We live in a rental that has floor boards throughout and no insulation! It is colder in our house than outside. There are drafts everywhere. Yes the floorboards look lovely but carpet would be much nicer underfoot and act as an insulator.
Just get some cheap carpet (that wont show alot of stains and make sure you state in your lease agreements that carpets must be professionally steam cleaned at end of lease and receipt shown or something like that.
Definately carpet! One house I rented had polished floorboards (in Melbourne) in the study area, and the roller chairs (office chairs) mark wood very badly, the only advice I'd have would be to keep it out of the kitchen!!! (the same house had carpet in the kitchen - go figure!).
One option for high-traffic areas is carpet tiles - you can buy extra and just replace them easily ...
Dark carpet in the major areas and you're on a winner!
We have very light carpet here, and even with minor spills that have been cleaned straight away... it's stained. Worst idea EVER was the dude putting such light carpet in here.
I rented a house with polished floor boards years ago and it was a condition of my lease ( I had a three year lease) upon exiting the that entire floor would be stripped and repolished. Just food for thought.
as someone that has been in rentals pretty much their entire life, if you go the carpet, go the darker colours with flecks lol! our landlord in the last place put in this really awful plain blue/grey colour and it showed EVERYTHING. dirt, hair, stains etc. the house NEVER looked clean. much better when you have flecks as it can last across a number of long term leases too (some stains never come out with cleaning but arent worth replacing the whole shebang iykwim). also i know from our experience that we have turned down a lease on a place because it had cream brand new carpet, there was no way that we were going to risk it considering we had a young baby and a dog and 2 cats LOL!
floorboards are really nice and attractive, but like you mentioned a bit cold and also noisy.
that said, if i was in the market to rent i would choose a house with floorboards over carpet just for my own satisfaction of being able to keep it cleaner and avoid allergy problems with my family. but seriously, the rental market here in melbs at least is so hot that there certainly would be no issue in renting it out with carpet lol!
From a renter's point of view, I was going to say floor boards, but after reading the other responses I agree, go with the carpet.
The only reason I was going to say floor boards is because all of the rentals I've been in have had cheap carpet in a light carpet, and let me tell you it's very, very hard to keep clean not bein stain resistant and also a light colour.
So go for the carpet but definitely in a dark colour!
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