By the time folks get to your basement, they have already decided whether or not they want your house. Seriously. Folks make split decisions when they walk up your front walk and through your front door. They "get a feeling" about whether this is the house and neighborhood they want.

Continue cleaning so it looks as good as it can. Then arrange the furniture on top of it. Make sure everything else looks perfect, especially the front.

Good luck

--signed someone who spilled black water from our wet-dri vac on our white Berber in the basement hours before the open house started. Attempted to scrub it out to no avail. Threw our son's ikea play tunnel over it and left. House sold in 2 days. Tunnel was in the same spot when we returned after the open house.

[quote=Anonymous]If I saw large black spots on a basement carpet I'd think "mold". I'm not saying that's what it is, but walking through during an open house that's what I'd think.[/quote]

+1

I wouldn't want carpet in basement, would prefer something hardwood-like insulated/heated & not cold.

I replaced all the carpets in my townhouse for over $3K and the buyers ripped it all out within weeks of moving in. I almost cried when I heard that (from my former neighbors)- what a waste. Would rather have offered a credit for replacement flooring and not had $3K of brand new carpet go into a landfill. I might steam-clean it and offer a credit if the buyers have an issue.

If there's anything in the stains that makes one think you have water problems in the basement, replace that carpet. If not, probably not a huge deal.

We are also getting ready to sell and bit the bullet for new carpet in the basement. We had 2 issues, one is that a long time ago our old washer's hose became disconnected and flooded the basement floor in one section so the carpet shows the water stain. Our basement never floods even in the worst rain and we didn't want anyone thinking it did. Second is that there are two larger (think half dollar size) blood spots from when a contractor cut himself when doing work in the basement. We should have required they clean it at the time but we weren't thinking we would move (at least not for 20 years or so) and just figured we would be replacing it anyway when the kids got older. It is going to cost us close to $1K even though we picked cheap Home Depot carpet. But our house will go in the $900+ range so figured we needed to bite the bullet.

Call Absolute Care Carpet Cleaning in Sterling. They did amazing work on my very dirty cream colored carpeting. They are not cheap, but they are cheaper than new carpet. The Rug Doctor never does a very good job.

If I saw large black spots on a basement carpet I'd think "mold". I'm not saying that's what it is, but walking through during an open house that's what I'd think.

Anonymous wrote:I'm an agent...hmmm...I don't know. I really don't think that the basement carpet is going to be a deal breaker. You could offer a carpet allowance if it helps make a sale, but let it go for now. If you don't get offers it's not going to be because of the basement carpet, that's for sure.

Plus, most buyers would rather have the allowance and choose what they would like than have you pick something. Just clean it and you'll be fine. You're stressing the last minute details. Deep breath.

Yes. Yes I am.

Do you have pets? If so, if I were your buyer I'd have to replace the carpet anyway due to severe allergies. If not, then a brand-new carpet would be a plus for me since I want to have to do as little as possible when I buy a place.

I'm an agent...hmmm...I don't know. I really don't think that the basement carpet is going to be a deal breaker. You could offer a carpet allowance if it helps make a sale, but let it go for now. If you don't get offers it's not going to be because of the basement carpet, that's for sure.

Plus, most buyers would rather have the allowance and choose what they would like than have you pick something. Just clean it and you'll be fine. You're stressing the last minute details. Deep breath.

Unless you're in a slow market area AND everything else in the house is perfect, don't worry about the carpet. You could always offer buyers a credit to replace it if your realtor thinks that's necessary.

I'd say, replace it with inexpensive carpet, not only will it look better, but if you put the IKEA think back and cover up the black spots, when you have your walk through it may be brought up and you will have to replace it before you go to settlement, delaying settlement.

it's too late to call him and i figured people here would have some BTDT advice

What does your realtor recommend? Maybe start out without replacing and if it doesn't sell, replace carpet.

We have 8 days to finish little things around the house (paint touch up, sod in small section of yard, etc.) and get packed up enough to stage the house for sale. And oh by the way, work, kids, and get ready to go out of town for 2 weeks the same day we'll have our Open House.

We're actually doing well with what we've gotten done so far and how much we've packed up. But it's getting to crunch time.

The only issue right now is what to do about our basement carpet. It's a mess, in my opinion. We're cleaning it as I type (I'm taking a break while DH works on it for a bit). The Rug Doctor is doing a decent job, but there are some stains that just won't come out. There was a layer of black (dust?) under our Ikea toy storage thing. And some other marks that are just set in. There are enough of them to make me think people would be turned off by it. My husband swears he can't even remember what the basement carpet looks like in our new house and that people won't really notice them. He thinks we just put the Ikea pieces back and maybe arrange the furniture (small couch and 1 chair) in way to disguise the worst of the stains. I say we should replace it with something not fancy.

So, do we get it as clean as possible or do we suck it up and put in new carpet? And would we even be able to get someone here this week to do that?