Temporary solution for covering stairs

Compudaro

I'm in a rented house with a painted (white) wooden stairs. There's a sofa under the stairs which suffers from falling dust/dirt from the stairs on a regular basis.

Can anyone help with a cheap solution to this? (the sofa can't be moved from its current position!).

I was thinking of buying 2 cheap runner mats and putting them on the stairs but I'd need to secure them (I assume) and can't go screwing in stair rods (as the house is not mine).

Any help/advice appreciated!

Buford T Justice

It still won't stop the falling dust from the underside of the stairs.....

Compudaro

Thanks Fingers but I've tried it today with just a standard "runner" in place and it does the job! Just need someway of temporarily securing the runner.

Joey the lips

I agree with fingers but if you think its worked then who am i to argue. Bar glueing the carpet doen the only way to secure it is with carpet tacks or rods.

kdouglas

You could use double sided tape?

Rancid

If I'm picturing this correctly, it's that type of "open stairs" where you can actually see between the steps, surely it would make sense to pin the runner in place on the UNDER side of the steps (hammock-like), to catch any dust and dirt as it falls from each step.

Compudaro

Rancid that's exactly what the stairs are like. Thanks kdouglas for the tape idea too. The runner has remained in place today on its own with plenty of footfall up and down so I mightn't need any fixing after all. Might use tape though to be sure, will that remove paint from the steps when the time comes to remove it?

slimjimmc

I wouldn't recommend tape. It might do the job for now but over time it could lose tack and the last thing you want is the runner slipping under foot.
Go with the rods, after all it's a painted staircase so any screw holes can easily be filled and painted over if you choose to remove them sometime so I doubt any landlord would object. Rented houses tend to suffer worse damage.