in the living room and bedrooms — and there’s quite a few cracked tiles where previous tenants dropped heavy things onto the floor. If I were flooring my own concrete-slab home I’d definitely put down ceramic tile house-wide and then area rugs in the living areas for comfort, but I’m surprised that you don’t have tenants smashing your tiles there. Must do a good job selecting tenants, is all I gotta say…

By: Badtux

Badtux — Mon, 07 Mar 2011 20:25:49 +0000

Steve, here in California you could sue your landlord in small claims court if they charged you for new carpet when it was at end-of-life and withheld the cost from your deposit rather than returning your deposit. There are general guidelines that courts here follow about how long paint and carpet lasts. 15 year old carpet would decidedly be end-of-life and if a landlord withheld money for new carpet from your deposit when you moved out, you’d get double damages in small claims court.

Too bad you live in that libertarian paradise called “Texas”, where the bidness of guvment is bidness and the only rights you have as a tenant is the right to be reamed up the rear, good and hard…

– Badtux the Tenant Penguin

By: Steve Bates

Steve Bates — Mon, 07 Mar 2011 04:34:55 +0000

Three of my last four rentals (where I live) had hardwood floors… glorious acoustics and easy to clean. But the abode before my current one was a cheaply built apartment with the worst godawful carpet I’d ever seen. Of course it wore out in the course of 15 years, and apartment managers being who they often are in large cities, I was charged for the damage when I moved out.

I have friends who still live there and I like staying out of jail; otherwise, I’d contemplate torching my old apartment… actually, no, that wouldn’t do any visible damage to the place…

By: Bryan

Bryan — Mon, 07 Mar 2011 01:43:43 +0000

Square-foot ceramic tile is the best solution for rentals with slab floors. You install and forget about it for decades. If they want cushion, let them buy a cheap rug. You use the off-white and gray grout so you can replace an individual broken tile.

The quartz sand really eats carpet, and there is no way of keeping it out. It also eats the new, and expensive, laminate flooring, as well as hardwood floors. Ceramic tile is the only thing that stands up to the sand.

Well, Ellroon, to you keep a free flying parrot, chickens, squirrels, or horses in your house? [They supposedly only brought the horses in during hurricanes.] Small town and rural rentals are certainly interesting.

I’ll tell him you said so, OWL, and he’ll respond “Dur”. He’s cute, but he’s not very bright.

By: oldwhitelady

oldwhitelady — Sun, 06 Mar 2011 22:31:02 +0000

Yay! As reruns go, you can’t get better than this! Excise is such a cutie.

By: ellroon

ellroon — Sun, 06 Mar 2011 22:30:23 +0000

Oh great… now I have to be worried about my wall to wall carpets…

By: hipparchia

hipparchia — Sun, 06 Mar 2011 20:57:07 +0000

i’d much rather have vinyl than carpet.

By: Badtux

Badtux — Sun, 06 Mar 2011 18:06:52 +0000

But carpet’s cheap and easy to replace, so it’s what goes into rentals. Same deal with vinyl flooring. Vinyl flooring looks trashy, but it’s cheap to replace when the tenants destroy it. When that tenant destroys your fine oak flooring by dropping bowling balls and walking in spike heels on it (with literal spikes! Yes, I’ve seen wood floors destroyed like that!), you’ll cry. Not so much for carpet or vinyl. For both I personally would use professionals, because a) the Mexican invasion has driven the cost of professionals down to where it’s not worth the trouble to do it yourself, and b) they do the job *much* faster and with *much* less waste.

So for everybody who’s ever wondered “why is this nasty carpet stuff in every rental in the country?!”, now you know :).

– Badtux the Landlord Penguin