Cats and carpet

I got a couple of questions of cats and carpets together

I lived in a trailer with carpet and cats but i was allot younger and dont know how to maintain it

1 do your cats go on the carpet or not? if they do how do you clean it?

2 does your cats use it as a scratching post?

3 how often do you vacuum it?

4 what kind of cat litter mat will be good to put on top of the carpet so it wont get dirty? i might use a different color carpet square on top the carpet floor as a mat do you think that's a good idea?

5 how do you get the cat hair out of the carpet?

6 does the color of carpet make a difference of how the cat behaves tords it? I wanted to do green

and if you got other tips on carpet and cats let me know thanks ,I'm going to put carpet in my room and most of my cats now has never seen carpet I think they will do good as long as the litter boxes are clean etc.

We have carpet in the living room, back the hallway, and in our bedroom. And I can't wait to get rid of it. It's a bugger to keep clean. Our cats are really good about using their litterboxes, but Bootser, especially, pukes. A lot. And Amber Louise tends to "gift" us with hairballs regularly. No matter how hard I clean up after them, I can't keep the carpet spotless. We're going to go with laminate wood flooring; it's been in the computer room now for several years and maintenance in wonderful.

As for keeping cat hair out of the carpet, we have a Dyson vacuum and it works beautifully for cat hair both in the carpet and on the sofa and chair.

If you have a choice, don't get carpet :lol3:. It's impossible to really keep clean, and if you have allergies/asthma, it's a dirt/dust/allergen magnet. I want to get rid of my carpet ASAP. Even if the cats don't potty on it (and if your cats are already inclined to peeing on the floor, a carpet isn't going to help!), barf spots and just general dirt will take their toll soon enough.

If you do really want to get carpet:
Vacuum twice a week, at least (more if you have allergies). You want to get a decent vacuum, not just some cheap thing that won't pick up anything. Don't get a dark solid color, because it will never look clean (dust, cat hair, everything shows up on dark carpet! Like wearing a black skirt). Something of a medium shade with lots of variations in color and texture would look better. I don't believe the color affects the cats, but who knows for sure? They shouldn't scratch it if they have enough scratching posts, but try not to get anything that looks like a cat would like to scratch it (tight loops are pretty tempting!). You can use any mat you like (providing the cats like it, too, of course); any barrier between the box and the carpet will do the trick.

We don't have carpet, however, we have some rugs.  They were there before the cats.  Thankfully, they aren't good ones. They were originally but we only paid $100 for both of them from the guy who sold us the house.  Just as something to have underfoot until we can afford new.  Glad we didn't get new now, because a) Casper regurgitates a lot and b) Cocoa has taken a liking to pulling at the one in the dining room specifically.

We have scratching items for both of them that they use all the time, so why Cocoa does this really irks us.  We are thinking of removing that rug.  We really don't need it.  And, the one in the living room is far too large anyway so if we got rid of that one, chances are that when Casper does barf in that room, he'd completely miss it being on a smaller one.  

We have no other rugs except a couple of very small ones at the foot of our bed which neither of them touch.  The rest of the house is all hardwood or tile.

We do not keep up with vacuuming as much as we should and we always walk around saying "GAWD WE NEED TO VACUUM!" and then we get busy and forget.  However, I do try to remember to Swifter the stairs at least once a week because you really notice the dust/dander/fur build up on them.  Plus, I finally broke down and bought a hand held vacuum this past weekend that got good reviews for pet hair.  My thought process is that if it's always charged, and since it's small, light and handy, we'll be way more likely to use it than pulling out the canister vacuum (which, BTW is a very good brand, Riccar, and works fantastic but is a pain in the you know what to lug around).  

It's really terrible how much fur we see around the house now with 2 of them.  And then the little bits of litter which get tracked now and then added in.  Blah.  So hard to keep up with when you have any kind of material on the floor. 

I don't stress too much about it all because of the rugs being old and the hardwood actually needs to be refinished - we never had the time to do it when we moved into the house with everything else that took precedence (been there for about 3 years now).  Some day, we'll get around to it, but with a nearly 100 year old home, there is always something more pressing than fixing up the floors lol.

We got rid of our carpeting 20 years ago, replacing it with parquet and laminate, and have never regretted it. Carpets are just way too impractical with pets. We have a large area rug in the living room, which is vacuumed a couple of times a week and steam-cleaned about twice a year. Otherwise there are a couple of small sisal rugs (not sisal cat mats) around for sharpening claws and/or under desk chairs to protect the floors.

I use a canister vacuum on the hard floors, stairs and rugs. Rather than lugging a big one up and down the stairs, there's a smaller one on each floor, plus a Shop-vac for the attic, cellar and garage.