Pet related carpet disaster in apartment

[apoclater]

Long story short, I have a cat in a carpeted apartment.  I did everything right (or so I thought) by paying the pet deposit, making sure he had scratching pads (vertical and horizontal), and trimming his nails when I could get him calm.

Unfortunately when I was away for a week my roommate closed his door 95% of the week outside of the time he needed to feed the cat and feed himself.  My cat is pretty fond of people, so he wanted to get in.  I came back to carpet torn all the way down to the bare floor around the door (almost as if my cat is trying to dig himself under the door).

Now, according to the agreement, even though I paid the pet deposit this is just for the "right" to have a cat in the apartment.  I still am responsible for damages.  I am really hoping they don't have to replace the entire carpet, but this could be a VERY expensive (I am thinking $1k-1.5k) problem when I decide to move out. 

Do you guys have any recommendations on best course of action?  I'm curious if the replacement is inevitable and I should start budgeting for it now, or is there's potential for a DIY project (which is dangerous in an apartment you don't own, I know). 

[rachael talcott]

Typically this kind of damage is pro-rated based on the expected lifespan of the carpet. So if the carpet is expected to last 8 years and it's 4 years old, you'd be expected to pay for half of the replacement cost.  If it's in a hallway, they might be able to replace just the hallway. 

Your roommate should be responsible for at least part of it, at least if he/she agreed to take care of your cat while you were gone.  Presumably your roommate would have seen the early damage and could have figured out some way to prevent it. 

Don't try to DIY, at least not without asking your landlord. 

[olivia]

Is it a common type of carpet? Could you contact a carpet place about getting just that spot replaced?  Depending on the type of carpet I think you can sort of patch it so that no one can see the seams. I vaguely remember my parents doing this in the house I grew up in. It's worth a call for a quote.

Poor kitty. And what was with your roommate?! Next time hire a pet sitter.

[apoclater]

Thanks all.  I think my plan of action will be to be honest with the landlord and ask what I should expect to pay in damages.  My hope is that I'm on the tail end of the depreciation and will only have to pay half of what I expect to.  Following that, I plan to get a cheaper/smaller apartment with wood floors so my cat's only choice is to scratch the pads/post.

[Greg]

What the others have said, and fire your house-mate. 

[AlmostIndependent]

I had a renter with a dog who did something similar. Tried to dig through a door and the carpet. I had some scraps left over from when the carpet was installed and was able to have someone repair just the damaged section of the carpet. If I remember correctly it cost about $75 for him to cut out the old section and replace it with new. It might be worth a shot. I would see if you can find the carpet and an installer to fix it and then go to your landlord. Tell him what happend and how you plan to fix it. If it was me I would be happy that I didnt have to deal with it later and probably let you slide assuming the patch looks decent.

[Phoebe]

This doesn't really help your current situation, but in the future you may want to look into "Soft Claws."  We have a cat that likes to scratch furniture but we thought having him de-clawed later in life was cruel.  Soft claws are these little rubber nail covers that you glue on with basically crazy glue.  That stay on about 6 weeks and just naturally fall off (we use brightly colored ones so we can find them easily when they do).  Our cat doesn't mind them at all since he can still retract his claws and everything.  We still have a scratching post because he still has the urge to scratch but now our furniture is safe.  Good luck!

Here's a link to purchase them:
http://www.amazon.com/s/?ie=UTF8&keywords=soft+claws+nail+caps&tag=hydsma-20&index=aps&hvadid=11277625194&hvpos=1t2&hvexid=&hvnetw=g&hvrand=11343219111734077164&hvpone=&hvptwo=&hvqmt=b&hvdev=c&ref=pd_sl_1xnqt6f2y2_b

[Ductyl]

I've had to deal with this a couple times with my dog (sometimes he gets an upset stomach, and can't go eat grass, so he starts eating whatever he can find... including carpet threads...), and I've managed to deal with it without the landlord both times by using a carpet repairman and patching in some carpet. This will depend on how big an area is affected, but you can usually make it work.

The trick is, you have to have matching carpet to patch in or it will look wrong. The best way to do this (assuming you don't have a swatch of extra carpet laying around) is to find some carpet that looks "pretty close" (I recommend a carpet remnant store) and have the carpet repair guy cut out the carpet from the closet, replace it with the "pretty close" carpet, and then patch in the closet carpet to replace the damaged carpet. The idea being that a seam between two different colors of carpet looks natural in a closet, but not so much in the middle of the room.

You can usually tell the difference immediately after it's been patched, but after a day or so you can vacuum/clean it, and it usually evens out a bit... the longer you do this before you move out, the more chance it will have to "wear into place".

[jwystup]

I was in the same situation and got really lucky, I think the apartment manager lady really liked my dog :)

My dog has separation anxiety and he had his own room in the apartment I rented in a complex. He dug at the carpet near the door and the door itself while I was at work. Eventually there was about 1' of carpet gone and the inside of the door looked terrible. I tried to stain over the door to match so it wouldn't look as bad right before leaving, but I think that may have weakened the door and he wound up getting through 1/2 of the hollow core door within a week of me moving out! I thought my security deposit was doomed, so I cleaned the  shit out of that place, hoping to save any pennies that I could.

I got my entire security deposit back!! I think, as someone else mentioned, they may have just considered it "time to replace" those things and didn't charge me. As I said, I think the lady liked my doggy (who wouldn't? He's a sweetie pie, he just has issues) and it was majorly a college apartment complex, so I'm sure they're used to things getting damaged and all of the furnishings were cheapo.

Just had to share my story, I hope you get as lucky as I did!!

[Dicey]

Here's an even easier trick. Call your local carpet store and hire their best installer directly (i.e. pay him, not the store) to take a piece out of a closet and mend the damaged area. Instead of patching the closet with a "similar" piece of carpet, get thee to a box store and buy a box or two of cedar closet lining. Watch a youtube video to learn how to install it correctly. Make sure you do a perfect installation job so it looks nice. Should anyone ever question it, you can reply with a version of "I was worried about moths eating my clothing".

Note: I am retired from a major carpet mill. The odds of finding something "similar" is almost zilch. Even the exact style and color are not going to match if the carpet is more than a year or two old. Don't make yourself crazy trying to find matching carpet. The cedar solution should also be cheaper.

[EK]

You might not even have to pay!!  I lived in my previous apartment for 3 years.  Over the course of those 3 years my dog and 2 cats just absolutely trashed the carpet.  It looked horrible- stains, chunks missing, etc.  I considered our deposit good as gone.

When it was time to move out though, my landlord said he had been planning to replace the carpet regardless and we got the entire deposit back!!

I'll second the recommendation for soft claws.  They worked really well until the kitties figured out how to bite them off, but yours may never figure that out!

[giggles]

I had a rabbit who did almost the exact same thing, but luckily it was in a corner.  The LL left some old carpet scraps in the apt, so I cut out a section from the scraps, carefully removed the damanged part, and inserted the scrap cut-out.  A little bit of fluffing and glue to keep it in place, and the LL was none the wiser.