Vacuuming with a good vacuum cleaner will pick up the loose dirt before it gets ground in. Strategically placing area rugs at the entrances will help, and putting an area rug over the carpeting at the entrance to a heavily used room will also help. I had beige wall-to-wall carpeting for years and didn't restrict my family or pets. Lowering your standards of cleanliness will also help. :)

As long as you don't have to contend with orange clay soil, you will be fine.

I feel for you. We have cream colored carpet in our bedroom and that seems to be a favorite place for our cats to hurl a hairball. Looking forward to the day we replace all the carpet in the house with hardwood. We vacuum often, spot clean (depending on how bad the stain, I'll scrub the spots again later and repeat until gone), removal of shoes if there's any mud - I try not and get too crazy or germ phob about this in general -, area rugs or mats, and if we had a dog I'd definitely want the dog paws wiped off after coming in from a wet or muddy outside.

I feel for you having lived in rental apartments with cheap beige carpeting for many years! We do have a strict no shoes in the house policy - whether or not there is carpet I find it disgusting to have shoes on the furniture and tracking who knows what around the house. We do a lot of walking and I'm sure we walk in things we don't want in our kitchen or house in general. Yuck.

But the spots etc are usually food or other spills, so yep food eaten at a table only... rugs to cover high traffic areas. A roomba or Neato robot can help keep things maintained but won't stop those mystery spots!

I have very light colored carpet (purchased before we got our very dark brown dogs). Before we got our robotic vacuum, I vacuumed every other day. We take our shoes off and wear socks or slippers in the house. I have small rugs at door entries. In my son's "boy cave", the carpet was badly stained. I bought a large sisal-look rug at Target and put it down. It actually looks pretty good. You could possibly do that as a preventive measure in your high-use area. Unless the carpet is brand new in your rental, I'd venture to say those are old stains that are resurfacing.

How long do you have to stay in the rental? You are going to be driven mad with this issue!

How much carpeting are we talking about? I would live like I normally do. Keep up as best you can, then get a professional carpet cleaning company to come in when you move.

I agree with Lukki. Old stains reappear after a cleaning because the pad underneath stays wet and the stains resurface. Nothing you can do about them.

Definitely do all the suggestions. Extra scatter rugs, take your shoes off, only eat at the table etc.

We live in a rural area and had new beige carpet laid around 20 months ago. We have a barn conversion so it's a rather unconventional layout. Our extremely large sitting is upstairs and bedrooms are downstairs. The stairs, bedrooms and sitting room are all carpeted and the rest are wooden floors.

Our large entrance area has a bench so everyone can remove shoes. We have a strict shoes off policy, this also applies to the wooden floors.

We wear slippers or go bare foot. The floors are polished and can be slippery in socks. Kids always loose the shoes and socks straight away( as I do)

We like plush carpet and the U.K. Here is cold and wet for most of the year. It's second nature to take shoes off at the door. Our carpets are totally unmarked and like new. We are a relaxed family and often just wear pj's around the house or shorts in summer. I can't imagine wearing shoes indoors.

its the norm here to remove shoes so people will come prepared with slippers etc.

light carpets look and feel great and need not be hard work.

When we built our home 5 years ago, I had very light carpet installed in the children's bedrooms, the guest room, & our upstairs media room/playroom. The entire rest of our house is site finished HW. I did the carpet for a couple of reasons, mainly budget. I didn't want to have to not only spend the initial cost of the HW in those rooms, but also the cost of area rugs for all those rooms. Well, the amount I spend on carpet cleaning could certainly buy a few rugs!! And I don't let my kids wear shoes in the house or eat up there!! Marker, stains from various bath products, and now that dd is a teenager, OMG, the nail polish & makeup! Oy vey! Needless to say, I do a lot of spot cleaning. I use this Oreck product that does a decent job, but I now loathe carpet & am planning to replace it all. Carpet is just kinda gross by its nature. :)