I rent out a house and the hall carpet has a stain on it about a foot in diameter, so the carpet needs to be replaced.  Its a town house so that carpet runs through the hall, up the stairs, along the first floor landing, up a second flight of stairs and into the main bedroom.  The rest of the carpet is fine so, as I'm sure you can imagine, I am reluctant to change the whole lot.    The original carpet is a plain pale beige colour with a slight orangy tint (sounds foul but is actually not too bad).  Does anyone have any suggestions on a type of flooring, if not carpet, that is easy to maintain and hard wearing that I can put in or suggestions on clever ways to replace just that section of carpet?  If I was still living there I'd just use a rug but I feel that I'd be a bad landlord if I asked the tenants to do that and I want them to stay as they are great tenants!

I have to have any new flooring installed by the supplier as I'm not in a position to do it myself as I'm currently living abroad.

I'd simply put laminate down in teh hall, leaving the carpet on stairs and upstairs hall/landing.

For minimising noise/extra warmth a rubber backed (washable) runner can be used on top, easily taken outside adn pressure washed/hosed.

Agree with Brainless, have the hall carpet replaced with either tiles, laminate or wooden & use a runner. Have rest of carpets professionally cleaned will look like it was always this way.

I agree with the others some nice laminate and possibbly a runner of the carpet on the stairs if you want. It would look great

In my house its the hall that looks the worst. We step in from outside into the hall, plus spills from carrying food out of the kitchen all go onto hall floor. Putting laminate flooring down in the hall was the best thing we ever did. We bought sheets to go underneath that insulate slightly so it isnt too cold on the feet or for the dogs. Also means that carpets stairs can remain the same. We bought online as it was the cheapest way of doing it, even on offer we found b&q homebase etc was quite expensive. Slightly awkward to lay, but with time and patience anybody could do it. Took us about a day but there was quite a bit of cutting in to do.Its also easy to maintain and clean. In your situation i would definitely recommend.

In my hall I have fitted mat and laminate. The fitted mat covers a large area near the door which is ideal for stopping to take off shoes/boots and to towel dry wet paws. We have had it for about 3 years now and it still looks like new. It comes in different colours and we picked a brown colour which compliments the oak coloured laminate. :-)

Yes, I already have a section of fitted mat there, I did think about just laying that along the whole hall as the hall is only about 3m long but the problem is it's so good at trapping the dirt the hoover really can't pick it up so it always looks dirty, even after a hoover.

I will have a look at the laminate option.  Unfortunately Fredsmum I really don't think I will be able to fit it myself, I won't be back to the UK for another 5 or 6 months and flying back just for that would be a lot more expensive than having it fitted, which is mad as I know it's something I could do myself if I were there!