A Defense of Carpet
At its worst, wall-to-wall carpeting can be moldy, gross, and unsightly. But is the American aversion the result of provincial germaphobes?
A month or so ago, as I was browsing Architectural Digest, I saw the kind of headline that strikes fear into any normal person. The kind of headline that brings one to their knees in prayer, asking God not to do this to the world. Not to do this to humanity.
Carpet. In. Bathrooms. Is. Back.
To paraphrase from Talladega Nights, “Don’t be puttin’ this evil on me, Architectural Digest”.
I mean, truly.
I used to share a bathroom with my ex-husband. I once worked in an office with gender neutral bathrooms. I’ve…I’ve seen things. I’ve seen things.
I mean, I haven’t seen exactly how those things happen, but it looks like some kind of Helen Keller/epilepsy thing. Or maybe like guys are just purposely spraying everywhere, hoping it will one day get them that R. Kelly money. I don’t know. All I know is that I want soft, absorbent surfaces as far away as humanly possible from that.
And yet here Architectural Digest is, apparently living in a world where 100% of men have “sink the Cheerio”-aim, and nobody is going for “Jackson Pollock, but piss”.
Good for Architectural Digest. Good for them. It must be nice to have such faith in humanity and strength of bladder. But for everyone else out there just trying to survive, that ain’t happenin’.
…
However, as I read the article, I did have to admit one thing: The American aversion to carpet is a little…over the top.
Again, there are some places where carpet should never be found.
Ever.
I’m not denying this.
Like by the toilet. Anywhere around the toilet, actually. I’m going to make an executive decision and say that soft, absorbent surfaces and the crapper should never mix. It’s like oil and water, except that they do blend. They blend into some kind of polyester and pee monstrocity, created solely to haunt the nightmares of housewives everywhere.
But, mercifully, most adults I know are potty trained.
If anybody is averse to carpet in the second floor hallway because that’s where Bob takes his morning leak, there’s a bigger problem. The carpet is not the issue. I’m sending thoughts and prayers to Bob’s family, but carpet isn’t the issue.
Moreover, at its best, carpeting is soft. It’s easy on the feet. Easy on the back and knees. It stays warm in the winter, no radiant heat flooring needed. It’s available in any number of styles and price points; from $.90 a sq. ft. polyester to cashmere, from greige and tan to plaids and florals.
It doesn’t become slick when wet. It can become gross and grow mold, but it doesn’t become slick. A spilled glass of water is never going to pad the pockets of orthopedic surgeons. Assuming everything is in normal condition, carpeting is less of a fall hazard than other types of flooring.
It absorbs sound.
Have annoying loved ones? Carpet.
It helps keep the noises from Call of Duty in the family room, Enya’s…Enya sounds in Mom’s office, and the screeching of Rachel Maddow and Tucker Carlson far away from everybody. Carpet is like a set of protective ear muffs for the floor. A way of not having to know quite so much about what everybody else in the house does all day.
And, it can look perfectly nice.
Again, it comes in every color and pattern imaginable. It can be layered under rugs, just like any other flooring. The options abound—beauty may be in the eye of the beholder, but somewhere, there is a carpeting option that will pair with almost any style of decor.
Moreover, I dare say that the aesthetic objections rarely come from apples to apples comparisons.
Invariably, when somebody says that they hate carpeting, they are not about to expound upon the virtues of linoleum. They are not about to sing the praises of peel ‘n stick, or even the cheapest neutral tile at Home Depot. There will be no loving sonnet to regular, gray, unstained concrete, nor to any other kind of flooring that can be readily obtained for a couple of dollars a square foot at the local big box store, and installed by a guy who will accept a twelve pack of Mountain Dew, a carton of cigarettes, and $20 for gas as payment.
No, that lady is about to explain why she likes hardwood floors.
She’s saying that she “doesn’t like the look of carpeting” in the same way that one might say “You know, I really think Lexus’ lineup this year is a lot nicer than my brother’s ‘97 Corolla.”
Yeah. I know it is, Lauren.
That’s kind of the whole idea.
Hardwood floors are nicer than a cheap polyester berber from Lumber Liquidators, in the same way that I find Dillard’s to be a more traditionally pleasant shopping experience than the Goodwill Outlet. I like the way that the stuff at Dillard’s is all clean, and organized on all of those nice racks, and the way that there are almost never homeless people smoking crack in the shoe section, even in the Memphis locations. It’s nice. It’s good stuff. It’s why people pay that Dillard’s premium, instead of stocking up on underwear for $1 a pound.
Similarly, hardwood floors don’t have to be some kind of insane luxury, reserved only for the .01%, but they also aren’t cheap. They’re an upgrade in builder world; an extra $20k tacked onto the price of a cookie cutter house.
An extra $20k more than the carpet that comes included with the new build.
That hardwood is literally the price difference between a Lexus and a Corolla. It better be the nicer option.
Apples to apples, carpet starts to look a little better.
Cheap, shitty carpet doesn’t look good, but it doesn’t look any inherently worse than the other cheap, shitty flooring options out there.
It’s not as though luxury vinyl plank is fooling anybody. A sheet of plastic on the floor printed in a wood grain or faux marble isn’t going to do any better at “elevating the room” than knockoff StainMaster.
At <$4 a square foot, Robin Leach isn’t going to be calling anybody, regardless of the flooring choice used. Higher end carpets can look higher end, but in the current era, cheap carpet proliferates. It’s the flooring of lowest bidders and tract houses that won’t be receiving a single upgrade; of cookie cutter houses too shoddy for a coat of icing.
Either way, aesthetically, carpeting is rarely playing on a level field.
…
And, this leads to the other great objection to carpeting—the one that, in the words of Architectural digest, is “very American”—the idea that carpet is gross and unsanitary.
Now, yeah, I mean, obviously carpet can be gross and unsanitary.
Carpet by the toilet. Carpet in the mudroom. Carpet with a house full of pets. Carpet if Bob does regularly get up in the night to piss in the hallway.
Those are…those are bad places for carpet. I can see why those families don’t want carpet.
“Anything but carpet” is fantastic advice if the combination of luck and life choices has turned one’s house into a 2,200 sq. ft. neo-colonial toilet.
Similarly, carpet just isn’t ideal by the beach. It’s not ideal in heavily trafficked foyers; the kind where lots of people are going to be coming in and out all day with muddy shoes and wet umbrellas and buckets of potting soil.
It can be stressful in dining rooms. Not because of germs, but because of spaghetti. It’s a no-go in the kitchen, because germs and spaghetti and raw meat and leaks under the sink and muddy shoes from people coming in the back door and leaky gallons of milk from the grocery store.
But carpet in normal places, exposed only to the normal grossness of daily life?
Dust mite allergies and Bubble Boy notwithstanding, that’s a good gross. That’s the kind of gross that helps build a healthy immune system and protects children from chronic diseases down the road.
Rooms and houses and life should have germs. They need germs.
We all need germs, and I don’t mean that as a royal we, like “We should all take care of the planet and help make sure that disabled transgender kittens have a safe space to play with yarn and laser pointers, in a world free of microaggressions”.
I mean that without germs, life is over. Kaput. We are all extinct, transgender kittens included. There is literally no way around that. For the sake of the transgender kittens, we need germs.
And, for all of the hand wringing, for all of the germaphobes who go through a gallon of hand sanitizer a week, the problem is not that most houses are too germy; that the 28,000 varieties of bacteria living on the sheets and countertops are killing people by the minute.
Quite the opposite.
The average house is too clean. Too sterile. People are getting sick and dying because the ol’ peel ‘n stick and formica don’t contain enough bacteria.
To worry that carpet is gross is, quite frankly, to be worried about the wrong thing.
Does this mean that I’m yearning for the glories of wall-to-wall carpet; that I’m lusting for polyester loop?
No. Of course not. At the higher end, I generally think hardwood is better than the comparably priced alternatives. And, at the lower end, I think it depends: I like wood laminate. I like tile. I like being able to paint without worrying that I’m going to ruin anything.
And, there can be something gross about inheriting someone else’s carpet.
But still.
I mean, nobody wants to inherit a stranger’s dust mites and dead skin cells, but also, throw one dinner party, and there are going to be all kinds of Other People Detritus in the sofa cushions.
That friend who read a study about how deodorant might cause cancer, and now avoids soap, too, just to be extra safe?
The friend whose boyfriend of the week is a professional gamer; his finger tips permanently orange from Cheeto dust?
The friend who thinks hand washing after going to the bathroom is like, suuuuper optional?
The one who got a little lonely during Covid lockdowns and decided to adopt 600 cats?
Yeah. That’s all part of the living room now. No wall-to-wall carpeting needed.
The ol’ StainMaster hardly has a monopoly on the grossness of daily life. And, again, that’s probably actually a good thing. Cheeto gamer guy and cat lady are keeping everybody a lot healthier than the jumbo tub of Clorox wipes ever will.
They might not be the heroes we want, but they’re the heroes we need.
Really, really gross heroes.