TL;DR
Compare the carpet's age against a five to seven year useful life schedule, then override on condition. If the carpet is under four years old with no urine and no visible damage, clean it. If it is past its scheduled life or has odor reaching the pad, replace it, because a second cleaning on dead carpet is money spent twice.
The Two Questions That Decide Every Turn
Turnover decisions get overcomplicated. There are really only two inputs.
How old is the carpet, measured against the useful life you assign it? And does it fail on condition, meaning urine, odor, burns, tears, or delamination?
Age tells you where you are in the depreciation cycle and whether cleaning is protecting an asset or postponing an inevitability. Condition overrides age in both directions. Two-year-old carpet with cat urine through the pad gets replaced. Six-year-old carpet in a quiet one-bedroom with no pets often cleans up fine and buys another lease term.
What Useful Life Should You Assign?
Common practice in residential property management is five to seven years for builder-grade apartment carpet, though the number varies with the grade installed and how it is documented in your own accounting. Federal guidance for depreciating carpet in residential rental property has long used a five year schedule, which is why so many operators anchor there. Source: IRS residential rental property depreciation guidance
The practical value of a schedule is not the tax treatment. It is that it removes the argument. When carpet is in year six of a five year life, the decision is made before anyone walks in, and turn crews are not standing around debating.
It also governs what you can reasonably charge a departing tenant. Prorating a damaged carpet's remaining life is the standard approach in most jurisdictions, and a schedule you apply consistently is far easier to defend than a case-by-case judgment. Our overview of who is responsible for carpet cleaning covers how that responsibility question typically gets framed.
The Cost Comparison
Industry Baseline Range
| Carpet cleaning | Industry baseline range |
|---|---|
| Per room | $40 to $90+ |
| Per square foot | $0.25 to $0.50 |
| Average 3-bedroom house (5 rooms) | $200 to $500 |
Source: HomeGuide, "Carpet Cleaning Prices" national cost guide.
These are industry baseline ranges for planning only and may not reflect Otesse's price. Otesse pricing is calculated for your specific home and ZIP code, so enter your ZIP in the price box on this page for your instant price.
Current Market Reality
Two forces have pushed turn budgets up. Installed flooring costs have risen with materials and installer labor, and turn windows have gotten shorter as operators try to reduce vacancy days. That combination punishes indecision more than it punishes either choice. A unit sitting empty for five extra days while someone decides whether to clean or replace costs more than the difference between the two options in many markets. Our landlord property turnover cost guide covers the wider turn budget.
How the common line items compare on relative cost, per job or per square foot:
| Line item | Relative cost (lower to higher) |
|---|---|
| Turnover carpet cleaning, one-bedroom | Moderate (per job) |
| Turnover carpet cleaning, two to three bedroom | Highest (per job) |
| Pet urine treatment per affected area | Lowest (per job) |
| Pad replacement, material and labor | Lower (per sq ft) |
| New carpet installed, builder grade | Higher (per sq ft) |
| New carpet installed, mid grade | Highest (per sq ft) |
| Removal and disposal of old carpet | Lowest (per sq ft) |
Every home is different, so enter your ZIP in the price box on this page for your instant price.
What Fails a Carpet Regardless of Age
Walk the unit with a specific list. Any one of these means replace.
Pet urine that has reached the pad. Check with a moisture meter or a black light in a dark room, and check the closet corners and the perimeter where pets go. Surface treatment does not fix a saturated pad, and the odor returns the first humid week after a new tenant moves in.
Odor that intensifies when the carpet is damp. Dampen a small area with plain water, wait ten minutes, and smell it. Stronger means a subsurface source.
Burns, bleach spots, and dye loss. These are permanent. Bleach spots are missing dye, not stains, so no cleaning affects them.
Delamination. If the backing has separated and the carpet ripples or feels loose underfoot, cleaning will make it worse.
Seam failure or tears in traffic areas. A patch is possible, but in a rental with dated carpet it is usually throwing good money after bad.
What Cleans Up Better Than Expected
The opposite list is worth knowing too, because plenty of carpet gets replaced that did not need to be.
Traffic lane darkening on carpet under four years old is usually soil, not wear, and comes out. Furniture dents recover with moisture and pile grooming. General dullness across a whole room is almost always a soil load issue. Filtration soiling, the dark gray lines along baseboards and under doors, looks alarming and is a specialized but routine cleaning task rather than damage.
Our guide on how to clean carpet between tenants covers the turn-specific sequence, and is cleaning worth it for a rental unit covers the return question.
The Turn Clock
Sequencing matters more in a turn than in any other carpet job, because everything is competing for the same few days.
Carpet cleaning comes near the end, after painting, after any repairs, and after trades have stopped tracking through. Cleaning first and then letting a painter walk the unit wastes the entire expense.
Allow drying time in the schedule. Hot water extraction typically needs 6 to 12 hours to dry, and airflow drives that far more than heat does. Set up air movers, open interior doors, and run the HVAC fan. In a humid stretch, a dehumidifier does more than another fan.
If replacement is happening, order early. Material lead times, not installer availability, are usually what blows the turn window.
The Decision Rule
Replace if the carpet is at or past its scheduled useful life, if urine has reached the pad, if odor intensifies when damp, or if there is burn, bleach, tear, or delamination damage in a visible area.
Clean if the carpet is inside its scheduled life, the damp smell test is clean, and the problems are soil-based. Then document the cleaning with a dated receipt and photographs, because that record is what supports any deduction and what protects you at the next turn.
When it is genuinely borderline, clean it and reassess. Cleaning costs a fraction of replacement and tells you the answer. Replacement never gets cheaper for waiting one lease term, but cleaning sometimes turns out to have been enough.
FAQ
How often should apartment carpet be replaced?
Most operators use a five to seven year useful life for builder-grade apartment carpet, with condition overriding the schedule in both directions. Higher grade carpet in a low-traffic unit lasts longer, and a unit with pets or heavy turnover often does not reach the schedule.
Can a landlord charge a tenant for full carpet replacement?
Usually only for the remaining useful life, not the full cost, and the specifics vary by state. If carpet with a five year life is damaged in year four, the recoverable amount is typically one year of value. Consistent documentation of install dates makes this far easier to defend.
Does cleaning remove pet odor from rental carpet?
It removes surface deposits reliably. Urine that has soaked into the pad or subfloor is below the reach of a cleaning wand and needs enzyme treatment, pad replacement, or sealing. If odor gets stronger when the carpet is damp, cleaning alone will not resolve it.
How long does carpet take to dry during a turn?
Typically 6 to 12 hours with hot water extraction, driven mostly by airflow rather than heat. Air movers, open interior doors, and a running HVAC fan cut it substantially. Low-moisture methods dry faster but remove less soil, which matters on a heavily soiled turn.
Should carpet be cleaned before or after painting a turn unit?
After. Painters generate dust, drips, and foot traffic, and cleaning first means paying twice. Schedule carpet as one of the last trades in the unit, with enough drying time before the new tenant arrives.
Is it worth replacing just one room of carpet?
Only if that room can be isolated visually, such as a bedroom behind a door. Replacing one room in an open floor plan creates an obvious color and wear mismatch, since the new carpet will not match adjacent carpet that has aged, even in the same style.
Turn decisions get easier when the schedule is written down and the walkthrough list is fixed, so nobody is improvising on the clock. Tell us the unit size, the carpet age, and whether pets lived there, and we will tell you what a realistic turn looks like. See our carpet cleaning services, then get a quote for your property.