Backstory:
I have a townhouse I am fixing up to rent out. About a year ago (when I still lived there) a pipe burst in the wall of a bedroom, soaking the carpet. I have repaired the pipe, fixed the drywall, ripped up and dried the carpet, and replaced the carpet pad (no way it was going to dry, it was acting like a giant sponge) (on a concrete slab, no under-floor damage).
The carpet is now just laying in roughly the place it belongs, but it is not stretched to the walls and it is cut in half down the middle of the room (water only got to half the room, the carpet on the other half is still stretched and installed normally). The carpet is a fairly cheap off-white with maybe a 1/2" pile, maybe shorter. The cut in the carpet was made freehand with a box-cutter type blade, so while it's fairly straight it's not exact. The carpet is in good condition other than the cut. The room is a strange "L" shape with an enormous walk-in-closet / nursery / storage room filling out the rectangle, so not the easiest shape in the world.
I would like it to look decent when I am done; I don't want to be a slum-lord or anything. I don't currently have any carpet tools.
It seems to me that I could:
1) Get some carpet tools and try to tape it back together / get it all stretched out again.
2) Pay someone to replace the carpet.
3) Get some carpet tools and replace it myself
My main concerns with #1 is that I probably will hardly ever use the carpet tools again, and I'm not sure I can do a professional-quality job on repairing the cut and stretching the carpet. I not even entirely sure the cut can be repaired and still look good; all the videos I've seen online indicate that you tape the carpet while unstretched and with an extremely straight cut, and even so you will probably still see a seam once you're done. #3 shares the same concerns, minus the taping part.
Is this a reasonable thing to do myself? Is it impossible to get it to look good short of replacing it? Any other advice?
